435. As regards 'the man and his wife' here being used to mean the new Church which earlier on was meant by 'Adah and Zillah', this nobody can know or deduce from the sense of the letter, for previously 'the man (homo) and his wife' meant the Most Ancient Church and its descendants. The point is clear however from the internal sense, and also from the fact that a little further on, in verses 3-4 of the next chapter, reference is again made, though the wording is entirely different, to the man and his wife begetting Seth. At that point the first generation of the descendants of the Most Ancient Church is meant. Unless something different were meant at this point there would be no need to say the same thing again. A parallel to this exists in Chapter 1, where the subject is the creation of man, and also of the fruits of the earth, and of beasts; followed by Chapter 2, where similar events are described, the reason for the similarity being, as has been stated, that Chapter 1 deals with the creation of the spiritual man, Chapter 2 with the creation of the celestial man. When this kind of repetition of one and the same person or thing occurs, something different is meant on the first occasion from the second. But the exact meaning cannot possibly be known except from the internal sense. The actual train of thought in like manner establishes the meaning here. And there is the added consideration that 'man and wife' is a general expression meaning that Church, which is the subject here and from which the new Church was born.

10146. 'Before Jehovah' means from the Lord. This is clear from the consideration that 'Jehovah' in the Word is the Lord, see the places referred to in 9373. From the Lord is meant by 'before Jehovah' because 'before' means presence, and the Lord is present to the extent that good which belongs to love and truth which belongs to faith are received from Him. Consequently before the Lord means from the Lord. The Lord, it is true, is present with every individual person, yet the way in which He is present with the good is different from the way in which He is present with the evil. In the case of the good He is present in every detail of their thought springing from the truths of faith and in every detail of their desires springing from the good of love. He is present in such a way that He Himself constitutes their faith and He Himself constitutes their love. Therefore He is so to speak a resident within them, in keeping with the Lord's own words in John,

The Spirit of truth will remain with you and will be in you. And you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. We will come to him and make Our home with him. John 14:17-18, 20-21, 23.

[2] But in the case of those who are evil the Lord is not present in every detail, because they have no faith or charity. He is present in a general way, and this presence gives them the ability to think and will, and also to receive faith and charity so far as they refrain from evils. But so far as they do not refrain from them He seems to be absent. How far absent He seems to be depends on how far the truth and good of faith and love are absent. So it is that those in heaven experience His presence, and those in hell experience His absence.

[3] But the reality of the situation is not that the Lord is absent from man, rather that man is absent from the Lord. For a person ruled by evils looks backwards, away from Him, and the things then before his eyes are present within him according to their affinity with the evils that rule him. For in the next life space does not exist, only the appearance of space that accords with the network of thoughts and affections in a person. The situation in all this is just like that of the presence of the worldly sun so far as light and heat are concerned. The sun is equally present during every time and season; but when the planet turns away from the sun, the light fades and darkness descends, first the darkness of evening, then the darkness of night. And when the earth is not directly in line with the sun but at an angle, as happens in wintertime, the heat departs and cold sets in, as a consequence of which all things in the ground become inactive and die off. This too is called an absence of the sun, when in fact it is an absence of the planet from the sun, not spatially but so far as the conditions of light and heat are concerned. These phenomena have been mentioned to help to illustrate the matter.