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 #9339

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9339. Verses 31-33 And I will set your boundary from the Sea Suph even to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness even to the River; 1 for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out 2 from before you. You shall not make a covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest perhaps they cause you to sin against Me when you serve their gods; for it will be a snare to you.

'And I will set your boundary from the Sea Suph even to the Sea of the Philistines' means the full range of truths from factual ones to interior truths of faith. 'And from the wilderness even to the River' means from delight belonging to the sensory level even to good and truth belonging to the rational level. 'For I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand' means dominion over evils. 'And you will drive them out from before you' means the removal of them. 'You shall not make a covenant with them and their gods' means no contact with evils and falsities. 'They shall not dwell in your land' means that evils must not exist together with the Church's forms of good. 'Lest perhaps they cause you to sin against Me' means lest evils turn away forms of good from the Lord. 'When you serve their gods' means if worship is kindled by falsities. 'For it will be a snare to you' means owing to evils that are enticing and deceptive.

Footnotes:

1. i.e. the Euphrates

2. The Latin means I will drive them out but the Hebrew means You will drive them out.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1588

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1588. 'Like the garden of Jehovah' means the rational concepts in the external man. This is clear from the meaning of 'the garden of Jehovah' as intelligence, dealt with in 100, consequently the rational which comes in between the internal man and the external man. The rational is intelligence as it exists in the external man. It is called 'the garden of Jehovah' when the rational is celestial, that is, when it has a celestial origin, as was the case with the Most Ancient Church. This is described in Isaiah as follows,

Jehovah will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of ]Jehovah. Joy and gladness will be found in her, confession and the voice of song. Isaiah 51:3.

When however the rational is spiritual, that is, when it has a spiritual origin, as was the case with the Ancient Church, the expression 'the garden of God' is used, as in Ezekiel,

Full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, you were in Eden, the garden of God. Ezekiel 28:12-13.

A person's rational is compared to a garden because this is how it is represented in heaven. It is man's rational that manifests itself in just this way when that which is celestial-spiritual flows into it from the Lord. Indeed it is this which presents to view the paradise gardens whose magnificence and beauty surpass everything the human mind can imagine. This is the effect which the influx of celestial-spiritual light from the Lord produces, as dealt with already in 1042, 1043. It is not the loveliness and beauty of these gardens that stir the emotions but the celestial-spiritual elements that live within them.

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