22. Verse 5 And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.

What 'evening' means, and what 'morning', is recognized from what is said above. 'Evening' means every prior state, because it is a state of shade, that is, of falsity and of absence of faith, while 'morning' is every subsequent state, because it is one of light, that is, of truth and of cognitions of faith. 'Evening' in general means all the things that are man's own, whereas 'morning' means all those that are the Lord's, as is said through David,

The Spirit of Jehovah has spoken within me, and His word is upon my tongue. The God of Israel has said, the Rock of Israel has spoken to me. He is like the morning light, when the sun is rising on a cloudless morning, shining bright, as when after rain tender grass [springs up] from the earth. 2 Samuel 23:4.

Because 'evening' is a time when there is no faith, and 'morning' when there is, the Lord's Coming into the world is called 'the morning', and the time at which He comes, since faith does not exist at that point, is called 'the evening', as in Daniel,

The Holy One said to me, Up to the evening when it is becoming morning, two thousand three hundred times. Daniel 8:13-14.

In the Word, 'morning' stands in a similar way for every coming of the Lord, and so is a term describing the new creation.

2395. 'For we are destroying this place' means that the state of evil which was theirs would condemn them. This is clear from the meaning of 'destroy', when used of the Lord, as - in the internal meaning - to perish from evil, that is, to be condemned; and also from the meaning of 'place' as a state of evil, 2393. The expression 'Jehovah destroys' occurs many times in the Word, but in the internal sense the meaning is that man destroys himself, for Jehovah or the Lord destroys no one. But because it does seem as though Jehovah or the Lord were the author of such destruction since He sees every single thing and governs every single thing, that expression occurs in various places in the Word, for the reason that it holds men to the very general idea that all things are before the Lord's eyes and all things under His guidance. Once they are held to that idea men can then be taught easily, for explanations of the Word giving its internal sense are nothing other than the details that fill out the general idea. There is the further reason that those who do not have love are held in fear, and in that fear revere the Lord and flee to Him for deliverance. From this it is evident that it does no harm to believe the sense of the letter, even though the internal sense teaches something other, provided that such belief is that of a simple heart. But these points are dealt with more fully further on at verse 24, in 2447, where it is said that 'Jehovah rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire'. Because they have the internal sense angels are so far removed from thinking of Jehovah's or the Lord's destroying anybody that they do not tolerate the very idea. Consequently when man reads these and similar statements in the Word, the sense of the letter is so to speak pushed to the back and at length merges into the teaching that evil itself is what destroys a person and that the Lord destroys nobody, as becomes clear from the example referred to in 1875.