1044. And it will serve as a sign of the pact between me and the earth means an indication of the Lord's presence in charity, and the earth here means human selfhood, as statements above show [§§1036, 1038]. The symbolism of the earth as human selfhood can be seen from the inner meaning, too, and also from the sequence of thoughts. Earlier the text said, "This is the sign of the pact between me and you and every living soul that is with you," which symbolizes whatever has been reborn. Here, however, the phrasing changes: "It will serve as a sign of the pact between me and the earth." The change — and the repetition of the sign of the pact as well — shows that the present verse has another meaning. It shows, in fact, that the earth is that which has not been reborn and cannot be reborn, and this is human self-will.

[2] So far as their intellectual side goes, regenerate people are the Lord's, but so far as their voluntary side goes, they are their own. These two sides in a spiritual person are opposed to each other, but although a person's voluntary part is opposed, its presence is still unavoidable. All the darkness in spiritual people's intellectual part, all the thickening of their cloud, comes from the will side. The darkness constantly streams in from their will side, and the more it does, the more the cloud in their intellectual part thickens. On the other hand, the more the darkness withdraws, the more the cloud thins. That is the reason the earth in this case symbolizes human selfhood. (It was shown earlier that the earth symbolizes our bodily concerns and much else besides [§§16, 17, 28, 29, 82, 566, 620, 662, 800, 895].)

[3] The situation resembles that of two people who were once bound together in a pact of friendship, as will and intellect were among the people of the earliest church. When the friendship breaks down and enmity arises — as it did when humanity completely perverted its power of will — and a new pact is entered into, the hostile party then takes center stage, as if it were the party with which the pact had been struck. The pact is not with this side of our mind, however (since it is diametrically opposed and contrary), but with what streams from it, as noted earlier [§1023] — with intellectual selfhood, that is. The sign or indication of the pact is this: the larger the Lord's presence in our intellectual selfhood, the more remote our self-will.

The case is just like that of heaven and hell. A regenerate person's intellectual half is heaven because of the charity in which the Lord is present. But such a person's will side is hell. The more present the Lord is in heaven, the more hell moves away. When we depend on ourselves, we are in hell. When we depend on the Lord, we are in heaven and are always being lifted up from hell into heaven. The higher we rise, the greater the distance between us and our hell.

The sign or indication that the Lord is present, then, is the withdrawal of our own will. Times of trial and many other means of regeneration work to distance it.

800. The meaning of all flesh creeping on the earth passed away as the fact that those who belonged to the final generation of the earliest church died out can be seen from later sections that describe their delusions and desires [§§803, 806, 808].

Here for the first time they are called flesh creeping on the earth, because they became obsessed with sensory and bodily matters. The earliest people compared sense impressions and bodily concerns to creeping animals, as noted earlier [§§195-197], so that when the text mentions flesh creeping on the earth, it symbolizes the kind of people who have become entirely absorbed in what is sensory and bodily.

Previous statements and evidence [§574] have shown that flesh symbolizes everyone, when used in a broad sense, and body-centered people, when used in a narrow sense.

195. The earliest people did not compare various human traits to animals and birds but called them such. That was their manner of speaking. This practice persisted in the ancient church, which came after the Flood, and the [Old Testament] prophets perpetuated it.

Snakes was their word for a person's sensory abilities. This was because sense impressions rise directly out of the body, just as snakes lie directly on the ground. Those people referred to false logic concerning the mysteries of faith, when it sprang from sense impressions, as snake venom, and they called the logicians themselves snakes. People who employ this kind of logic spend much time constructing arguments based on things they can sense and specifically on things they can see — things of the earth, their body, the world, and nature — and that is why the snake was described as being crafty above every wild animal of the field.

[2] David uses similar words:

They sharpen their tongue like a snake; the venom of an asp is on their lips. (Psalms 140:3, 4, 5)

This speaks of people who beguile others with their false reasoning. In the same author:

They go astray from the womb, speaking a lie; they have venom like the venom of a snake. Like a deaf poison asp, they stop up their ear so as not to hear the voice of those who murmur, of a sage who associates in societies. ¹ (Psalms 58:3, 4, 5)

The snake venom refers to specious arguments, which tend to prevent people from even listening to anything wise — the "voice of a sage." That is the source of a customary saying among the ancients that a snake would stop up its ear. ² In Amos:

... as if you come into the house and lean your hand on the wall and a snake bites you. Is the day of Jehovah not shadow and lack of light? And is there not darkness and lack of radiance on it? (Amos 5:19-20)

The hand on the wall stands for our independent powers and for confidence in the evidence of our senses. These cause blindness, as described.

[3] In Jeremiah:

The sound of Egypt will travel like a snake, because they will travel in strength and come with axes against her, as if they were woodcutters. "Let them cut down her forest," says Jehovah, "because it will not be explored. For they have become more numerous than locusts and there is no counting them. The daughter of Egypt has been shamed; she will be delivered into the hand of the people of the north." (Jeremiah 46:20, 22-23, 24)

Egypt stands for sophistry about divine subjects based on physical sensation and factual knowledge. Sophistic arguments are called the sound of a snake, and the blindness that results is symbolized by the people of the north. In Job:

They will suck the venom of asps; the tongue of a viper will kill them. They will not see torrents, streaming rivers of honey and butter. (Job 20:16-17)

Rivers of honey and butter are spiritual and heavenly qualities, which reasoners "will not see." Their arguments are called the venom of asps and the tongue of a viper. For more on the meaning of a snake, see below at verses 14-15 [§§242-251, 254, 257-259].

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