16. Verse 1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The most ancient times of all are called 'the beginning', and are throughout the Prophets referred to as 'days of antiquity' and also 'days of eternity'. 'The beginning' also embodies within it that first Period when a person is being regenerated, for at that time he is being born anew and receiving life. Regeneration itself is therefore called a new creation of man. Almost everywhere in the prophetical sections 'to create', 'to form', and 'to make' mean to regenerate, though each of these verbs has a different shade of meaning, as in Isaiah,

Every one who is called by My name - I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, I have also made him. Isaiah 43:7

This is why the Lord is called Redeemer, One who forms from the womb, Maker, and also Creator, as in the same prophet,

I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Isaiah 43:15.

In David,

A people to be created will praise Jah. Psalms 102:18.

In the same author,

You send forth Your Spirit; they are created; and You renewest the face ¹ of the ground. Psalms 104:30.

'Heaven' means the internal man, and 'earth' the external man prior to regeneration. This will be seen further on.

Footnotes:

4551. 'And the jewels which were in their ears' means realized in actions. This is clear from the meaning of 'jewels' as symbols representative of obedience, for the reason that by 'the ears' is meant obedience, 2542, 3869, and acts of obedience are realizations in actions; for obeying implies carrying into action. Here the expression 'realized in actions' has reference to the falsities which were to be cast aside. But this matter of the casting aside of falsities, which are realized also in actions - the subject at this point in the internal sense - must be discussed briefly here. Before a person through being regenerated by the Lord arrives at good and is moved by good to do what is true, he possesses very many falsities mixed up with truths. Indeed he is led into regeneration by means of the truths of faith, about which in the first stage of life he has no ideas other than those learned in infancy and childhood. These ideas are formed from external things in the world and from the experiences of the physical senses, and therefore they cannot be anything but illusions and consequently falsities, which are also realized in actions; for what a person believes he puts into practice. It is these falsities that are meant here. They remain with him until he has been regenerated, that is, until good is the source of his actions. Once this is the situation, good - that is, the Lord by means of good - imposes order on the truths which he has learned up to then; and while this is being done the falsities are separated from the truths and taken away.

[2] A person is totally unaware of this happening to him, yet that kind of removal and casting aside of falsities is going on from earliest childhood to the last stage of his life. This activity goes on in everyone, but it does so in a particular manner in one who is being regenerated. In one who is not being regenerated a similar activity is taking place, for when he becomes grown up and he matures in judgement that belongs to that stage in life, he regards his childhood judgements as unintelligent and absurd, thus very far removed from what he now thinks. But the difference between one who is regenerate and one who is not is that the regenerate regards as being remote from his thinking those things which do not accord with the good of faith and charity, whereas the unregenerate regards as being remote from his thinking those which do not accord with the delight he takes in what he loves. The unregenerate therefore, for the most part, regards truths as falsities, and falsities as truths. As regards jewels there were two kinds - those fastened above the nose to the forehead and those fastened to the ears. Those fastened above the nose to the forehead were symbols representative of good and were called nose-jewels, dealt with in 3103, whereas those fastened to the ears were symbols representative of obedience and are ear-jewels. But in the original language the same word is used to describe both nose-jewel and ear-jewel.