Preface

THE first two volumes explained [the first] fifteen chapters of Genesis and said what is contained in their inner meaning. Attached to each chapter [in those volumes] was a record of what the Lord in his divine mercy has given me the opportunity to see and hear in the world of spirits and the heaven of angels. Now comes the third volume, which includes similar reports likewise attached to each chapter. The article appended to the present chapter, Genesis 16 [§§1966–1983], concerns visions and dreams (including prophetic dreams) in the Word.

I know few will believe that anyone can see into the other world or report from there on the state of souls after death, because few believe in the resurrection, and even fewer of the well-educated than of the naive. It is true that they say with their lips that they will rise again, because this accords with official theology, but they deny it at heart.

[2] Some even confess openly that they would believe it if someone were to rise from the dead and they were to see, hear, and touch the person. If this happened, though, it would be an isolated experience and would fail to convince those who at heart deny the resurrection. A thousand objections would occur to them and harden them in their negative frame of mind.

Some do claim to believe they will rise again, but on the day of the Last Judgment. The picture they have formed of this is that everything in the visible world will cease to exist on that day; and since they have been awaiting it in vain for so many centuries, they too are dubious. What is meant by the Last Judgment mentioned in the Word, however, will be summarized at the end of the next chapter, Genesis 17, the Lord in his divine mercy willing [§§2117–2133].

[3] These attitudes indicate what kind of people make up the Christian world today. The Sadducees told of in Matthew 22:23 and the verses that follow openly denied the resurrection, but they acted better than people today who deny it at heart but claim they do not (since it is the official teaching, as noted) Their words contradict their beliefs, and their beliefs contradict their words.

To prevent them from growing even more firmly entrenched in this misguided opinion, the Lord in his divine mercy has given me the privilege of experiencing the next world in spirit while bodily present in this world (since a human being is a spirit clothed with a body). There I have spoken with souls recently revived after death, and in fact with almost everyone I knew during physical life who had since died. Every day now for several years I have also talked with spirits and angels and seen astounding sights that it has never occurred to anyone to imagine. No illusion of any kind was involved.

[4] Many people say that if someone comes to them from the other life, they will believe, so we shall see now whether they can be persuaded despite their hard hearts.

This I can assert positively: People who come into the next life from the Christian world are the worst of all. They hate their neighbor, they hate the religion, they deny the Lord (since it is the heart rather than the mouth that does the talking in the other world), not to mention the fact that they are more adulterous than anyone else. Because heaven is starting to move away from people inside the church, then, clearly the last days are at hand, as I have learned for certain.

To learn about the identity and nature of the Word’s inner meaning, see the statements and illustrations in the first two volumes, §§1–5, 64, 65, 66, 167, 605, 920, 937, 1143, 1224, 1404, 1405, 1408, 1409, 1502 at the end, 1540, 1659, 1756, 1767–1777 and 1869–1879 (particularly), 1783, 1807; and in the present volume, §§1886–1889.

1886. Genesis 16

THIS chapter has to do with Hagar and Ishmael, but until now no one has recognized what they represent and symbolize on an inner level. No one could have recognized it, because so far the world (even the scholarly world) has supposed that the stories of the Word are mere narratives, with no deeper implications. They have said that every jot is divinely inspired, but they do not mean much by it. All they mean is that the contents have been revealed [by God] and that some amount of doctrine relevant to their theology can be drawn from it and used by teachers and students. Because the stories have been divinely inspired (the world reasons), they have divine force in people's minds and do them more good than any other history.

Taken at face value, however, the narratives do little to improve us. They have no effect at all on our eternal life, because in the other world historical detail is obliterated from memory. What good would it do us there to know about Hagar the slave, about the fact that Sarai gave her to Abram, about Ishmael, or even about Abram? In order to go to heaven and partake of its joy (that is, of eternal life), our souls need only what belongs to and comes from the Lord. This is what his Word is for, and this is what it contains in its depths.

1502. These remarks now make it clear that Abram's stay in Egypt simply represents and symbolizes the Lord, and specifically the education he received when he was young. The following saying of Hosea's offers further confirmation:

Out of Egypt I called my child. (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15)

Still further confirmation appears in the following words in Moses:

The residence of the children of Israel who resided in Egypt: four hundred thirty years. And it happened at the end of four hundred thirty years — and it happened on that same day — that all the armies of Jehovah left the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:40-41)

These years were counted not from the time of Jacob's entry into Egypt but from that of Abram's stay there, from which time four hundred thirty years had passed. ¹ So the child out of Egypt referred to in Hosea 11:1 symbolizes the Lord, in an inner sense.

Still further confirmation comes from the fact that in the Word, the sole function of "Egypt" is to symbolize scholarly learning, as shown in §§1164, 1165, 1462.

[2] The presence of these secrets can also be seen from the fact that similar things are said of Abram — that he called his wife his sister — during his stay in Philistia (Genesis 20:1-9). Similar things are said of Isaac as well — that he called his wife his sister — when he too stayed in Philistia (Genesis 26:6-13). These stories, involving almost the same circumstances, would never have been recounted in the Word if the kind of secrets mentioned had not lain hidden in them.

What is more, this is the Lord's Word, which has no life whatsoever in it if it does not contain an inner meaning that focuses on him.

[3] The secrets that lie buried here (and in the stories about Abram and Isaac in Philistia) tell how the Lord's human quality came together with his divine quality. Or, to say the same thing another way, they tell how the Lord became Jehovah down to his human nature as well. They also reveal that the process started when he was young, which is the subject here.

In addition, these verses involve much more hidden information than anyone could ever believe. The amount that can be expressed, however, is so small that it hardly amounts to anything. Besides the deep mysteries concerning the Lord, the chapter also includes secrets about our own education and rebirth as heavenly people, and about our education and rebirth as spiritual people. It deals with those processes as they occur not only in the individual specifically but also in the church generally. Then too it contains secrets about the education of children in heaven. In short, it describes the instruction of everyone who is becoming the Lord's image and likeness. These things show only in the inner meaning, not in the literal meaning, since the historical details overpower and eclipse them.

1164. The symbolism of Cush (that is, Ethiopia) as the deeper knowledge in the Word that we use to confirm false assumptions, can be seen in Jeremiah:

Egypt rises like a river, and like rivers its waters churn. And it has said, "I will go up; I will blanket the land; I will destroy the city and those living in it." Go up, horses, and run mad, chariots, and let your mighty men march out, Cush and Put, as you grasp your shield. (Jeremiah 46:8-9)

In this passage Egypt stands for those who believe nothing unless they can comprehend it in terms of the facts they know. This insistence renders everything doubtful, negative, and false, which is what going up, covering the land, and destroying the city is. Cush, here, stands for broader, deeper kinds of knowledge in the Word that we use for shoring up the false principles we have adopted. Put stands for knowledge from the literal level of the Word that accords with appearances presented to us by our senses. ¹

[2] In Ezekiel:

A sword will come into Egypt, and there will be agony in Cush, when the victim of stabbing falls in Egypt, and they seize its mob, and its foundations are destroyed — Cush and Put, and Lud, and all the Ereb and Chub. ² And the children of the land of the covenant with them will fall by the sword. (Ezekiel 30:4-5, 6)

No one would ever know what this meant without the inner meaning; and if the names were not symbolic, it would make hardly any sense at all. Egypt, though, symbolizes facts here — facts that we want to use as a means of entry into religious mysteries. Cush and Put are called Egypt's foundations because they stand for knowledge gained from the Word.

[3] In the same author:

On that day, messengers will go out from before me in ships, to terrify confident Cush. And there will be agony upon them as in Egypt's day. (Ezekiel 30:9)

Cush stands for knowledge from the Word that we use in proof of falsities we have dreamed up out of various facts. In the same author:

I will turn the land of Egypt into wastelands, a ruinous wasteland, from the tower to Syene even as far as the border of Cush. (Ezekiel 29:10)

Egypt stands for factual knowledge in this verse; Cush stands for knowledge of the deeper import of the Word, which is the border to which factual knowledge extends.

[4] In Isaiah:

The monarch of Assyria will lead Egypt's captives and Cush's captives, young and old, naked and barefoot and with uncovered buttock — the nakedness of Egypt. And they will panic and be embarrassed on account of Cush, their hope, and of Egypt, their glory. (Isaiah 20:4-5)

In this passage, Cush stands for knowledge from the Word used to support the falsities that factual knowledge has prompted us to adopt. Assyria is shallow reasoning, which leads us captive. In Nahum:

Cush was its strength, as was Egypt, and there was no end to them. Put and the Libyans were of help to you. ³ (Nahum 3:9)

The subject here is the church when it has been devastated, and once again Egypt stands for secular knowledge, while Cush stands for religious knowledge.

[5] Cush and Egypt can stand simply for religious and secular knowledge — truth, that is, which is useful to people whose faith comes from charity. In other words, Cush and Egypt sometimes have a good meaning. In Isaiah:

Jehovah has said: "The labor of Egypt, and the wares of Cush and of Seba's inhabitants — sizable men — will pass over to you and will belong to you. They will walk after you in fetters. They will pass over, and to you they will bow down. To you they will pray: ‘Only among you does God exist, and there is no other god besides.'" (Isaiah 45:14)

The labor of Egypt stands for learning; the wares of Cush and of Seba's inhabitants, for the knowledge of spiritual things; [both of] which serve those who acknowledge the Lord. These are the people who possess all learning and knowledge.

[6] In Daniel:

The monarch of the north will rule over the hidden treasures of gold and silver, and over all the desirable things of Egypt, and of the Libyans [Put], ⁴ and of the Cushites, in your footsteps. (Daniel 11:43)

Put and Cush stand for knowledge from the Word, while Egypt stands for secular learning. In Zephaniah:

From the ford of Cush's rivers come my worshipers. (Zephaniah 3:10)

This stands for people who lack access to religious knowledge and so for non-Christians. In David:

Nobles will come from Egypt; Cush will quickly thrust its hands out to God. (Psalms 68:31)

Egypt stands for learning and Cush for religious knowledge.

[7] In the same author:

I will remember Rahab and Babylon as being among those who know me — yes, Philistia, and Tyre, along with Cush. This last was born there [in the city of God]. ⁵ (Psalms 87:4)

Cush stands for knowledge from the Word, which is why it is said to have been born in the city of God.

It is because Cush symbolizes knowledge buried deep in the Word and an intelligent understanding based on this knowledge that the second river issuing from the Garden of Eden circled the whole land of Cush. For more on this, see §117 above.

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