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:

109. That for all their appearance in man wisdom and intelligence belong, as has been said, to the Lord alone is plainly stated by means of similar representatives in Ezekiel,

Behold, waters were issuing from below the threshold of the House towards the east, for the House faced eastwards. And He said, These waters are issuing out to the boundary towards the east; and they go down over the plain and come to the sea. Having been brought into the sea, the waters will be healed. And it will happen that every living creature ¹ that creeps, even to everything to which the water of the rivers comes, will live. And beside the river there will rise up upon its bank, on this side and on that, every tree for food. Its leaf ² will not wither, and its fruit will not fail; it is reborn monthly, for these its waters flow out from the Sanctuary, and its fruits will be for food and its leaf for medicine. Ezekiel 47:1, 8-9, 12.

Here the Lord is meant by 'the east' and also by 'the Sanctuary from which waters and rivers flowed forth'. Similarly in John,

He showed me a pure river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and of the river, on this side and on that, was the tree of life bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaf of the tree was for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:1-2.

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