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'.

Note a piè di pagina:

142. Verses 19-20 And Jehovah God formed out of the ground every beast of the field, and every bird of the air, ¹ and He brought it to the man to see what he would call it; and whatever the man called it, the living creature, ² that was its name. And the man gave names to every beast, and to the birds of the air, ¹ and to every wild animal of the field; but for man there was not found a help suitable for him.

'Beasts' means celestial affections, 'birds of the air' ³ spiritual ones; that is, 'beasts' means things that belong to the will, and 'birds' those that belong to the understanding. 'Bringing them to the man to see what he would call them' means enabling him to know their nature. 'He gave them names means that he did recognize their nature. But even though he knew the nature of the affections for good and the cognitions of truth which the Lord had granted him, he still set his heart on the proprium, which is expressed in the same way as before - 'there was not found a help suitable for him'.

Note a piè di pagina: