The Bible

 

Genesis 1:25

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25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Commentary

 

Void

  

A 'void', or 'Vacuity' denotes a person's state before regeneration. From Arcana Coelestia 7: "The first state is the state which precedes, both the state existing from earliest childhood onwards and that existing immediately before regeneration; and it is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness.

In Genesis 1:2, this signifies lacking good, as with man's state before regeneration. (Arcana Coelestia 17)

In Psalm 89:39, this signifies that the Jewish nation had destroyed its conjunction with the Lord and the church. (The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms 339)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #4

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4. As long as the mind confines itself to the sense of the letter alone one cannot possibly see that its contents are such. Take for instance these first sections of Genesis: From the sense of the letter the only subject matter people recognize is the creation of the world, and the Garden of Eden which is called Paradise, and Adam as the first man to be created. Who thinks anything different? The fact that these things contain arcana however which have never been revealed up to now will be sufficiently clear from what follows - especially clear from the fact that the subject of Genesis 1 is, in the internal sense, the NEW CREATION of man, that is, in general his REGENERATION, and in particular the Most Ancient Church. And the subject is presented in such a way that not the smallest part of any expression fails to have a representation, carry a spiritual meaning, or embody something within itself.

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