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 #42

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42. Verse 21 And God created the great sea monsters, and every living creature that creeps, which the waters produced abundantly according to their kinds; and all winged birds according to their kinds; and God saw that it was good.

As has been stated, 'fish' means facts, here facts quickened and brought to life through faith from the Lord. 'Sea monsters' means those facts' general sources, below which and from which details derive. Nothing whatever exists in the universe that does not depend on some general source for its commencement and continuance. In the Prophets sea monsters or whales are mentioned several times, and in those places they mean those general sources of facts. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who represents human wisdom or intelligence - that is, knowledge in general - is called 'a great sea monster', as in Ezekiel,

Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster lying in the midst of his 1 rivers, who has said, It is my river and I have made myself. Ezekiel 29:3.

[2] And elsewhere in Ezekiel,

Raise a lamentation over Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say to him, You are like a monster in the seas, and you have come forth in your rivers, and have troubled the waters with your feet. Ezekiel 32:2

These words mean people who wish to penetrate the mysteries that are part of faith by means of facts, and so from themselves. In Isaiah,

On that day Jehovah will make a visitation with His hard and great and strong sword upon Leviathan the full-length serpent, 2 and upon Leviathan the twisting serpent, and He will slay the monsters that are in the sea. Isaiah 27:1.

'Slaying the monsters in the sea' means preventing people's knowing facts even in their general aspects. In Jeremiah,

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel has devoured me, he has troubled me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has swallowed me up like a sea monster, he has filled his belly with my delicacies, he has cast me out. Jeremiah 51:34.

This stands for the fact that mankind did swallow cognitions of faith, which are 'the delicacies' here, just as the sea monster swallowed up Jonah. In that story the sea monster stands for people who treat general cognitions of faith as mere facts, and behave accordingly.

Footnotes:

1. The Latin means your; but the Hebrew means his which Swedenborg has in other places where he quotes this verse.

2. i.e. a serpent that is on the move and not coiled up

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2261

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2261. 'If I find in Sodom fifty righteous persons in the midst of the city' means if truths are full of goods. This is clear from the meaning of 'fifty' as that which is full, and from the meaning of 'the midst of the city' as that which is present inwardly, or within truth, dealt with above in 2252, which see since the same words occur there. It may be assumed that a person is certain to be saved if truths are full of goods. But it should be recognized that very few truths exist with man; and if they do, that they have no life unless there are goods within them; and if they have goods within them, that he is saved, but on account of mercy. For as has been stated, very few truths reside with a person, and the goods contained within them receive their character from the truths and from that person's life.

[2] Regarded in themselves truths do not confer life; but goods do so. Truths are simply the recipients of life, that is, of good. Nobody is ever able to say therefore that he can be saved by means of truths or as is commonly asserted, by faith alone - not, that is, unless within the truths, which are part of the faith, good is present. And this good which must exist within them must be the good that flows from charity. This explains why in the internal sense faith itself is nothing else than charity, as shown above in 2231. When people say that the acknowledgement of truth is the faith that saves, it should be recognized that no acknowledgement can possibly exist with people who lead lives immersed in things contrary to charity, only some kind of persuasion which has the life of self-love or of the love of the world allied to it, so that the acknowledgement which they speak of does not have within it the life of the faith which is that of charity. The worst people of all, acting from self-love or from love of the world, that is, acting for the sake of excelling others in what are called intelligence and wisdom, and so acting for the sake of earning exalted positions, reputation, and gain, have the ability to grasp the truths of faith and to confirm them in many ways; but with them those truths are nevertheless dead. The life of truth and so of faith comes solely from the Lord, who is Life itself.

[3] The Lord's life is mercy, which is that of love towards the whole human race. Those people cannot possibly be drawing on the life that is the Lord's who, although they profess the truths of faith, despise others in comparison with themselves, and who, where their self-love and love of the world are affected, harbour hatred towards the neighbour and are delighted when he experiences loss of wealth, position, reputation, and life. But the position with the truths of faith is that it is by means of them that one is regenerated, for they are the actual vessels for receiving good. As are the truths therefore, also the goods within those truths, and the combination of those truths and goods and from this their capacity to be perfected in the next life, so is the state of blessedness and happiness of that person after death.

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