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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #18

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18. 'The face 1 of the deep' is that person's desires and resulting falsities, of which he consists and in which he is completely absorbed; and because he has no light at all he is like the deep, or something thoroughly obscure. Throughout the Word such people are also called 'the deep' and 'the depths of the sea' which are dried up or laid waste until a person's regeneration starts, as in Isaiah,

Awake as in the days of antiquity, the generations of long ago. Was it not You that did dry up the sea, the waters of the great deep; making the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to go across? Let the ransomed of Jehovah return. Isaiah 51:9-11.

Furthermore, when looked at from heaven, this kind of person resembles a darkened mass with no life to it. The same expressions embody within them in general the vastation in man, described many times by the Prophets, which precedes regeneration. For before a person can know what truth is, or be moved by good, the things that hinder and offer resistance must be removed. Thus the old man must die before the new one can be conceived.

Footnotes:

1. literally, the faces

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2496

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2496. Genesis 20

1. And Abraham travelled from there towards the land of the south, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar.

2. And Abraham said of 1 Sarah his wife, She is my sister; and Abimelech King of Gerar sent and took Sarah.

3. And God came to Abimelech in a dream in the night, and said to him, Behold, you will die because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married to a husband.

4. And Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, Lord, will You kill even a righteous nation?

5. Did he not say to me, She is my sister? And she herself also said, He is my brother. In the uprightness of my heart and in the blamelessness of my hands have I done this.

6. And God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that in the uprightness of your heart you have done this, and I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not allow you to touch her.

7. And now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and will pray for you, and you will live. And if you do not return her, know that you will certainly die, you and everyone who is yours.

8. And in the morning Abimelech rose up early and called all his servants and spoke all these words in their ears; and the men were very much afraid.

9. And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, What have you done to us, and what sin have I committed against you, that you have brought great sin on me and on my kingdom? Deeds which ought not to be done you have done to me.

10. And Abimelech said to Abraham, What did you see, that you have done this thing?

11. And Abraham said, Because I said, Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me on account of my wife.

12. And also she is truly my sister, my father's daughter but not my mother's daughter; and she became my wife.

13. And it happened, when God caused 2 me to depart from my father's house, that I said to her, This is your kindness which you may do for me: at every place we come to, say for me, He is my brother.

14. And Abimelech took flocks and herds, and men servants and women servants, and gave to Abraham; and he restored to him Sarah his wife.

15. And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before you; dwell in that which is good in your eyes.

16. And to Sarah he said, Behold, I have given a thousand-pieces of silver to your brother; behold, it is for you a covering of the eyes for all who are with you, and with all; and she was vindicated.

17. And Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife, and his women servants, and they gave birth.

18. For Jehovah had completely closed every womb of Abimelech's house because of the matter of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

CONTENTS

In Chapter 12 above the subject was Abraham's sojourn in Egypt, which meant the instruction that the Lord received in factual knowledge when He was still a boy. In the present chapter the subject is Abraham's sojourn in Gerar, where Abimelech was. This sojourning in a similar way means instruction received by the Lord, but now it is in matters of doctrine regarding charity and faith. Dealt with in particular here is the origin of the doctrine of charity and faith; that is to say, that this doctrine is spiritual deriving from a celestial origin but is not from the rational.

Footnotes:

1. The Latin preposition here (ad), like the Hebrew ('el) which it translates, usually means to or towards.

2. This verb is plural; see 2559.

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