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 #904

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904. That 'God spoke to Noah' means the Lord's presence with the member of the Church becomes clear from the internal sense of the Word. The Lord speaks to everybody, for whatever good and truth a person wills and thinks comes from the Lord. With everyone there are at least two evil spirits and two angels. The former activate his evils whereas the latter instill goods and truths. Every good or truth that angels instill is the Lord's; in this way the Lord is constantly speaking to man, though quite differently from one person to the next. To people who allow themselves to be carried away by evil spirits the Lord speaks as though He were not present, or so far away that He can hardly be said to be speaking. But to those who are being led by the Lord, the Lord speaks as one who is quite present. This becomes clear enough from the fact that nobody can possibly think of anything good and true except from the Lord.

[2] The Lord's presence is relative to the state of love towards the neighbour and of faith present in a person. It is in love towards the neighbour that the Lord is present, for He is present in all good, and not so much in so-called faith that is devoid of love. Faith devoid of love and charity is something severed or disjoined. Wherever conjunction exists there has to be a conjoining agency, which is exclusively love and charity. This may become clear to anyone from the fact that the Lord has compassion on everybody, loves everyone, and wishes to make everyone eternally happy. A person therefore who is devoid of the kind of love that leads him to have compassion on others, to love them, and to wish to make them happy, cannot be joined to the Lord because he is not at all like Him, and is in no sense the image of Him. Looking to the Lord by means of that which goes by the name of faith while hating the neighbour amounts not only to standing a long way off, but also to having between himself and the Lord a hell-like chasm into which the person would fall if he wished to go any nearer. For it is hatred towards the neighbour that constitutes that intervening hell-like chasm.

[3] The Lord is present with a person the moment he starts to love the neighbour. It is in love that the Lord is present, and to the extent that a person has love the Lord is present. And to the extent that the Lord is present He speaks to man. No one knows anything other than that he thinks from himself. Yet he possesses not one single idea of thought, not even the shred of an idea, from himself. Rather that which is evil and false he possesses through evil spirits from hell, and that which is good and true through angels from the Lord. Such is influx, the channel by which a person's life comes and by which consequently his soul interacts with the body. All these considerations make clear what 'God spoke to Noah' means. 'Saying to someone' means one thing, as in Genesis 1:29; 3:13-14, 17; 4:6, 9, 15; 6:13; 7:1, while 'speaking to someone' means another. Here speaking to Noah' means His being present, for the subject now is the regenerate person, who has had charity conferred on him.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1904

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1904. That 'Sarai, Abram's wife, took' means the affection for truth, which in the genuine sense is 'Sarai the wife', is clear from the meaning of 'Sarai' as truth allied to good, and from the meaning of 'wife' as affection, dealt with already in 915, 1468. There are two affections, distinct and separate - the affection for good and the affection for truth. While a person is being regenerated the affection for truth takes the lead, for it is an affection for truth for the sake of good that moves him; but once he has been regenerated the affection for good takes the lead, and it is now an affection for truth originating in good that moves him. The affection for good belongs to the will, the affection for truth to the understanding. The most ancient people established a marriage so to speak between these two affections. They used to refer to good (or the love of good) and truth (or the love of truth) as Man, calling the former 'the husband' and the latter 'the wife'. The comparison of good and truth to a marriage has its origins in the heavenly marriage.

[2] Regarded in themselves good and truth do not possess any life, but they derive their life from love or affection. They are merely the instruments that serve life. Consequently as is the love producing the affection for good and truth, so is the life; for the whole of life constitutes the whole of love or affection. This is why 'Sarai his wife' in the genuine sense means the affection for truth. And because the Intellectual desired the Rational as its offspring, and because what she says is an expression of that desire or affection, this verse contains the explicit wording, 'Sarai, Abram's wife, gave to Abram her husband' which would be an unnecessary repetition - for in themselves these words would be quite superfluous - if such matters were not embodied within the internal sense.

[3] Intellectual truth is distinct and separate from rational truth, and rational truth from factual truth, just as what is internal, what is intermediate, and what is external are. Intellectual truth is internal, rational truth is intermediate, while factual truth is external. These are quite distinct and separate because one is interior to another. With everyone intellectual truth, which is internal, or that present within the inmost part of him, is not his own but is the Lord's with him. From this the Lord flows into the rational, where truth first appears as if it were the person's own, and through the rational into his faculty of knowing. From these considerations it is clear that nobody can possibly think as of himself from intellectual truth, but from rational truth and factual truth because these do appear as if they were his.

[4] Only the Lord, when He lived in the world, thought from intellectual truth, for that truth was His own Divine truth joined to good, or the Divine spiritual joined to the Divine celestial. In this respect the Lord was different from all others. Man in no way possesses the ability to think from the Divine existing within himself as his essential self, nor can that ability possibly exist within man, only within Him who was conceived from Jehovah. Because He thought from intellectual truth, that is, from the love or affection for intellectual truth, from that truth also He desired the Rational. This is why it is stated here that 'Sarai, Abram's wife', by whom is meant the affection for intellectual truth, 'took Hagar the Egyptian and gave her to Abram her husband as his wife (mulier)'.

[5] No other arcana concealed here can be brought out and explained intelligibly because the human being dwells in very great obscurity regarding his own internals. Indeed he has no conception of these, for he identifies the rational and the intellectual degrees of the mind with the factual degree, not knowing that these degrees are distinct and separate, so distinct in fact that the intellectual is able to exist without the rational, as also can the rational, while subordinate to the intellectual, exist without the factual. This must inevitably seem absurd to those wholly immersed in factual knowledge, but it is nevertheless the truth. It is not possible however for anyone to have truth present in the factual degree of his mind, that is to say, to have an affection for it and a belief in it, if truth is not present in the rational, into which and through which the Lord flows in from the intellectual degree. These arcana do not lie open to man's view except in the next life.

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