The Bible

 

Genesis 1:27

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27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #22

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22. Verse 5 And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.

What 'evening' means, and what 'morning', is recognized from what is said above. 'Evening' means every prior state, because it is a state of shade, that is, of falsity and of absence of faith, while 'morning' is every subsequent state, because it is one of light, that is, of truth and of cognitions of faith. 'Evening' in general means all the things that are man's own, whereas 'morning' means all those that are the Lord's, as is said through David,

The Spirit of Jehovah has spoken within me, and His word is upon my tongue. The God of Israel has said, the Rock of Israel has spoken to me. He is like the morning light, when the sun is rising on a cloudless morning, shining bright, as when after rain tender grass [springs up] from the earth. 2 Samuel 23:4.

Because 'evening' is a time when there is no faith, and 'morning' when there is, the Lord's Coming into the world is called 'the morning', and the time at which He comes, since faith does not exist at that point, is called 'the evening', as in Daniel,

The Holy One said to me, Up to the evening when it is becoming morning, two thousand three hundred times. Daniel 8:13-14.

In the Word, 'morning' stands in a similar way for every coming of the Lord, and so is a term describing the new creation.

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

Commentary

 

Give

  
"Ahimelech Giving the Sword of Goliath to David" by Aert de Gelder

Like other common verbs, the meaning of "give" in the Bible is affected by context: who is giving what to whom? In general, though, giving relates to the fact that the Lord provides us all with true teachings for our minds and desires for good in our hearts, and for the fact that we need to accept those gifts while acknowledging that they come from the Lord, and not from ourselves. One of the most common and significant uses of "give" in the Bible is the repeated statement that the Lord had given the land of Canaan to the people of Israel. This springs from the fact that Canaan represents heaven, and illustrates that the Lord created us all for heaven and will give us heaven if we will accept the gift.