44. Verses 24-25 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, beasts and creeping things and wild animals of the earth according to their kinds; and it was so. And God made wild animals of the earth according to their kinds, and beasts according to their kinds, and everything that creeps along the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Man, like the earth, can produce nothing good unless the cognitions of faith have already been sown in him enabling him to know what to believe and do. It is the function of the understanding to hear the Word, and of the will to do it. A person who hears the Word and does not do it is one who claims to believe, but he does not live according to it. Such a person separates hearing and doing, and splits his mind in two directions; and by the Lord he is called 'a foolish man',

Everyone who hears My words and does them I liken to a wise man who built his house upon the rock; but everyone who hears My words and does them not I liken to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. Matthew 7:24, 26.

Matters of the understanding, as has been shown, are meant by 'creeping things which the waters produce', and by 'birds over the earth and over the face ¹ of the expanse'. Matters of the will are here meant by 'living creatures which the earth brings forth', and by 'beasts and creeping things', and also by 'the wild animals of the earth'.

Notes de bas de page:

1482. That 'Pharaoh's princes saw' means the first and foremost commandments, which are 'pharaoh's princes', is clear from the meaning of 'princes' and of 'Pharaoh'. In the Word, in both its historical and its prophetical parts, princes mean the things that are first and foremost. 'pharaoh' has the same meaning as Egypt, Egypt or Pharaoh being used in the best sense here, since they refer to knowledge comprised of cognitions which the Lord took in first in childhood. That first and foremost commandments from the Word are meant is clear from the meaning of these princes in the internal sense. That in general 'Pharaoh' in the Word has the same meaning as Egypt may be confirmed from many references, even as the kings of other kingdoms who are mentioned by name have the same meaning as the actual names given to their kingdoms. But by 'the princes' are meant their first and foremost features, as in Isaiah,

The princes of Zoan are foolish, the wise counselors of Pharaoh. . . . How do you say to Pharaoh, I am a son of the wise, a son of the kings of old? The princes of Zoan have become fools, the princes of Noph deluded. Isaiah 19:11, 13.

Here 'the princes of Zoan and the wise counselors of Pharaoh' stands for facts that are first and foremost. And since wisdom flourished initially in Egypt, as stated already, it is called 'a son of the wise, and a son of the kings of old'. And there are many other places in the Word where in the same way 'princes' stands for features that are first and foremost.