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Genesis 1

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1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #3623

Studere hoc loco

  
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3623. 'What would life hold for me?' means, and so there would not be any conjunction. This is clear from the meaning of 'life' as conjunction by means of truths and goods. For when it was not possible for any truth from a common stem or genuine source to be joined to natural truth, there could not be any alliance of the natural to the truth of the rational, in which case it seemed to the rational as though its own life were no life, 3493, 3620. This is why here 'what would life hold for me?' means, and so there would not be any conjunction. Here and in other places the word 'life' in the original language is plural, and the reason for this is that in man there are two powers of life. The first is called the understanding and is the receptacle of truth, the second is called the will and is the receptacle of good. These two forms or powers of life make one when the understanding is rooted in the will, or what amounts to the same, when truth is grounded in good. This explains why in Hebrew the noun 'life' is sometimes singular, sometimes plural. The plural form of that noun is used in all the following places, Jehovah God formed the man, dust from the ground; and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7. Jehovah God caused to spring up out of the ground every tree desirable to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden. Genesis 2:9. Behold, I am bringing a flood of waters over the earth, to destroy all flesh in which there is the spirit of life. Genesis 6:17.

They went in to Noah into the ark, two by two from all flesh in which there is the spirit of life. Genesis 7:15 (in 780).

Everything which had the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils breathed its last. Genesis 7:12.

In David,

I believe [I am going] to see the goodness of Jehovah in the land of the living. Psalms 27:13.

In the same author,

Who is the man who desires life, who loves [many] days, that he may see good? Psalms 34:12

In the same author,

With You, O Jehovah, is the fountain of life; in Your light do we see light. Psalms 36:9.

In Malachi,

My covenant with Levi was [a covenant] of life and peace. Malachi 2:5.

In Jeremiah,

Thus said Jehovah, Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. Jeremiah 21:8.

In Moses,

To love Jehovah your God, to obey His voice, and to cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days, so that you may dwell in the land. Deuteronomy 30:20.

In the same author,

It is not an empty word from you; for it is your life, and through this word you will prolong your days in the land. Deuteronomy 32:47.

And in other places too the plural form of the noun 'life' is used in the original language because, as has been stated, there are two kinds of life which yet make one. It is similar with the word 'heavens' in the Hebrew language, in that the heavens are many and yet make one, or like the expression 'waters' above and below, in Genesis 1:7-9 , by which spiritual things in the rational and in the natural are meant which ought to be one through being joined together. As for the plural form of 'life', when this is used both the life of the will and that of the understanding are meant, and therefore both the life of good and that of truth are meant. For man's life consists in nothing else than good and truth which hold life from the Lord within them. Devoid of good and truth, and of the life which these hold within them, no one is human. For devoid of these no one would ever have been able to will or to think anything. Everything that a person wills originates in good or in that which is not good, and everything he thinks originates in truth or in that which is not truth. Consequently man possesses two kinds of life and these make one when his thinking flows from his willing, that is, when truth which is the truth of faith flows from good which is the good of love.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #50

Studere hoc loco

  
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50. The sense-oriented people mentioned in the teachings in §45 above, who are the lowest of the earthly. The sensory level is the outermost limit of our life, attached to and embedded in our bodies: 5077, 5767, 9212, 9216, 9331, 9730. We call people sense-oriented who pass final judgment on everything on the basis of their physical senses and who do not believe in anything unless they can see it with their own eyes and touch it with their own hands, saying that only such a thing actually is something and rejecting everything else: 5094, 7693. People like this think on the outermost level and not more deeply within themselves: 5089, 5094, 6564, 7693. Their deeper levels are closed so that they do not see any bit of truth there: 6564, 6844, 6845. In short, they are in a crude earthly light and perceive nothing in heaven's light: 6201, 6310, 6564, 6598, 6844, 6845, 6612, 6614, 6622, 6624. They are therefore inwardly opposed to everything having to do with heaven and the church: 6201, 6316, 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949. Scholars who are adamantly opposed to the truths of the church are sense-oriented: 6316.

[2] Sense-oriented people are able to dispute with cleverness and with vehement certainty because their thinking is closely enmeshed with their speaking, and because, as they see it, intelligence in its entirety consists of words assembled solely out of facts recalled from the memory: 195, 196, 5700, 10236. The reasons they offer in their disputes, however, are based on deceptive sense impressions, which they use to ensnare ordinary people: 5084, 6948, 6949, 7693.

[3] Sense-oriented people are more shrewd and vicious than others: 7693, 10236. Misers, adulterers, hedonists, and deceivers are especially sense-oriented: 6310. Their deeper levels are befouled and filthy: 6201. They are in touch with hell through those levels: 6310. The people in the hells are sense-oriented, more and more so the deeper in hell they are: 4623, 6311. The aura of hellish spirits is joined to our sensory level from behind us: 6312. The ancients called people who reason on the basis of their senses and therefore against the truths that belong to religious faith "serpents of the tree of knowledge": 195, 196, 197, 6398, 6949, 10313.

[4] Further description of our sensory level and sense-oriented people (10236) and of the extension of our senses (9731).

[5] [Thoughts and desires] based on our senses should be put last, not first. In the wise and intelligent they are put last and are subject to the inner self. In those who are not wise, though, they are put first and are in control. These are the people who are properly called "sense-oriented": 5077, 5125, 5128, 7645. If a sensory perspective is put last and is subject to our inner self, a path to the understanding is opened through it and truths are refined from it by means of a kind of distillation: 5580.

[6] Our sensory functions are most directly exposed to the world; they let in things that enter from the world and filter them: 9726. Through these sensory functions our outer or earthly self is in touch with the world; through rational faculties it is in touch with heaven: 4009. In this way our sensory functions provide things that are useful to our deeper functions: 5077, 5081. Some of our senses support our understanding and others support our will: 5077.

[7] Unless our thinking is lifted out of sensory concerns we have little wisdom: 5089. Wise people think on a level higher than that of the senses: 5089, 5094. When our thinking rises above sensory concerns we come into a clearer light and eventually into a heavenly light: 6183, 6313, 6315, 9407, 9730, 9922. The ancients knew that it was desirable to rise above sensory concerns and be released from them: 6313. In our spirit we can see things that are in the spiritual world if we can be released from the sensory concerns that arise from our bodies and be lifted into heaven's light by the Lord: 4622. This is because it is not the body that is conscious but the spirit within the body, and to the extent that it is in the body the spirit's consciousness is coarse and cloudy and therefore in darkness. To the extent that it is not in the body, the spirit's consciousness is clear and is in the light: 4622, 6614, 6622.

Facts derived from the senses are the lowest level of our understanding, and sensory gratification is the lowest level of our will: 9996 (which includes discussion). The difference between the sensory functions we have in common with animals and the sensory functions we do not have in common with them: 10236. There are sense-oriented people who are not evil because their deeper levels are not completely closed. On their state in the other life: 6311.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.