16. Verse 1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The most ancient times of all are called 'the beginning', and are throughout the Prophets referred to as 'days of antiquity' and also 'days of eternity'. 'The beginning' also embodies within it that first Period when a person is being regenerated, for at that time he is being born anew and receiving life. Regeneration itself is therefore called a new creation of man. Almost everywhere in the prophetical sections 'to create', 'to form', and 'to make' mean to regenerate, though each of these verbs has a different shade of meaning, as in Isaiah,

Every one who is called by My name - I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, I have also made him. Isaiah 43:7

This is why the Lord is called Redeemer, One who forms from the womb, Maker, and also Creator, as in the same prophet,

I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Isaiah 43:15.

In David,

A people to be created will praise Jah. Psalms 102:18.

In the same author,

You send forth Your Spirit; they are created; and You renewest the face ¹ of the ground. Psalms 104:30.

'Heaven' means the internal man, and 'earth' the external man prior to regeneration. This will be seen further on.

Footnotes:

8610. 'And put it under him, and he sat on it' means correspondence with the highest level of truth. This becomes clear from the consideration that the stone supported Moses and 'Moses' represents the highest level of truth, which is God's truth that goes forth directly from the Lord. When the lowest level of truth corresponds with this highest level of truth it supports it, for they act as one. Interior truths are joined to exterior, and finally to the lowest through the correspondence [of each level with the one above it]. Highest truth then has might within the lowest, because it resides in it and acts through it. But if there is no such correspondence they are disjoined, and consequently highest truth has no might within lowest. What correspondence is may be seen from the extensive presentation, at the ends of a number of chapters, of the correspondence of all aspects of the human being with the Grand Man.