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

 

Void

  

A 'void', or 'Vacuity' denotes a person's state before regeneration. From Arcana Coelestia 7: "The first state is the state which precedes, both the state existing from earliest childhood onwards and that existing immediately before regeneration; and it is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness.

In Genesis 1:2, this signifies lacking good, as with man's state before regeneration. (Arcana Coelestia 17)

In Psalm 89:39, this signifies that the Jewish nation had destroyed its conjunction with the Lord and the church. (The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms 339)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #1

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1. The Lord, speaking in the presence of His disciples of the consummation of the age, which is the final period of the church, 1 says, near the end of what He foretells about its successive states in respect to love and faith: 2

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send forth His angels with a trumpet and a great sound; and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the end to end of the heavens (Matthew 24:29-31).

Those who understood these words according to the sense of the letter have no other belief than that during that latest period, which is called the final judgment, all these things are to come to pass just as they are described in the literal sense, that is, that the sun and moon will be darkened and the stars will fall from the sky, that the sign of the Lord will appear in the sky, and He Himself will be seen in the clouds, attended by angels with trumpets; and furthermore, as is foretold elsewhere, that the whole visible universe will be destroyed, and afterwards a new heaven with a new earth will come into being. Such is the opinion of most men in the church at the present day. But those who so believe are ignorant of the arcana that lie hid in every particular of the Word. For in every particular of the Word there is an internal sense which treats of things spiritual and heavenly, not of things natural and worldly, such as are treated of in the sense of the letter. And this is true not only of the meaning of groups of words, it is true of each particular word. 3 For the Word is written solely by correspondences, 4 to the end that there may be an internal sense in every least particular of it. What that sense is can be seen from all that has been said and shown about it in the Arcana Coelestia; also from quotations gathered from that work in the explanation of The White Horse spoken of in the Apocalypse. It is according to that sense that what the Lord says in the passage quoted above respecting His coming in the clouds of heaven is to be understood. The "sun" there that is to be darkened signifies the Lord in respect to love; 5 the "moon" the Lord in respect to faith; 6 "stars" knowledges of good and truth, or of love and faith; 7 "the sign of the Son of man in heaven" the manifestation of Divine truth; "the tribes of the earth" that shall mourn, all things relating to truth and good or to faith and love; 8 "the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven with power and glory" His presence in the Word, and revelation, 9 "clouds" signifying the sense of the letter of the Word, 10 and "glory" the internal sense of the Word; 11 " the angels with a trumpet and great voice" signify heaven as a source of Divine truth. 12 All this makes clear that these words of the Lord mean that at the end of the church, when there is no longer any love, and consequently no faith, the Lord will open the internal meaning of the Word and reveal arcana of heaven. The arcana revealed in the following pages relate to heaven and hell, and also to the life of man after death. The man of the church at this date knows scarcely anything about heaven and hell or about his life after death, although all these matters are set forth and described in the Word; and yet many of those born within the church refuse to believe in them, saying in their hearts, "Who has come from that world and told us?" Lest, therefore, such a spirit of denial, which especially prevails with those who have much worldly wisdom, should also infect and corrupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith, it has been granted me to associate with angels and to talk with them as man with man, also to see what is in the heavens and what is in the hells, and this for thirteen years; so now from what I have seen and heard it has been granted me to describe these, in the hope that ignorance may thus be enlightened and unbelief dissipated. Such immediate revelation is granted at this day because this is what is meant by the Coming of the Lord.

[REFERENCES TO THE AUTHOR'S ARCANA COELESTIA.]

Footnotes:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] The consummation of the age is the final period of the church (4535, 10622).

2. [Swedenborg's footnote] The Lord's predictions in Matthew (24, 25), respecting the consummation of the age and His coming, and the consequent successive vastation of the church and the final judgment, are explained in the prefaces to chapters 26-40 of Genesis (3353-3356, 3486-3489, 3650-3655, 3751-3757, 3897-3901, 4056-4060, 4229-4231, 4332-4335, 4422-4424, 4635-4638, 4661-4664, 4807-4810, 4954-4959, 5063-5071).

3. [Swedenborg's footnote] Both in the wholes and in the particulars of the Word there is an internal or spiritual sense (1143, 1984, 2135, 2333, 2395, 2495, 4442, 9048, 9063, 9086).

4. [Swedenborg's footnote] The Word is written solely by correspondences, and for this reason each thing and all things in it have a spiritual meaning (1404, 1408-1409, 1540, 1619, 1659, 1709, 1783, 2900, 9086).

5. [Swedenborg's footnote] In the Word the “sun" signifies the Lord in respect to love, and in consequence love to the Lord (1529, 1837, 2441, 2495, 4060, 4696, 7083, 10809).

6. [Swedenborg's footnote] In the Word the "moon" signifies the Lord in respect to faith, and in consequence faith in the Lord (1529-1530, 2495, 4060, 4696, 7083).

7. [Swedenborg's footnote] In the Word "stars" signify knowledges of good and truth (2495, 2849, 4697).

8. [Swedenborg's footnote] "Tribes" signify all truths and goods in the complex, thus all things of faith and love (3858, 3926, 4060, 6335).

9. [Swedenborg's footnote] The coming of the Lord signifies His presence in the Word, and revelation (3900, 4060).

10. [Swedenborg's footnote] In the Word “clouds” signify the Word in the letter or the sense of its letter (4060, 4391, 5922, 6343, 6752, 8106, 8781, 9430, 10551, 10574).

11. [Swedenborg's footnote] In the Word "glory" signifies Divine truth as it is in heaven and as it is in the internal sense of the Word (4809, 5922, 8267, 8427, 9429, 10574).

12. [Swedenborg's footnote] A "trumpet" or "horn" signifies Divine truth in heaven, and revealed from heaven (8158, 8823, 8915); and "voice" has a like signification (6971, 9926).

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