42. Verse 21 And God created the great sea monsters, and every living creature that creeps, which the waters produced abundantly according to their kinds; and all winged birds according to their kinds; and God saw that it was good.

As has been stated, 'fish' means facts, here facts quickened and brought to life through faith from the Lord. 'Sea monsters' means those facts' general sources, below which and from which details derive. Nothing whatever exists in the universe that does not depend on some general source for its commencement and continuance. In the Prophets sea monsters or whales are mentioned several times, and in those places they mean those general sources of facts. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who represents human wisdom or intelligence - that is, knowledge in general - is called 'a great sea monster', as in Ezekiel,

Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster lying in the midst of his ¹ rivers, who has said, It is my river and I have made myself. Ezekiel 29:3.

[2] And elsewhere in Ezekiel,

Raise a lamentation over Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say to him, You are like a monster in the seas, and you have come forth in your rivers, and have troubled the waters with your feet. Ezekiel 32:2

These words mean people who wish to penetrate the mysteries that are part of faith by means of facts, and so from themselves. In Isaiah,

On that day Jehovah will make a visitation with His hard and great and strong sword upon Leviathan the full-length serpent, ² and upon Leviathan the twisting serpent, and He will slay the monsters that are in the sea. Isaiah 27:1.

'Slaying the monsters in the sea' means preventing people's knowing facts even in their general aspects. In Jeremiah,

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel has devoured me, he has troubled me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has swallowed me up like a sea monster, he has filled his belly with my delicacies, he has cast me out. Jeremiah 51:34.

This stands for the fact that mankind did swallow cognitions of faith, which are 'the delicacies' here, just as the sea monster swallowed up Jonah. In that story the sea monster stands for people who treat general cognitions of faith as mere facts, and behave accordingly.

სქოლიოები:

10546. 'And pitched it for himself outside the camp, far from the camp' means remote from the external things in which the interest of that actual nation lay. This is clear from the meaning of 'pitching the tent' as providing, arranging, and setting in order the things that belong to the Church and worship, for 'the tent' means the holiness of the Church, worship, and the Word, dealt with immediately above in 10545, so that 'pitching it' means providing, arranging, and setting those things in order; and from the meaning of 'the camp' as the heavenly order which heaven and the Church arise from and conform to. And since all the truths and forms of good of heaven and the Church are elements of that order, that which contains them is also meant. The reason why these elements are meant by 'the camp' is that by 'the children of Israel' who made up the camp all truths and forms of good in their entirety are meant. But when the children of Israel worshipped the calf instead of Jehovah their camp had a contrary meaning, namely hellish order and also that which contains the falsity and evil that compose hell. Whether you speak of the external things of worship and the Church without anything internal or you speak of hell, it amounts to the same thing; for people whose worship is external and not at all internal are ruled by self-love and love of the world, and self-love and love of the world come from hell. From this it is evident why 'Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp' - for 'the tent', as has been stated above, meant the holiness of worship, the Church, and the Word - and why those words mean remote from the external things in which the interest of the Israelite nation lay.

'The camp' means heavenly order, and 'encamping' means arranging good and truth into heavenly order, see 4236, 8103(end), 8130, 8131, 8155, 8193, 8196.

[2] Consequently 'the camp' means heaven and the Church, in that they contain that good and truth, 10038, and in the contrary sense hell, 10458.

Also, the external side of worship and of the Church separated from the internal constitutes hell, 10483, 10489, because people whose interest lies in external things separated from what is internal never receive any Divine influx at all, 10429, 10472, and are therefore incapable of possessing any faith in the Lord or love to Him, 10396, 10400, 10411.

They look solely in the direction of their own loves, thus in the direction of hell, 10422, and consequently worship self as their god, 10407, 10412.

The interest of the Israelite nation lay in external things separated from what was internal, see in the places referred to in 9380, and also what is said in 9373, 9381, 10396, 10401, 10407, 10492, 10498, 10500, 10533.