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

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #287

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287. We can also tell that love and wisdom are human by looking at heaven's angels, who are people in full beauty to the extent that they are caught up in love, and therefore in wisdom, from the Lord. The same conclusion follows from what it says in the Word about Adam's being created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), because he was created in the form of love and wisdom.

All earthly individuals are born in the human form as to their physical bodies. This is because our spirit, which is also called our soul, is a person; and it is a person because it is receptive of love and wisdom from the Lord. To the extent that our spirit or soul actually accepts love and wisdom, we become human after the death of these material bodies that we are carrying around. To the extent that we do not accept love and wisdom we become grotesque creatures, retaining some trace of humanity because of our ability to accept them.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #9842

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9842. 'And engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel' means on which the truths and forms of good that belong to the spiritual kingdom - the entire essential nature of them - have been imprinted. This is clear from the meaning of 'engraving on stones' as imprinting on the memory, dealt with immediately above in 9841; from the meaning of 'the names' as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009, 6674; and from the representation of 'the sons of Israel' as all the truths and forms of good that belong to the spiritual kingdom. 'The sons of Israel' here is used to denote the twelve tribes, for it was these - the names of the tribes - that were engraved on those stones, and the twelve tribes mean all the truths and forms of good in their entirety, 3858, 3926, 3939, 4060, 6335, 6337. And since these are what constitute the Church or heaven, the Church and the Lord's spiritual kingdom are meant by 'the sons of Israel', 4286, 6426, 6637, 7836, 7891, 7996, 7997, 9340. From all this it is evident that 'you shall engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel' means an imprinting on the memory of the entire essential nature of the truths and forms of good that belong to the spiritual kingdom, or an imprinting of the truths and forms of good of that kingdom as to their entire essential nature.

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