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

 

Arcana Coelestia #4901

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4901. 'So it was about three months later' means a new state. This is clear from the meaning of 'three' as that which is complete, and therefore the last and at the same time the first, or the end and at the same time the beginning, dealt with in 1825, 2788, 4495; and from the meaning of 'a month' as a state, dealt with in 3814. All periods of time in the internal sense mean states, such as an hour, day, week, month, year, or age. And states are likewise meant by the periods making up these, such as the times of day, which are midday, evening, night, and morning; the seasons of the year, which are summer, autumn, winter, and spring; and also the phases of life, which are infancy and childhood, adolescence, adult years, and old age. All these periods and many more have states as their meaning. What a state actually is, see 4850.

[2] The reason periods of time mean states is that in the next life such periods do not really exist. Spirits' and angels' lives do, it is true, seem to move forward within a time-sequence; but periods of time play no part in the formation of their thought, as those periods do in the formation of men's in the world. Rather, states of life contribute to the formation of their thought, without the help of any temporal notion. Also, a further reason why such periods of time mean states is that consecutive stages in the lives of spirits and angels are not distinguished as separate times of life. For those in the next life do not age; nor are there any days or years there because the Sun there - the Lord - is always rising and never sets. Consequently no temporal notion can enter their thinking, only the notion of a state and of the stages by which this moves forward It is the things present and taking place before people's senses that are the source of the notions gained by them.

[3] These matters are bound to look like a paradox, but the reason they do so is that every single idea present in a person's thought has something of time and space attached to it. These are the source of what is in his memory and of what he recollects, and they are the source of his lower level of thought, consisting of ideas called material ones. But the memory from which such ideas are recollected is quiescent in the next life. Those who are in the next life use their interior memory and the ideas present in the thought there. Thought flowing from this interior memory does not have any temporal or spatial content, but instead of this states and the stages by which those states move forward. Consequently periods of time correspond to these, and because they correspond periods of time are used in the Word to mean states. For details about man's possession of an exterior memory which belongs properly to him while in the body, and also of an interior memory which belongs properly to his spirit, see 2469-2494.

[4] The reason 'about three months later' means a new state is that 'months', into which periods of time in the world are also divided, means state, and that, as mentioned above, 'three' means the last and at the same time the first, or the end and at the same time the beginning. Because in the spiritual world states are constantly moving forward from one into another, and as a consequence the last phase or end of each state includes the first phase or beginning of the next, resulting in a continuous sequence, 'about three months later' therefore means a new state. The same applies within the Church too, which is the spiritual world or the Lord's kingdom on earth. The last phase of the Church among one nation is always the first phase of the Church among another. Because a last phase is in this way continued into a first, the Lord is spoken of several times as the Last and the First, as in Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; Revelation 21:6; 22:13; and by this is meant in the relative sense that which is perpetual, and in the highest sense that which is eternal.

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