The Bible

 

Genesis 1:30

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30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Commentary

 

Beginning

  
Photo by Jenny Stein

Spiritually, "beginning" happens when we first start new growth -- new levels of awareness and willingness to receive goods and truths from the Lord, and use them. In the Word, "beginning" doesn't just mean the beginning of something in time. In the inner sense, it means the initial phase of a spiritual state.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #8400

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8400. 'On the fifteenth day of the second month' means this state considered in relation ... This is clear from the meaning of the number 'fifteen', from the meaning of 'day', and from the meaning of 'month'. 'Month' means the end of the previous state and the beginning of the next, thus a new state, 3814; 'day' means a state in general, 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788, 3462, 3785, 4850, 7680, and 'the fifteenth' means that which is new. For 'fourteen days' or two weeks mean a whole period or state from the beginning to the end of it, 728, 2044, 3845; 'fifteen' therefore means something new, in this instance newness of life, meant by the manna which they received from heaven, 'manna' being the good of truth, which is the life of a spiritual person. Fifteen is similar in meaning to eight, because the eighth day is the first day of a following week. For the meaning of 'the eighth day' as any beginning whatever, thus something new that is distinct and separate from what has gone before, see 2044, 2866; and for the fact that all numbers in the Word have spiritual realities as their meaning, 482, 487, 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, 3252, 4264, 4495, 4670, 5265, 6175.

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