The Bible

 

Genesis 1

Study

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God's Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

3 God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.

5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." There was evening and there was morning, one day.

6 God said, "Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."

7 God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

8 God called the expanse "sky." There was evening and there was morning, a second day.

9 God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;" and it was so.

10 God called the dry land "earth," and the gathering together of the waters he called "seas." God saw that it was good.

11 God said, "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth;" and it was so.

12 The earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.

13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

14 God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;

15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth;" and it was so.

16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth,

18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.

19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

20 God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky."

21 God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.

22 God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

24 God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;" and it was so.

25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.

26 God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

27 God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

29 God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.

30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;" and it was so.

31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #194

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

194. 9. This transformation is accomplished by the wife in secret ways, which is what is meant by woman's having been created while the man slept. We read in the book of creation that Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam so that he slept, and that He then took one of the man's ribs and fashioned it into a woman (Genesis 2:21-22). This sleep and the man's sleeping symbolize a man's complete ignorance that his wife is transformed and, so to speak, created from him. This is apparent from observations made in the preceding chapter, and also in this one, respecting wives' innate discretion and prudence not to divulge anything of their love, not even of their adopting their husband's life's affections and of their thus transfusing his wisdom into them. It is clear from what we presented before in nos. 166-168ff that a wife does this without her husband's knowing and while he is, so to speak, asleep, thus that she does it in secret ways. We also showed in the same numbers that the prudence needed to accomplish it is instinctive in women from creation, thus from birth, for reasons that are necessary in building conjugial love, friendship and trust, so that the two may have bliss in living together and happiness of life.

In order that this may come about as it should, therefore, it was enjoined on man that he leave father and mother and cling to his wife(Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4-5).

[2] The father and mother a man is to leave mean, in a spiritual sense, the inherent nature of his will and the inherent nature of his intellect (the inherent nature of a person's will being to love itself, and the inherent nature of a person's intellect being to love its own wisdom). And to cling means to commit himself to love of his wife. These two inherent natures are evil and deadly to a man if they remain in him, but the love arising from the two is turned into conjugial love as a man clings to his wife, that is, as he acquires a love for her, as may be seen just above in no. 193, and elsewhere.

(It can be amply demonstrated from passages elsewhere in the Word that to be asleep symbolically means to be unaware or oblivious; that father and mother symbolically mean the two inherent natures of a person, one of the will and one of the intellect; and that to cling symbolically means to commit oneself to love for something. But it would be out of place to do it here.)

  
/ 535  
  

Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.