The Bible

 

Genesis 1:21

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21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1020

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1020. That these things are meant becomes clear from the fact that everything put together as history from Genesis 1 down to Eber in Chapter 11 means something different from what appears in the letter, and from the consideration that the historical narratives there are purely made-up history customary among the most ancient people. When attesting the truth of some matter they would say that 'Jehovah said it'. Here however 'God' is used because the subject is the spiritual Church. And they did the same when anything true was being, or had been, put into effect.

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

Commentary

 

Heaven and earth

  

'Heaven and earth' signify all the inner parts of the church, and 'sea and dry land' signify all its outer parts, as mentioned in Haggai 2:6. 'Heaven and earth' signify, in general, the internal and external church. In particular, they signify the internal and external, or the spiritual and the natural parts of a person.

In Psalm 89:13, they signify the higher and lower heavens, and also the internal and external church.

'Heaven and earth being finished, and all the host of them,' as mentioned in Genesis 2:1, signifies that mankind had been made spiritual.

'In heaven, on earth, and under the earth,' as mentioned in Revelation 5:3, signify the three heavens in orderly succession, from the highest to the lowest.

'Heaven and earth' in scripture signify the heaven and earth which angels and spirits inhabit. In a spiritual sense, they signify the church amongst men.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 751; Arcana Coelestia 82; Haggai 2; Psalms 13, 89; Revelation 3, 5)