The Bible

 

Genesis 1:24

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24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

Commentary

 

Meek

  
This is a wall-painting at the Elston Chapel in Nottinghamshire, England. The photograph is part of the Geograph Project, created to collect images of historic sites in the U.K. and Ireland.

The word "meek" is used just a handful of times in the Bible, but it is attributed several times to the Lord and is used in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, so it has somewhat of a high profile. "The meek" means "people in the good of charity," which means people who love to do what is good for other people and from that love have an understanding of how to serve.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #6853

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6853. 'For I know their sorrows' means foresight of how deeply they would be plunged into falsities. This is clear from the meaning of 'knowing', when used in reference to the Lord, as foresight (the reason why 'knowing' is foresight is that the Lord has known from eternity about every single thing); and from the meaning of 'sorrows' as being plunged into falsities. For when people who are governed by good are plunged into falsities they experience feelings of anguish and anxiety. They suffer torment, for they love truths and loathe falsities, and are thinking all the time about salvation and about how unhappy they will be if those falsities get the better of them. But those who are not governed by good are completely unconcerned about whether falsities or truths reign in them; for they do not think at all about salvation and unhappiness since they do not believe there are any such things. The delights of self-love and love of the world take away any firm belief regarding life after death. These people are immersed all the time in falsities. Being plunged into falsities is presented in the next life as waves engulfing a person and rising ever higher as the falsities grow more profuse, until the waves rise over his head; and they appear tenuous or solid according to the nature of the falsities. The experience of being plunged into falsities which the wicked undergo looks like a mistiness or cloudiness, more or less murky, which surrounds them and cuts them off completely from the brightness of the light of heaven.

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