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Genesis 1:28

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28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #300

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300. As regards the first arcanum, that 'Jehovah God' is used to mean the Lord and at the same time heaven, it should be recognized that in the Word, always for some hidden reason, the Lord is sometimes called simply Jehovah, sometimes Jehovah God, sometimes Jehovah and God interchangeably, sometimes the Lord Jehovah, sometimes the God of Israel, and sometimes simply God. In Genesis 1, for example, where again an utterance is made in the plural, 'Let Us make man in Our image', God is the only name used. Not until the next chapter, where the celestial man is the subject, is He called Jehovah God-Jehovah, because He alone has Being and is Living, and so from His essence; God, because of His ability to accomplish all things, and so from His power, as is clear in the Word where the two names are used separately, Isaiah 49:4-5; 55:7; Psalms 18:2, 28, 30-31; Psalms 38:15. Consequently any angel or spirit who spoke to a person, or who people thought had the ability to accomplish something, they called God, as is clear in David,

God stands in the assembly of God, in the midst of the Gods will He judge. Psalms 82:1.

And elsewhere in David,

Who in the sky will be compared to Jehovah? Who will be likened to Jehovah among the sons of gods? Psalms 89:6.

And elsewhere in the same,

Confess the God of Gods; confess the Lord of lords. Psalms 136:2-3

It is from power that even men are called 'gods', as in Psalms 82:6; John 10:34-35. And Moses is spoken of as 'a god to Pharaoh', Exodus 7:1. And this also is why [in Hebrew] the word for God, Elohim, is plural. But because angels have no power whatsoever from themselves, as they themselves also confess, but from the Lord only, and as there is but one God, Jehovah God is therefore used in the Word to mean the Lord alone. Yet when anything is accomplished through the ministry of angels He is spoken of in the plural, as in Genesis 1. In the present chapter too, since a celestial man, as man, did not bear comparison with the Lord, but with angels, it is therefore said that 'the man has become as one of Us in knowing good and evil', that is, become someone wise and having intelligence.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #9467

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9467. 'And purple' means the celestial love of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'purple' as the celestial love of good, the reason why this love is meant by 'purple' being that by the colour red the good of celestial love is meant. For there are two basic colours from which all others are derived, the colour red and the colour white. The colour red means good which belongs to love, while the colour white means truth which belongs to faith. The reason why red means good belonging to love is that this colour exists before all else as fire, and fire means the good of love; and the reason why white means truth belonging to faith is that before all else that colour is light, and light means the truth of faith.

'Fire' means the good of love, see 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324, 9434.

'Light' means the truth of faith, 2776, 3195, 3636, 3643, 3993, 4302, 4413, 4415, 5400, 8644, 8707, 8861, 9399, 9407.

'Red' means the good of love, 3300.

'White' means the truth of faith, 3993, 4007, 5319.

[2] From all this it is evident what all other colours mean; for in the measure that they are derived from red they mean good belonging to love, and in the measure that they are derived from white they mean truth belonging to faith. All the colours that appear in heaven are modifications of heavenly light and flame, on those two levels. For heavenly light is real light; and essentially it is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good. Therefore modifications of that light and flame are different variations of truth and good, and so of intelligence and wisdom.

[3] All this now shows how it came about that the veils and curtains of the tent, and also Aaron's garments, were to be woven out of violet, purple, twice-dyed scarlet, and linen thread, Exodus 25:4; 26:31, 36; 27:16; 28:6, 15, namely in order that celestial realities belonging to good and spiritual realities belonging to truth, which are the subject in what follows below, might be represented by them.

[4] Good from a celestial origin is again meant by 'purple' in Ezekiel,

Fine linen with embroidered work from Egypt was your sail; violet and purple from the islands of Elishah was your covering. Ezekiel 27:7.

This refers to Tyre, by which cognitions or knowledge of truth and good are meant. 'Violet and purple covering' stands for cognitions of truth and good from a heavenly origin.

[5] Similar things are meant by 'purple and fine linen' in Luke,

There was a certain rich man (homo) who was clothed in purple and fine linen and indulged in delicacies splendidly every day. Luke 16:19.

'A rich man' is used to mean in the internal sense the Jewish nation, and the Church there, which was said to be 'rich' because of the cognitions or knowledge of good and truth from the Word which existed there. Garments of 'purple and fine linen' are those cognitions, 'of purple' meaning cognitions of good, and 'of fine linen' cognitions of truth, both from a heavenly origin because they come from the Divine. 'Purple' also has a similar meaning in the Book of Revelation,

The woman sitting on a scarlet beast was clothed in purple and scarlet. Revelation 17:3-4.

This refers to Babylon, which means the Church where the holy things of the Word are put to unholy ends, that is, to exercising control in heaven and on earth, and so to ends that spring from hellish self-love and love of the world.

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