17. Verse 2 And the earth was a void and an emptiness, and there was thick darkness over the face ¹ of the deep; and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face ¹ of the waters. The person who has yet to be regenerated is called 'a void and an empty earth', and also 'ground', in which no good or truth at all has been sown - 'void' where there is no good, and 'empty' where there is no truth. Consequently there is 'thick darkness', or stupidity and lack of knowledge about anything that has to do with faith in the Lord and so anything that has to do with spiritual and celestial life. This kind of person is described by the Lord through Jeremiah,

My people are foolish, they know Me not; they are stupid children, having no understanding; they are wise to do evil, and know not how to do good. I looked to the earth, and, behold, a void and an emptiness; and towards the heavens, and they had no light. Jeremiah 4:22-23, 25.

Bilješke:

7542. 'Onto your heart' means into what is inmost. This is clear from the meaning of 'heart' as that which belongs to a person's will, thus to his love, dealt with in 2930, 3317, 3888, 3889, consequently what is central to the actual life within him; for his love, belonging intrinsically to his will, constitutes that life within him. This is why 'heart' means what is inmost. What is inmost in the case of the good is love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, whereas what is inmost in the case of the evil is self-love and love of the world. The latter is what is meant here; and what is around it, constituting so to speak the surrounding parts, are the evils and falsities that lend support, arranged into order according to the ways in which they support it. In the next life they are brought out into the open in the order in which they have been arranged. First to come forth are those that occupy the outermost surrounding parts, then those that lie further in; and finally what is inmost is revealed. So it is that a person in the next life passes through a large number of states, and that the evil are afflicted in successive stages by scourges or plagues before they are cast into hell, as accords with what has been stated immediately above. What is inmost, which they come to last of all, is hell itself residing with them, for it is the evil that had been central to their love, and so the end which they held in view in everything they did and which in the world they had kept deeply hidden within them.