The Bible

 

Genesis 1:20

Study

       

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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1019

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1019. Verse 8 And God said to Noah and to his sons with him, saying,

'God said to Noah and to his sons with him, saying' means the truth of the things that follow concerning the spiritual Church, meant by 'Noah and his sons with him'.

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

Commentary

 

Night

  

The sun in the Bible represents the Lord, with its heat representing His love and its light representing His wisdom. “Daytime,” then, represents a state in which we are turned toward the Lord, receiving His love and being enlightened by His truth. And “nighttime,” obviously, represents states in which we are turned away from the Lord, left cold and blind to the truth. The most common word used for it in the New Christian theology is “obscurity.” The darkness is not absolute, of course. The light of the moon represents the understanding we can have based on facts and our own intelligence. But while the moon reflects some of the sun's light, it offers almost no heat, so this kind of understanding is a cold one, without the warmth of love. And at its darkest and coldest, night represents a state of judgment. This happens when a person -- or a church -- becomes so mired in evil and falsity that there is no light or heat. The Lord can then step in, separate the good from the evil, consign the evil to hell and begin rebuilding based on the remnant that is still good. Drastic as that sounds, it is something that we all go through repeatedly in various aspects of our loves, so that we can be rid of what is evil and let the Lord rebuild us as angels.