435. The meaning of the human and his wife as the new church previously symbolized by Adah and Zillah is not something anyone can know or figure out from the literal sense, because before now, the person and his wife symbolized the earliest church and their descendants. But it can be seen from the inner sense.

It can also be seen from verses 3-4 of the next chapter [§485], which say again that the human and his wife gave birth to Seth (though in completely different words), where he symbolizes the first generation to inherit the earliest church. If the symbolism were no different in this verse, there would be no need to repeat it. In the same way, the first chapter told of the creation of the human, the earth's vegetation, and the animals, and the second chapter did likewise. This was for the reason already given [§89], that the first chapter spoke about the creation of the spiritual person and the second about the creation of the heavenly person. Wherever this kind of repetition concerning the very same person or thing is encountered, one occurrence has a different meaning from the other. What the meaning is can never be known except from the inner sense, although the actual thread of the story confirms it.

Besides, human and wife, wherever they appear, are words symbolizing the church under discussion there, in its role as a progenitor.

89. Genesis 2:4. These are the births of the heavens and the earth when he created them, on the day on which he, Jehovah God, made the earth and the heavens.

The births of the heavens and the earth are the ways in which the heavenly person is formed.

Clearly this verse concerns the formation of a heavenly person. Subsequent details provide additional evidence. The text says, for instance, that no plant had yet sprouted, that there was no human to cultivate the ground, and that Jehovah God formed the human, then every beast and every bird in the heavens. But since the last chapter already told of the formation of these things, the present chapter must be talking about another kind of person.

As further evidence, this verse is the first to use the name Jehovah God, where before, in discussing the spiritual person, the text used only God. The current chapter speaks of the ground and the field, the former only of the earth or land. Finally, this verse initially places heaven before earth and then earth before heaven. The reason for this last point is that the earth symbolizes the outer self and heaven the inner self of a spiritual person, and such a person's reformation begins in the earth, or outer self. However, because the subject is now a heavenly person, reformation begins in the inner self, or heaven.