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 #52

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52. As long as someone is a spiritual man, the dominion over him runs from external man to internal man, as is said here, 'They will have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air', and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth'. When however he becomes celestial and does what is good out of love, then the dominion over him runs from internal man to external man. This is how the Lord describes Himself, and so simultaneously the celestial man, who is a likeness of Him, in David,

You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, flocks and all cattle, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, 1 and the fish of the sea, and that crossing the paths of the seas. Psalms 8:6-8.

Here therefore the beasts are mentioned first, the birds next, and the fish of the sea after that, for the reason that the celestial man starts with love which resides in the will. With the spiritual man it is different. With him fish and birds, which have to do with the understanding, the domain of faith, come first, while beasts come afterwards.

Footnotes:

1. literally, bird of the heavens (or the skies)

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #10038

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10038. 'You shall burn with fire outside the camp' means that those things must be banished to hell and be consumed by the evils of self-love. This is clear from the meaning of 'burning with fire' as consuming by means of the evils of self-love, for 'burning' means consuming or devouring and 'fire' the evil of self-love (for these meanings of 'burning' and 'fire', see 1297, 5071, 5215, 6314, 6832, 7324, 7575, 9141, 9434); and from the meaning of 'the camp' as heaven and the Church, and in the contrary sense the place where heaven and the Church do not exist, thus where hell exists, dealt with below. The reason why 'being burned with fire' means being consumed by the evils of self-love is that that love consumes every good or truth of faith. Scarcely anyone at the present day knows that self-love does this, nor consequently that this love constitutes hell with a person and that it is what should be understood by hell-fire.

[2] There are two fires of life that exist with a person; one is self-love, the other is love to God. Those in whom self-love predominates cannot be governed by love to God, for those loves are opposites. They are opposites because self-love gives rise to all evils, which are contempt for others in comparison with self, enmity towards those who do not treat oneself favourably, and in the end to hatred, vengeance, brutality, and cruelty; and these evils act in total opposition to Divine influx, consequently annihilate truths and forms of the good of faith and charity, these being the things that flow in from the Lord. Anybody who stops to reflect may know that everyone's love is the fire of his life - for without love there is no life, and the character of the love determines that of the life - and therefore that self-love gives rise to evils of every kind, doing so in the measure that he has only himself in view, that is, self-love reigns in him. The worst kind of self-love is the love of dominion over others for selfish reasons, that is, the love of possessing dominion solely for the sake of position and gain. Those in whom that love predominates may, it is true, make profession of faith and charity, but they do so with their lips, not with their heart; indeed the worst among them look on the things that belong to faith and charity, thus the holy things of the Church, as means to their own ends. But self-love and all the different types of it, also the evils that gush out of it, and the condition of the selfish in the next life, must in the Lord's Divine mercy be stated in detail somewhere else. They have been referred to here to enable people to know what 'being burned with fire outside the camp' means.

[3] The fact that 'the camp' where the children of Israel were encamped represented heaven and the Church, and therefore that 'outside the camp' represented the place where heaven and the Church did not exist, thus where hell was, becomes clear from those places in the Word which mention the camp and the encampment of the children of Israel in the wilderness, such as the following in Moses,

The children of Israel shall camp, [every] man by his own camp, and [every] man by his own standard, according to their armies. And the Levites shall camp around the dwelling-place of the Testimony, that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the children of Israel. Numbers 1:52-53; 2:2.

In addition, Numbers 2:1-end says that the tribes of Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun encamped to the east; the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Gad to the south; the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin to the west; and the tribes of Dan, Asher, and Naphtali to the north. But the Levites were in the middle of their camps. The like applied when they set out on their journeys, Numbers 2:17; 10:1-end. The reason why their encampments were arranged in that kind of order was so that they might represent heaven and the Church, 9320 (end). Moreover the tribes according to which the children of Israel set up their camps represented all the forms of good and all the truths in their entirety that belonged to heaven and the Church, 3858, 3926, 3939, 4060, 6335, 6337, 6397, 6640, 7836, 7891, 7996, 7997. This explains why it says that Jehovah dwells in the middle of the camps, Numbers 5:3, and that He walks in the middle of them and they will therefore be holy, Deuteronomy 23:14, and why, in the prophecy uttered by Balaam, when he saw Israel dwelling according to their tribes, he said, How good are your tabernacles, O Jacob, and your dwelling-places, O Israel! Numbers 24:2-3, 5.

[4] Since heaven and the Church was represented by the camp it follows that 'outside the camp' meant the place where neither heaven nor the Church existed, thus where hell was. That is why everyone who was unclean and also anyone who was guilty was sent out there, as may be recognized from the following,

You shall send out of the camp everyone who is leprous, and everyone suffering a discharge, and everyone unclean on account of a soul 1 . Whether they are male or female 2 you shall send them outside the camp, so that they may not defile the camps, in the middle of which Jehovah dwells. Numbers 5:2-3; Leviticus 13:45-46.

A man who is not clean by reason of an accident in the night shall go outside the camp and not come into the middle of the camp. When he has washed himself with water and the sun has set he shall enter the camp. There shall be a space for you outside the camp where you may go out, and you shall cover your excrement by means of a spade 3 , since Jehovah walks in the middle of the camp. Therefore the camp shall be holy. Deuteronomy 23:10-14.

And the stoning of people was done outside the camp, Leviticus 24:14; Numbers 15:35-36.

From all this it is now clear that 'you shall burn with fire the flesh, skin, and dung of the young bull, outside the camp' means that evils, meant by these things, must be banished to hell.

[5] The same thing as was represented by the camp and the area outside it was also represented by the land of Canaan and the lands around it after that land had been divided up as inheritances among the children of Israel. This is why in the Word 'the land of Canaan' or simply 'the land' means heaven and the Church, and 'the children of Israel' those who are in heaven and the Church. For the meaning of 'the land' as heaven and the Church, see the places referred to in 9325; and for that of 'the children of Israel' as those who are there, 9340.

Footnotes:

1. i.e. unclean through contact with a dead body

2. literally, From male even to female

3. literally, peg or nail

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