The Bible

 

Genesis 1:9

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9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #3622

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3622. 'Like these of the daughters of the land' means because they are not from that ground, that is, from truths which the genuine Church knows. This is clear from the meaning of 'the daughters of the land' as Churches, for 'the daughters' means affections for good and truth, 2363, and 'the land' means the region where the Church is situated, and so means the Church itself, dealt with in 662, 1066, 1067, 1262, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 2928, 3355. 'The daughters of the land' accordingly means the goods and truths of the Church.

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

Commentary

 

Heaven

  
The Plains of Heaven, by John Martin

Heaven" and "heavens" are used many times in the Bible, with a couple of variations of meaning. Sometimes it is relatively literal, including times when the Lord is identified with it (“Our Father, who art in the heavens,” for instance), meaning heaven as the eternal home for people who chose to do what is good in this life and let the Lord lead them to a love of being good. In other references, particularly when it is paired with “earth” or other lesser ideas (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” for instance), “heaven” or “heavens” means our internal life as opposed to our external life. In a way, these two meanings are really the same. If you think about the importance of your deepest thoughts and feelings, you can see that they are the “real” you, much more so than your body is. The relationship between the spiritual world and the natural world is similar; the spiritual world is the “real” one, and controls the natural world the same way our thoughts and feeling control our actions. So in both cases, “heaven” describes a deeper reality that we will enter fully after we die.

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This video is a product of the New Christian Bible Study Corporation. Follow this link for more information and more explanations - text, pictures, audio files, and videos: www.newchristianbiblestudy.org