27. Verse 9 And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.

Once a person knows of the existence of the internal man and of the external man, and knows that, contrary to appearance, truths and goods flow in from the internal man, or from the Lord by way of the internal into the external, then the things residing in him as cognitions of truth and good are stored away in his memory and registered among the facts there. For anything that finds its way into the memory or the external man, whether natural, spiritual, or celestial, lodges there as known fact, and from that place it is brought out by the Lord. These cognitions are 'the waters gathered together to one place' and are called 'seas'. But the external man itself is called 'the dry land' and immediately afterwards 'earth', as in the verses that follow.

613. That 'members of his own generation' has to do with faith is not evident from the sense of the letter, which sense is historical. Nevertheless because they are matters of a purely internal nature here, things that have to do with faith are meant. It is also clear from the train of thought that 'generations' here means nothing else. The same occurs several times in the Word, as in Isaiah,

Let those that be of you build the waste places of old; raise up the foundations of generation upon generation, and you will be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. Isaiah 58:12.

All the details here mean things that have to do with faith. 'The waste places of old' means those on the celestial side of faith, 'the foundations of generation upon generation' at the same time meaning those on the spiritual side, and which had lapsed since ancient times. In the same prophet,

They will build up the waste places of old, they will raise up the former desolations, and they will renew the waste cities, the desolations of generation upon generation. Isaiah 61:4.

Here the meaning is similar. In the same prophet,

They will not labour in vain, and they will not generate in sudden terror; for they will be the seed of the blessed of Jehovah, and their offspring with them. Isaiah 65:23.

Here also 'generating' has reference to things that have to do with faith, and 'labouring' to those that have to do with love. 'The seed of the blessed of Jehovah' has reference to the latter, 'offspring' to the former.