1025. The symbolism of with your seed after you as those who are created anew can be seen from the symbolism of seed and from subsequent verses.
From the symbolism of seed: Seed on a literal level means descendants, but in an inner sense it means faith. And since no faith exists except where there is charity (as stated many times before [§§32, 34, 345, 379, 585, 590, 628, 859, 863, 880, 896:2]) charity is what seed really means in an inner sense.
From subsequent verses: The text is obviously speaking not only of people inside the church but also of people outside it and so of the entire human race. Wherever charity exists — even in the nations farthest removed from the church — seed exists, because heavenly seed is charity. After all, none of us can do good on our own; all goodness is from the Lord. The good that people of non-Christian nations do comes from him too. (These nations will be discussed below [§§1032-1033, 2589-2605, 2861, 3263:2], with the Lord's divine mercy.)
Section 255 above showed that God's seed is faith. Faith there and elsewhere means the charity that gives rise to faith, since no faith that really is faith can exist except the faith that comes of charity.
[2] This is also true in other places in the Word that mention seed. Where Abraham's, 1 Isaac's, or Jacob's seed is spoken of, for instance, it symbolizes love, or charity. Abraham represented heavenly love, and Isaac, spiritual love, both of them belonging to the inner self. Jacob represented the same things but in the outer self. The symbolism holds true not only in the prophetic books but also in the narratives, or histories. 2
Heaven does not notice the Word's story line, only the things that the narrative details symbolize. The Word was written not just for us but also for angels. When we read the Word, taking it solely at face value, the angels grasp not the literal but the inner meaning. The mental images we form when reading the Word, tied as they are to matter, to the world, and to our bodies, turn into spirit- and heaven-oriented ideas among the angels. When we read about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for example, angels never think about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but about the attributes they represent and therefore symbolize.
[3] The case is similar with Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Of these individuals the angels are unaware; all that comes to their minds is the ancient church. With angels who are on a deeper level, it is not even that church but its faith that comes to mind, and also the state of the affairs being discussed, as seen in context.
Likewise when the Word mentions seed. Here, for instance, in speaking of Noah [and his sons], it says that a pact would be set up with them and with their seed after them. Angels do not picture those people's posterity — since there was no Noah, this being merely a name for the ancient church — but take seed to mean love for others, which was the essential component of faith in that church. 3 Again, where the narratives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob mention their seed, angels never take it to mean their personal descendants. They take it as speaking of everyone throughout the world whether inside or outside the church in whom heavenly seed (or charity) lodges. Angels at the deeper levels, in fact, perceive the actual love that is heavenly seed, without any reference to people.
[4] The following places indicate that seed symbolizes love, as well as everyone who possesses love. In a passage speaking of Abram:
Jehovah said, "To your seed I will give this land." (Genesis 12:7)
Again:
All the land that you see, to you I will give it, and to your seed, forever. And I will make your seed like the dust of the earth. (Genesis 13:15-16)
People who focus on the literal meaning have no idea that seed does not mean Abram's descendants or that the land does not mean the land of Canaan, especially because that land was indeed given to his descendants. People who focus on the inner meaning, though, as the whole of heaven does, see nothing else in Abram's seed than love, or in the land of Canaan than the Lord's kingdom in heaven and on earth. All they see in the gift of the land to those descendants is a representative meaning, which will be treated of elsewhere [§§1445-1448, 1606-1610], by the Lord's divine mercy. Again, in another place that speaks of Abram:
Jehovah led him outside and said, "Look up, now, toward the sky and count the stars, if you can count them;" and he said to him, "So will your seed be." (Genesis 15:5)
Here too, since Abram represented love, or the kind of faith that saves us, in the inner sense his seed means no other descendants than everyone in the whole world who is under love's influence.
[5] Likewise:
I will set up my pact between me and you and your seed after you, and I will give you and your seed after you the land of your travels — all the land of Canaan — as an eternal possession; and I will become their God. This is my pact that you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you: that every male be circumcised to you. (Genesis 17:7-8, 10)
Once more, setting up a pact symbolizes the Lord's close connection, through love, with people throughout the world, and that love was represented by Abram. This shows what Abram's seed symbolizes: everyone in the whole world who is governed by love. The pact consisted in circumcision (the subject of the passage), which heaven never takes as circumcision of flesh but as circumcision of the heart — and this is the circumcision of people governed by love. Circumcision was a practice that represented rebirth through love, as Moses clearly explains:
Jehovah God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, [to cause you] to love Jehovah your God with all your heart and all your soul, so that you will live. (Deuteronomy 30:6)
These words show what the inner meaning of circumcision is. Wherever circumcision is mentioned, it simply means love and charity and consequently life.
[6] The symbolism of Abraham's seed as everyone throughout the world who has love is also demonstrated by the Lord's words to Abraham and to Isaac. To Abraham (after he had shown his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, as commanded):
I will surely bless you and surely multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and like the sand that is on the seashore, and your seed will inherit the gate of your foes, and in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. (Genesis 22:17-18)
In these verses it is obvious that seed means everyone everywhere who has love.
[7] Just as Abraham represented heavenly love, as noted, Isaac represented spiritual love. Isaac's seed, then, symbolizes nothing else than every person in whom spiritual love (charity) is found. These words describe such a person:
Reside as an immigrant in this land and I will be with you and bless you; because to you and your seed I will give all these lands. And I will confirm the oath that I swore to Abraham your father and will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens. And I will give your seed all these lands, and in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. (Genesis 26:3-4, 24)
It is evident that all the nations means those who live in charity. Heavenly love, represented by Abraham, is like the father of spiritual love, represented by Isaac, because spiritual things are born of heavenly ones, as already shown [§§775:2, 880:2].
[8] Jacob represented outward traits of the church springing from inner qualities. So he represented every trait of the outer self originating in love and charity. As a consequence, his seed symbolizes everyone in the whole world whose outward worship contains inward reverence and whose deeds of charity contain neighborly love from the Lord. This seed was mentioned to Jacob after he dreamed of the ladder:
I am Jehovah, God of Abraham your father and God of Isaac. The land on which you are lying, to you will I give it and to your seed, and your seed will be like the dust of the earth. And in you all the clans of the ground will be blessed, and in your seed. (Genesis 28:13-14; 32:12; 48:4)
[9] In addition to the passages in the Word that §255 above cites, the following indicate that seed has no other symbolism. In Isaiah:
You are Israel, my servant; Jacob, whom I have chosen; the seed of Abraham, my friend. (Isaiah 41:8)
This verse is talking about our regeneration, and it distinguishes Israel and Jacob, as so many other places do. Israel symbolizes the inner spiritual church, and Jacob, the outer part of that church. Both are called the seed of Abraham, that is, of the heavenly church, because heavenly, spiritual, and earthly elements come one after the other. In Jeremiah:
I had planted you as a superior grapevine through and through, the seed of truth. How could you turn into the degenerate [stems] of a foreign grapevine before my eyes? (Jeremiah 2:21)
This is about the spiritual church, which is the superior grapevine and whose charity — or faith rising out of charity — is called the seed of truth.
[10] In the same author:
As the army of the heavens cannot be counted and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so will I multiply the seed of David, my servant, and the Levites waiting on me. (Jeremiah 33:22)
Clearly the seed stands for heavenly seed, because David symbolizes the Lord. Everyone recognizes that David's seed was not the uncountable army of the heavens or the immeasurable sand of the sea. In the same author:
"Look! The days are coming," says Jehovah, "when I will raise up for David a just offshoot, and he will reign as monarch. He will act with understanding and exercise judgment and justice in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live securely. And this is his name that they will call him: Jehovah our justice. So look! The days are coming," says Jehovah, "when they will no longer say, ‘As Jehovah lives, who summoned up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,' but ‘As Jehovah lives, who summoned up and who withdrew the seed of the house of Israel from the land of the north.'" (Jeremiah 23:5-6, 7-8)
In this passage, very different things are meant than those that appear in the letter. David does not mean David nor Judah Judah nor Israel Israel, but David means the Lord, Judah means a heavenly quality, and Israel means a spiritual one. Accordingly, the seed of Israel means those who have charity, or the faith that rises out of charity.
[11] In David:
You who fear Jehovah, praise him. All you seed of Jacob, give him glory. Be afraid of him, all you seed of Israel. (Psalms 22:23-24)
Here too the seed of Israel means no other kind of seed than the spiritual church. In Isaiah:
Its stump will be holy seed. (Isaiah 6:13)
This stands for remaining traces [of goodness and truth], which are holy because they are the Lord's. In the same author:
From Jacob I will bring forth seed, and from Judah, one to own my mountains; and the ones I have chosen will own it, and my servants will live there. (Isaiah 65:9)
This is about the heavenly church, both outer and inner. In the same author:
They will not bear children for turmoil. They are the seed of those blessed by Jehovah, as are their children with them. (Isaiah 65:23)
This is about the new heavens and the new earth, that is, the Lord's kingdom. The people in it, born or rather reborn of love, are called the seed of those blessed by Jehovah.
Footnotes:
1. Abraham is the later name of Abram (see Genesis 17:5; see also note 1 in §1545). In the present section and throughout this volume Swedenborg uses both spellings more or less interchangeably. [Editors]
2. For what is meant by "the prophetic books" and "the narratives, or histories," see note 1 in §64. [Editors]
3. Swedenborg echoes much of the esoteric Christian tradition, which has long held that a large part of the Bible is symbolically true and, further, that in many places it has little or no literal truth: as Swedenborg says here, "there was no Noah." Compare Origen's discussion of the Genesis creation story in his First Principles:
Who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, "planted a paradise eastward in Eden," and set in it a visible and palpable "tree of life," of such a sort that anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life: and again that one could partake of "good and evil" by masticating the fruit taken from the tree of that name? And when God is said to "walk in the paradise in the cool of the day" and Adam to hide himself behind a tree, I do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual events. (Origen On First Principles, book 4 chapter 3, in Origen 1966, 288)
And compare in turn Swedenborg's comment in §1222: "The Word's inner meaning is such that we ignore the narrative details of the literal sense when focusing on universal themes abstracted from that sense, because the two meanings concern themselves with entirely different matters." See also note 6 in §1401. [RS]
