57. 'The plant yielding seed' is every truth that looks towards a use. 'The tree in which there is fruit' is the good that accompanies faith. 'Fruit' is what the Lord gives to the celestial man, while 'seed', the source of the fruit, is what He gives to the spiritual man. This is why it is said that 'the tree producing seed will be for you for food'. That celestial food is called 'fruit from a tree' is clear from the next chapter where the subject is the celestial man. Here let just that be mentioned which the Lord spoke through Ezekiel,

Beside the river there is rising up upon its bank, on this side and on that, every tree for food. Its leaf will not fall nor its fruit fail. It is re-born monthly, for its waters flow out from the Sanctuary, and its fruit will be for food, and its leaf for medicine. Ezekiel 47:12.

'Waters from the Sanctuary' means the life and mercy of the Lord, who is the Sanctuary; 'fruit' means wisdom, which is food for them; 'leaf' is intelligence, which is given them for a use, which is called 'medicine'. Spiritual food however is called 'a plant', as stated through David,

[Jehovah is] my Shepherd, I shall not want; He makes me ¹ lie down in green pastures. ² Psalms 23:1-2.

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996. 'The edible plant' means very lowly manifestations of delights. This becomes clear from what has been stated. Such delights are called 'edible plants' because they are merely worldly and bodily, that is, external. For, as stated, the pleasures that consist in bodily or most external things have their origins in interior delights ranged in order. Delights that are felt in the most external or bodily things are comparatively lowly. It is true of all delight that the more lowly it is the closer it gets to things that are external, while the nobler it is the closer it gets to those that are internal. Consequently, as has been stated, as in order the external things are rolled away or peeled off, the more pleasant and noble delights become, something which becomes quite clear from the fact that the delight inherent in someone's pleasures during his lifetime is lowly in comparison with the delight that is his subsequently when he enters the world of spirits. Indeed it is so lowly that good spirits reject with utter disdain the delights of the body. Nor do they wish to go back to them even if they were granted all the delights existing in the whole world.

[2] The delight which these spirits enjoy becomes similarly lowly when they are raised up by the Lord into the heaven of angelic spirits, for at that point they cast away those interior delights and take on others more interior still. The same applies to angelic spirits - the delight which these have enjoyed in their heaven likewise becomes a lowly delight when they are taken up by the Lord into the angelic or third heaven. Since internal things in that heaven are living, and nothing else but mutual love reigns, the happiness there is indescribable. For interior delight or happiness, see what has been told from experience in 545.

[3] These considerations show what is meant by the statement 'as the edible plant I have given all this to you.' Because creeping things mean both pleasures of the body and pleasures of the senses, to which 'edible plants' has reference, the expression in the original language is one that means both edible plant and green plant, 'edible plant' in reference to pleasures of the will, which are from celestial affections, and 'green plant' in reference to those of the understanding, which are from spiritual affections. That 'edible plants' and 'green plants' mean things that are lowly is clear from the Word, as in Isaiah,

The waters of Nimrim will be desolations, for the grass has withered away, the herb has been consumed, and there is no green plant. Isaiah 15:6.

In the same prophet,

Their inhabitants were shorn of power, ¹ they were dismayed and filled with shame; they became plants of the field and edible grass plants, hay on the rooftops. Isaiah 37:27.

'Edible grass plants' stands for that which is very lowly. In Moses,

The land, into which you are entering to take possession of it, is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come out; in it you may sow your seed and water it with your foot, like a garden of edible plants. Deuteronomy 11:10.

Here 'garden of edible plants' stands for what is lowly. In David,

The wicked are suddenly cut down like the grass, and destroyed like the edible plant. Psalms 37:2.

Here 'grass' and 'edible plant' stand for what is very lowly.

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