42. Verse 21 And God created the great sea monsters, and every living creature that creeps, which the waters produced abundantly according to their kinds; and all winged birds according to their kinds; and God saw that it was good.

As has been stated, 'fish' means facts, here facts quickened and brought to life through faith from the Lord. 'Sea monsters' means those facts' general sources, below which and from which details derive. Nothing whatever exists in the universe that does not depend on some general source for its commencement and continuance. In the Prophets sea monsters or whales are mentioned several times, and in those places they mean those general sources of facts. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who represents human wisdom or intelligence - that is, knowledge in general - is called 'a great sea monster', as in Ezekiel,

Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster lying in the midst of his ¹ rivers, who has said, It is my river and I have made myself. Ezekiel 29:3.

[2] And elsewhere in Ezekiel,

Raise a lamentation over Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say to him, You are like a monster in the seas, and you have come forth in your rivers, and have troubled the waters with your feet. Ezekiel 32:2

These words mean people who wish to penetrate the mysteries that are part of faith by means of facts, and so from themselves. In Isaiah,

On that day Jehovah will make a visitation with His hard and great and strong sword upon Leviathan the full-length serpent, ² and upon Leviathan the twisting serpent, and He will slay the monsters that are in the sea. Isaiah 27:1.

'Slaying the monsters in the sea' means preventing people's knowing facts even in their general aspects. In Jeremiah,

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel has devoured me, he has troubled me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has swallowed me up like a sea monster, he has filled his belly with my delicacies, he has cast me out. Jeremiah 51:34.

This stands for the fact that mankind did swallow cognitions of faith, which are 'the delicacies' here, just as the sea monster swallowed up Jonah. In that story the sea monster stands for people who treat general cognitions of faith as mere facts, and behave accordingly.

Footnotes:

41. Verse 8. I am the Alpha and the Omega, Beginning and End, signifies that He governs all things from firsts through ultimates, and thus all things of heaven to eternity. This is evident from the signification of "the Alpha and the Omega," as being the first and the last, or in firsts and in ultimates; and He who is in firsts and in ultimates also governs intermediates, thus all things. These things are said of the Lord's Divine Human, for they are said of Jesus Christ, by which name His Divine Human is meant (See above, n. 26). By means of this the Lord is in firsts and in ultimates. But that He governs all things from firsts through ultimates, is an arcanum that cannot as yet be perceived by man; for man knows nothing of the successive degrees into which the heavens are divided, and into which also the interiors of man are divided; and he scarcely knows that man as to flesh and bones is in his ultimates. Neither does he perceive how intermediates are governed from firsts through ultimates; and yet in order that He might thus govern all things, the Lord came into the world that even to ultimates, that is, even to flesh and bones, He might assume the Human and glorify it, that is, make it Divine. That the Lord put on such a Human, and took it with Him into heaven, is known in the church from this, that He left nothing of His body in the sepulcher; also from His own words to His disciples:

See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye behold Me having (Luke 24:39).

By this Human, therefore, the Lord is in ultimates; and by making even these ultimates Divine, He put Himself into the Divine power of governing all things from firsts through ultimates. If the Lord had not done this, the human race on this earth would have perished in eternal death. But this arcanum is not carried further because more must be known whereby an idea of the Divine government from firsts through ultimates may be formed and acquired. (Yet some thing may come into the understanding from what is shown in the Arcana Coelestia, namely, that interior things flow in successively into external things, even into what is extreme or ultimate, and that there they have existence and subsistence, n. 634, 6239, 6465, 9216-9217; that interior things not only flow in successively, but they also form what is simultaneous in the ultimate, and in what order, n. 5897, 6451, 8603, 10099; therefore, that all interior things are held together in connection, from what is first by means of what is ultimate n. 9828, and in the work on Heaven and Hell 297; that from this there is strength and power in ultimates, n. 9836; that from this also what is ultimate is more holy than what is interior, n. 9824; that from this "the first and last [or ultimate]" signify all things, n. 10044, 10329, 10335. On the successive degrees into which the heavens are divided, and into which also the interiors of man are divided, see the work on Heaven and Hell 38.) It is said also, that the Lord is "Beginning and End," and by this is meant that He is from eternity to eternity; but neither can this be explained to the apprehension further than has been done above n. 23 which see.