44. Verses 24-25 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. 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.

Man, like the earth, can produce nothing good unless the cognitions of faith have already been sown in him enabling him to know what to believe and do. It is the function of the understanding to hear the Word, and of the will to do it. A person who hears the Word and does not do it is one who claims to believe, but he does not live according to it. Such a person separates hearing and doing, and splits his mind in two directions; and by the Lord he is called 'a foolish man',

Everyone who hears My words and does them I liken to a wise man who built his house upon the rock; but everyone who hears My words and does them not I liken to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. Matthew 7:24, 26.

Matters of the understanding, as has been shown, are meant by 'creeping things which the waters produce', and by 'birds over the earth and over the face ¹ of the expanse'. Matters of the will are here meant by 'living creatures which the earth brings forth', and by 'beasts and creeping things', and also by 'the wild animals of the earth'.

Footnotes:

2821. 'The angel of Jehovah called to him out of heaven' means comfort received at that time from the Divine itself. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'calling out of heaven' as giving comfort to, as is also evident from what comes immediately before and directly after; and from the meaning of 'the angel of Jehovah'. When angels are mentioned in the Word they mean something within the Lord, though exactly what belonging to Him is apparent from the whole train of thought, see 1925. Here 'the angel of Jehovah' is used to mean the Divine itself. Something similar is said regarding the Lord, when He endured the very severe temptation in Gethsemane,

There appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him. Luke 22:43.

Here also 'an angel from heaven' is used in the internal sense to mean the Divine that was within Him.