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 #500

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500. Verse 9 And Enosh lived ninety years; and he beget Kenan.

As has been stated, 'Enosh' means a third Church, even less celestial than the Church of Seth, but nevertheless one of the Most Ancient Churches. 'Kenan' means a fourth Church which came after the previous ones.

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

Commentary

 

Tree

  
tree

In general, trees represent the deepest and most significant intellectual concepts: the ones that come to us most directly from the Lord. This varies depending on us and our states: the people of the Most Ancient Church, who were in a state of loving the Lord, understood truth automatically and internally through what the Writings call "perception"; people in lower states (including most of us) have to work a little harder to learn it from the Word and by willing to follow the Lord. In other parts of the Bible, especially in the prophets and New Testament parables, the meaning of "tree" is broader, meaning not just a person's intellectual concepts but the whole person.

'Trees,' as in Joel 1:10-12, signify knowledges.

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