6. Genesis 1

1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

2. And the earth was a void and an emptiness, and there was thick darkness over the face ¹ of the deep; and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face ¹ of the waters.

3. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

4. And God saw that the light was good; and God made a distinction between the light and the darkness.

5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.

6. And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters.

7. And God made the expanse and He made a distinction between the waters that were under the expanse and the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so.

8. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening, and there was morning, a second day.

9. And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together to 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 He called Seas; and God saw that it was good.

11. And God said, Let the earth cause tender plants to spring up, seed-bearing plants, fruit trees bearing fruit, each according to its kind, in which is its seed, upon the earth; and it was so.

12. And the earth brought forth tender herbs, seed-bearing plants, each according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

13. And there was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

14. And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to make a distinction between the day and the night; and they will be for signs, and for set times, and for days and years.

15. And they will be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth; and it was so.

16. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to have dominion over the day, and the lesser light to have dominion over the night; and the stars.

17. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth;

18. And to have dominion over the day and the night, and to make a distinction between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

19. And there was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things, living creatures; and let birds fly above the earth, upon the face ¹ of the expanse of the heavens.

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.

22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; and let birds be multiplied upon the earth.

23. And there was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.

24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, beasts and creeping things and wild animals of the earth according to their kinds; and it was so.

25. And God made wild animals of the earth according to their kinds, and beasts according to their kinds, and everything that creeps along the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

26. And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and they will have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, ² and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

27. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

28. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, ² and over every living thing that creeps on the earth.

29. And God said, Behold, I give you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face ¹ of the whole earth, and every tree in which there is fruit, the tree producing seed will be for you for food.

30. And to every wild animal of the earth and to every bird of the air, ² and to everything creeping over the earth in which there is a living soul, [I give] every green plant for food; and it was so.

31. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, a sixth day.

CONTENTS

The six days or periods of time, which are so many consecutive states in man's regeneration, are in general as follows:

Footnotes:

9632. 'And a covering from the skins of badgers above that' means outside that [another mantle], a mantle consisting of truths derived from external good. This is clear from the meaning of 'a covering' as a mantle, as just above in 9630; from the meaning of 'skins' as external truths, dealt with in 9471; and from the meaning of 'badgers' as forms of good, also dealt with in 9471.

Any further explanation of the things which have been stated so far regarding the dwelling-place, the tent over it, and the two coverings over that, can be dispensed with, since they are such as would be scarcely intelligible owing to the lack of proper knowledge. For where that knowledge is lacking there is blindness; thus there is no reception of light nor consequently any concept of the matter. Few if any people know that heaven is represented and thereby described by the dwelling-place, and the external part of it by the tent and its two coverings. The reason why there is no proper knowledge of these things is that scarcely anyone is aware of the fact that heavenly realities are meant by all that is written in the Word, thus that there is an inner meaning or spiritual sense within every detail there. Scarcely anyone knows either that this sense is not apparent in the letter, only from the letter to those who, having learned about correspondences, receive light from the Lord when they read the Word.

[2] Indeed scarcely anyone is aware of the fact that a person governed by the good of love and faith is heaven in the smallest form this can take, or that such a person in respect both of the more internal aspects of his being and of the more external corresponds to heaven, 9276. If these things had been known the learned in the Christian world who have acquired some knowledge regarding the parts of the human body could have received some light of understanding and therefore have had some concept of heaven. They could have discerned which particular realities in heaven are represented by the ark, its mercy-seat, and the cherubs above it; which particular realities by the table on which the loaves of the Presence were laid, the lampstand, and the gold altar for incense; also which particular ones are represented by the dwelling-place, its curtains, boards, and bases, and lastly by the tent and the two coverings over it. For similar things are met with in the human being, in the things with him that are internal and those that are external. They also present themselves in material form in his body; and to these [material parts of his body] the internal things have an exact correspondence. For unless the external things, which belong to the body, had an exact correspondence with the internal ones, which belong to the understanding and the will, there would not be any life in the body, nor thus any actions in accord with them.

[3] Similar things are said to be met with in the tabernacle as in the human being because representatives on the natural level resemble the human form and have the same meaning as the parts of it they resemble, 9496. External things within the human being provide four coverings which surround and enclose all that is more internal; these coverings are what animal skins and actual skins of the body refer to. See what has been mentioned from experience in 5552-5559, 8980, regarding the correspondence of the latter to internal things. The coverings which constituted the roof and sides of the tabernacle provided a similar representation. From all this the understanding may gain some light regarding the forms that heaven takes. Nevertheless that light will be snuffed out with all who have no definite knowledge regarding the things that exist within the human body and at the same time no definite knowledge regarding the spiritual realities belonging to faith and the celestial realities belonging to love, to which those things in the body correspond. Since most people are in the dark, indeed in thick darkness, so far as those realities and human physiology are concerned, owing not only to their lack of knowledge but also to their lack of belief, any further explanation of them has been dispensed with; for as stated above, they would be unintelligible because there is no light of understanding in such matters.