Arcana Coelestia #911
911. As to “the creeping thing that creeps” signifying like corresponding things in the external man, the case is this. In the regenerated man external things correspond to internal things, that is, do their bidding. External things are reduced to obedience when man is being regenerated, and he then becomes an image of heaven. But before man has been regenerated, external things rule over internal, and he is then an image of hell. Order consists in celestial things ruling over spiritual things, through these over natural things, and through these over corporeal things; but when corporeal and natural things rule over spiritual and celestial things, order is destroyed, and then the man is an image of hell; and therefore the Lord restores order by means of regeneration, and then the man becomes an image of heaven. Thus does the Lord draw a man out of hell, and thus does He uplift him to heaven.
[2] A few words shall be said about the correspondence of the external man to the internal. Every regenerated man is a kind of little heaven, that is, he is an effigy or image of the universal heaven, and therefore in the Word his internal man is called “heaven.” There is such order in heaven that the Lord rules spiritual things through celestial things, and natural things through spiritual things, and in this way He rules the universal heaven as one man, for which reason heaven is called the Grand Man and there is the like order in everyone who is in heaven. Man too, when like this, is a little heaven, or, what is the same, he is a kingdom of the Lord, because the kingdom of the Lord is in him; and then in him external things correspond to internal, that is, they obey them, just as they do in heaven; for in the heavens (which are three, and all of which together stand related as one man) spirits constitute the external man, angelic spirits the interior man, and angels the internal man n. 459).
[3] It is the reverse with those who make life consist solely in corporeal things, that is, in cupidities, pleasures, appetites, and matters of sense, perceiving no delight other than that which is of the love of self and of the world, that is to say, which is of hatred against all who do not favor and serve them. With such, because corporeal and natural things rule over spiritual and celestial things, there is not only no correspondence or obedience of external things, but the very reverse, and thus order is utterly destroyed; and because order is so destroyed, they cannot be other than images of hell.
Genesis 8
1
God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.
2
The deep's fountains and the sky's windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained.
3
The waters receded from the earth continually. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters decreased.
4
The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat's mountains.
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The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
6
It happened at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,
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and he sent forth a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth.
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He sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground,
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but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him into the ship; for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship.
10
He stayed yet another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ship.
11
The dove came back to him at evening, and, behold, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth.
12
He stayed yet another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she didn't return to him any more.
13
It happened in the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dried.
14
In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
16
"Go out of the ship, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you.
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Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth."
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Noah went forth, with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives with him.
19
Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.
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Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
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Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, because the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again strike everything living, as I have done.
22
While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."
