55. Verse 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, ¹ and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.

Because the most ancient people applied the term Marriage to understanding and will, or faith and love, when joined together, they gave the name Fruitfulness to any good resulting from that marriage, and Multiplication to any truth. For this reason similar expressions occur in the Prophets, as in Ezekiel,

I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they will multiply and be fruitful, and I will resettle you ² to be as in your ancient times, and I will bless you more than in your former times, and you will know that I am Jehovah, and I will cause man to walk upon you, even My people Israel. Ezekiel 36:8-11.

Here 'man' is used to mean the spiritual man, who is also called Israel, 'ancient times' the Most Ancient Church, 'former times' the Ancient Church which came after the Flood. The reason why 'multiplying', which relates to truth, comes first and why 'being fruitful', which relates to good, follows is that the subject is the person who is to be regenerated, not one who has been regenerated.

[2] When the understanding is coupled to the will, or faith to love, the individual is called by the Lord in Isaiah 'a married land',

Your land will no more be called Desolate, but you will be named My-good-pleasure-is-in-her, and your land, Married; for Jehovah will take His pleasure in you, and your land will be married. Isaiah 62:4.

The resulting fruits which are matters of truth are called 'sons', and the fruits which are matters of good are called 'daughters'. This recurs very frequently in the Word.

[3] The earth is 'being filled' when there are many goods and truths, for when the Lord is 'blessing' and 'saying' - that is, when He is at work - the increase of good and truth is limitless, as the Lord says,

The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is indeed the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of all plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air ³ come and nest in its branches. Matthew 13:31-32.

'A grain of mustard seed' is the good a person has before he becomes spiritual. It is 'the smallest of all seeds' because he imagines that he himself is the source of the good he does. In reality what he does of himself is nothing but evil, yet because he is in a state of being regenerated there is some element of good, though it is quite 'the smallest of all'. Later on when faith is being joined to love it grows larger and becomes 'a plant'. Once it has finally been joined to love it develops into a tree, and at that point 'the birds of the air, ³ which here are truths or intellectual concepts, 'nest in its branches', which are facts.

[4] A person is involved in conflict not only when becoming spiritual, but also when he is spiritual. Hence the statement, 'Subdue the earth, and have dominion over it'.

Footnotes:

2256. That 'as to make the righteous die with the wicked, so that the righteous will be as the wicked' means that good cannot die, because evil can be separated from it, is clear from the meaning of 'the righteous' as good and of 'the wicked' as evil, dealt with above in 2250. From this 'to make the righteous die with the wicked' means making good perish with evil; but because this ought never to be done, and also because the very thought of it evokes horror, it is removed in the internal sense, and the following is at the same time presented - that good cannot die, because evil can be separated from it.

[2] The implications of this particular matter are known to few, if any. It has to be recognized that all the good whatever that a person has thought and done from earliest childhood through to the very end of his life remains; and the same applies to all the evil, so much so that not even the least trace of it completely perishes. All that good and evil is written in his book of life, that is, in each of his memories, ¹ and in his true self, that is, in his character and disposition. From that good and evil he has formed a life for himself and, so to speak, a soul, the essential nature of which remains unchanged after death. But goods are never so mixed up with evils, nor evils with goods, that they cannot be separated; for if they were so mixed a person would perish for ever. The Lord sees to it that they are not. If he has led a life abiding in the goods of love and charity, then when a person enters the next life the Lord separates the evils, and by means of the goods present with him raises him into heaven. But if he has led a life immersed in evils, that is to say, in things contrary to love and charity, the Lord separates the goods from him, and his evils carry him into hell. Such is the experience of everyone after death. But it is a separation and in no way a complete removal.

[3] What is more, because the will of man, which constitutes the one part of his life, has been utterly destroyed, the Lord separates that destroyed part from the other part, which is that of his understanding, and in this other part He implants - in the case of those who are being regenerated - the good of charity and through this a new will. These are they who have conscience. In the same manner also the Lord in general separates evil from good. Such are the arcana that are meant in the internal sense by the statement that good cannot die, because evil can be separated from it.

Footnotes: