1610. I will make your seed like the dust of the earth means multiplying beyond measure, as can be seen without explanation. This verse says that his seed would be made like the dust of the earth; other passages in the Word say "like the sand of the sea," or "like the stars of the heavens." ¹ Each has its own particular symbolism. The dust of the earth has to do with heavenly qualities, because the earth symbolizes the heavenly aspect of love, as shown earlier [§§620, 1413, 1437, 1585]. The sand of the sea has to do with spiritual qualities, because the sea symbolizes the spiritual aspect of love, as also shown. ² "Like the stars of the heavens" symbolizes both, in a higher degree. Because these items are incapable of being counted, it became customary to use them to express the idea of immeasurable reproducing and multiplying.

[2] The multiplying of the seed — the faith that comes of love, or love itself — beyond measure symbolizes the Lord in the highest sense. Specifically, it symbolizes his human quality, because the Lord's human quality is called the "seed of a woman," as discussed in §256. ³ And since the Lord's human quality is meant, multiplication beyond measure means infinite heavenliness and spirituality.

On the other hand, when seed symbolizes the faith that comes of charity (or charity itself) in the human race, the meaning is that the seed in each individual who lives a life of charity would multiply beyond measure. This actually happens in the other world to everyone who lives a life of neighborly love. Charity and the faith that results from charity, along with happiness, increase so abundantly in such people that it can be depicted only by something immeasurable and inexpressible.

When seed symbolizes the human race itself, its multiplication in the Lord's kingdom is again beyond measure and comes not only from people inside the church and their children but also from people outside the church and their children. As a result, the Lord's kingdom, or heaven, is immeasurable, as will be discussed elsewhere, the Lord in his divine mercy willing. ⁴

Footnotes:

994. Every creeping thing that is alive symbolizes any lower pleasure that contains some goodness, which is the living aspect. This can be seen from the symbolism of a creeping thing, discussed previously [§§44, 594, 674, 746, 800, 807, 909-911].

Anyone can see that the creeping things mean all clean animals and birds, because it says that they were supplied as food. Strictly speaking, creeping things are those that were the most contemptible of all (listed in Leviticus 11:23, 29-30) and unclean. In a wider sense, though — the sense used here — they are animals supplied as food. They are being called creeping things because creeping things symbolize lower pleasures. In the Word, clean animals symbolize our more tender emotional responses, as noted [§§45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 776, 987]; but since we are not aware of those responses except as revealed in our lower pleasures (so much so that we actually refer to them as pleasures), they are called creeping things here.

[2] There are two kinds of lower pleasures: those that involve the will and those that involve the intellect. These are the general types of pleasure: pleasure in owning property and having other wealth; the pleasure of rank and high office in government; pleasure connected with love in marriage and with love for babies and children; pleasure in friendship and social contact; the pleasure of reading, writing, learning, and growing in wisdom. And there are many others.

There are also pleasures of the senses. For instance there is auditory pleasure, which in general is pleasure in the sweetness of song and music; visual pleasure, which in general is pleasure in many different kinds of beauty; olfactory pleasure, which is pleasure in sweet scents; gustatory pleasure, which is pleasure in the wonderful flavor and useful qualities of food and drink; and tactile pleasure, which is pleasure in a variety of agreeable sensations.

These general kinds of gratification are felt in the body and so are called bodily pleasures, but the body never experiences any kind of pleasure unless the pleasure springs from some deeper emotion that also sustains it. And no deeper emotion ever exists unless it comes from one still deeper that holds within it a use and purpose.

[3] These layers of emotion that go deeper and deeper, all the way to our inmost reaches, are not something we sense while we are living in the body. Most people hardly even realize that they exist, let alone that the lower pleasures stem from them. In reality, though, nothing can emerge on the surface if it does not come from progressively deeper sources. Sensual gratification is only an outward effect. As long as we live in the body we cannot see what lies within, unless we reflect on it.

Deeper elements first reveal themselves in the next life, and they do so sequentially as the Lord lifts us up toward heaven. Inner emotions, with their satisfactions, reveal themselves in the world of spirits. Emotions yet deeper, with their delights, appear in the heaven of angelic spirits. And emotions yet deeper again, with their blessings, reveal themselves in the heaven of angels. (There are, indeed, three heavens, each deeper, more perfect, and more blessed than the last, as may be seen in §§459 and 684.)

These things unfold in order this way and disclose themselves to our awareness in the other world. But while we live in the body, since our whole focus and concentration is on bodily concerns, deeper elements are essentially put to sleep, being overwhelmed by those concerns. Still, the thoughtful individual can see that our pleasures all reflect the layered depths of our emotional responses and derive their whole existence and character from them.

[4] The progressively deeper layers of emotion are called creeping things because we experience them as pleasures that lie on the surface, in our body. But this is only a physical manifestation, the effect of inner processes, as anyone can see merely from the power of sight and the pleasures that accompany it. Unless there is an inner power of sight, the eye cannot possibly see. The vision of the eye arises from inner vision, ¹ for which reason we can still see just as well after the body's death as when we were alive in the body, and much better. We simply do not see what is worldly and material but rather what belongs to the other life. People who had been blind in physical life see as clearly in the next life as those who had been veritable Lynceuses. ² For the same reason, when we are asleep we see as well in our dreams as when we are awake. By means of inner sight, I have been allowed to see the objects of the next life more clearly than I can see the objects of the world.

These considerations establish the fact that outer sight arises from inner sight, and this from sight still deeper, and so on. Likewise with each of the other senses, and with all the lower pleasures.

[5] Other places in the Word as well call the lower pleasures creeping things, and those places also differentiate between clean and unclean ones — that is, between pleasures enjoyed in a living or heavenly way and pleasures enjoyed in a dead or hellish way. In Hosea, for example:

I will strike a pact with them on that day — with the wild animal of the field, and with the bird in the heavens and the creeping thing of the ground. (Hosea 2:18)

This passage demonstrates that the wild animal of the field, the bird in the heavens, and creeping things symbolize the kinds of things in us that I have already mentioned, since it is talking about a new church. In David:

Let the heavens and the earth, the seas and every creeping thing in them praise Jehovah. (Psalms 69:34)

The seas and the creeping things in them cannot praise Jehovah, only the living, human attributes they symbolize. That is to say, he can be praised only from the living quality of those attributes. In the same author:

Praise Jehovah, you wild animal and each of you beasts, you creeping thing and bird on the wing. (Psalms 148: [7,] 10)

The same is true here.

The fact that these passages use creeping things to mean positive emotions from which gratifications stem can also be seen from the consideration that creeping things were unclean to the people of that time. This will become evident from the following quotations.

[6] In the same author:

Jehovah, the earth is full of your possessions. This sea is large, and wide in its extent. In it is the creeping thing, and there is no counting them. They all look to you to give them their food in its season. You give to them; they gather. You open your hand; they receive abundant good. (Psalms 104:24-25, 27-28)

In the inner meaning, the seas symbolize spiritual entities, while the creeping things symbolize everything that receives its life from them. Giving them food in its season and receiving abundant good depict the enjoyment [of pleasure]. In Ezekiel:

And it will happen that every living soul that crawls in any place where the rivers go will survive; and the fish will be very numerous, because that water goes there and is cured, and everything will live, wherever the river goes. (Ezekiel 47:9)

This is about water flowing from a new Jerusalem. Water stands for spiritual traits from a heavenly origin. The living soul that crawls stands for positive desires and the gratifications they give rise to, both those that are personal and those that are sensory. The fact that these receive life from the water — from spiritual traits of heavenly origin — is obvious.

[7] Tainted pleasures, which trace their origin to self-absorption and so to the sordid cravings of self-absorption, are also called creeping things, as can be seen in Ezekiel:

And I went in and looked, and here, every shape of creeping thing and animal (an abhorrence) and all the idols of the house of Israel — a painting on the wall all around. (Ezekiel 8:10)

The shape of a creeping thing symbolizes foul pleasures, within which lie corrupt desires, within which again lie hatred, vengeance, cruelty, and adultery. Such urges are creeping things, or the thrill of a lower pleasure springing from love for ourselves and for worldly advantages, which is to say, from self-absorption. These are the idols of the self-absorbed, because these are the things they consider agreeable, love, view as gods, and therefore venerate. Because these creeping things symbolized such vile attributes, the representative church ³ deemed them so unclean that it was not permissible even to touch them, and anyone who did so much as touch them was unclean, as shown by Leviticus 5:2; 11:31-32, 33; 22:5-6.

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