Arcana Coelestia #42
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:
1. The Latin means your; but the Hebrew means his which Swedenborg has in other places where he quotes this verse.
2. i.e. a serpent that is on the move and not coiled up
Exodus 1
1
Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, who came into Egypt (every man and his household came with Jacob):
2
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
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Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
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Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
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All the souls who came out of Jacob's body were seventy souls, and Joseph was in Egypt already.
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Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.
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The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
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Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn't know Joseph.
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He said to his people, "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we.
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Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies, and fight against us, and escape out of the land."
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Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.
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But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They were grieved because of the children of Israel.
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The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve,
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and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.
15
The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah,
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and he said, "When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."
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But the midwives feared God, and didn't do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive.
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The king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them, "Why have you done this thing, and have saved the boys alive?"
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The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women aren't like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous, and give birth before the midwife comes to them."
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God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty.
21
It happened, because the midwives feared God, that he gave them families.
22
Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive."
