The Bible

 

Genesis 1:14

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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:

Commentary

 

Call

  
Two whitetail deer, photo by Joy Feerrar

To call someone or summon someone in the Bible represents a desire for conjunction between higher and lower states of life.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #6840

Study this Passage

  
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6840. 'And Jehovah 1 called to him' means an influx from the Divine. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling' as an influx; for what is meant in the internal sense is not a calling effected by spoken language, as in the external sense written as history, but a calling effected by influx into the will, which is an inner calling. For Jehovah or the Lord flows into the will, and in so doing impels a person to do what He pleases. When this inner experience comes to be portrayed by events on a historical level, a level on which everything is of an external nature, it comes to be expressed by the verbs 'command', 'call', or 'speak to', or others like them.

Footnotes:

1. Why the name Jehovah, not God, appears here is unclear.

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