The Bible

 

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.

Commentary

 

Resurrection, the first

  

'The first resurrection,' mentioned in Revelation 20:5, 6, does not mean a first resurrection, but the essence and primary part of resurrection, which is salvation and eternal life. There is only one resurrection to life. A second does not happen, and is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 6; Apocalypse Revealed 851; Revelation 20:5-6)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #434

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434. They had hair like women's hair. (9:8) This symbolically means that they seemed to themselves to have an affection for truth.

In the Word a man symbolizes an understanding of truth, and a woman an affection for truth, because a man is by birth a form of the intellect, and a woman a form of affection, as we say in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Marriage. 1 Hair in the Word symbolizes the lowest level of a person's life, which is the sensual level, as said in no. 424. It is on this level that it seems to these people that they have an affection for truth, when in fact they have an affection for falsity, since they believe it to be true.

That a woman symbolizes an affection for truth can be seen from many passages in the Word. So it is that the church is called a wife, woman, daughter, and virgin. The church, moreover, is a church by virtue of its love or affection for truth, for this is what gives rise to an understanding of truth.

[2] The church is called a woman in the following places:

...there were two women, the daughters of one mother, (who) committed harlotry in Egypt..., Oholah (being) Samaria, and Oholibah (being) Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 23:2-4)

...Jehovah has called you like a woman forsaken and afflicted in spirit, and a youthful woman... (Isaiah 54:6-7)

...Jehovah has created a new thing in the earth - a woman shall encompass a man. (Jeremiah 31:21-22)

The woman clothed with the sun, whom the dragon pursued (Revelation 12), symbolizes the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem.

Women symbolize affections for truth, by virtue of which the church is a church, in many other places, as in the following:

The women of My people you cast out from its delightful house. (Micah 2:9)

(The families of the houses shall mourn by themselves,) and... women by themselves... (Zechariah 12:11-13)

Rise up, you women at ease, hear... my speech. (Isaiah 32:9)

Why do you do... evil..., to cut off from you man and woman...? (Jeremiah 44:7)

...I will scatter man and woman... (Jeremiah 51:22)

A man and woman, here and elsewhere, mean, symbolically in the spiritual sense, an understanding of truth and an affection for truth.

Footnotes:

1. A reference to a work by that title never published by the writer. Extant in manuscript are a brief outline, a relatively short preliminary draft, and two indices for a longer draft on the subject of marriage that has not been found. The content of the existing material makes clear that these manuscripts, including the missing longer draft, were written in preparation for Delights of Wisdom Relating to Married Love (or Conjugial Love), Followed By Pleasures of Insanity Relating to Licentious Love, which the writer published in 1768, two years after publishing the present work on the Apocalypse.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.