Arcana Coelestia #30
30. Verses 14-17 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to make a distinction between the day and the night; and they will be for signs, and for set times, and for days and years. And they will be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to have dominion over the day, and the lesser light to have dominion over the night; and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.
No one can have an adequate understanding of what 'the great lights' are unless he knows what the underlying essence of faith is and how it develops in people who are being created anew. The very essence and life of faith is the Lord alone. In fact it is impossible for anyone who does not believe in the Lord to have life, as He Himself has said in John,
He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God will rest upon him. John 3:36.
[2] With people who are being created anew faith develops as follows: First of all they have no life, for life does not exist in anything evil and false but in what is good and true. Then they start to receive life from the Lord by means of faith - first by faith existing in the memory, which is factual faith, then by faith existing in the understanding, which is conceptual faith, and after this by faith existing in the heart, which is loving or saving faith. Factual faith and conceptual faith are represented in verses 3-13 by the inanimate, but faith made alive by means of love is represented in verses 20-25 by the animate. Consequently this is the first point at which love and faith deriving from it, which are called 'lights', are dealt with. Love is 'the greater light which has dominion over the day', and faith deriving from love is 'the lesser light which has dominion over the night'. And because they ought to make one the verb in the phrase 'let there be lights 'is singular and not plural.
[3] Love and faith have their place in the internal man as warmth and light do in the external, bodily man, and for this reason love and faith are represented by warmth and light. Therefore it is said that 'the lights' were set in the expanse of the heavens, that is, in the internal man - the greater light in his will and the lesser in his understanding. Yet they make their appearances in the will and understanding only as sunlight does in the objects it strikes. To the Lord alone belongs the mercy which moves the will with love and the understanding with truth or faith.
Joel 1
1
The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
2
Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
3
Tell ye your children of it, and let your children Tell their children, and their children another generation.
4
That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
5
Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
6
For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.
7
He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.
8
Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9
The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD's ministers, mourn.
10
The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
11
Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
12
The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.
13
Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
14
Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
15
Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
16
Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17
The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
18
How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
19
O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.
20
The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
