De Bijbel

 

Genesis 1

Studie

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Apocalypse Explained #256

Bestudeer deze passage

  
/ 1232  
  

256. It was said above, that by the seven churches here written to, are not meant seven churches, but all those who belong to the church, and, in the abstract, all things of the church; that this is the case is evident from the consideration, that by seven are signified all, and all things, and that by the names are signified things. That all who belong to the church, or all things of the church, are meant by what is written to those seven churches is also evident from the explanation of those things. For all things of the church have reference to the following four general principles, doctrine, life according to it, faith according to life. These are treated of in what is written to six of the churches - doctrine, to the churches in Ephesus and Smyrna; life according to doctrine, to the churches in Thyatira and Sardis; and faith according to life, to the churches in Philadelphia and Laodicea. And because doctrine cannot be implanted in man's life and become a matter of faith unless he fights against the evils and falsities which he possesses from heredity, therefore that combat is also treated of in what is written to the church in Pergamos; for the subject there treated of is temptations; and temptations are combats against evils and falsities.

(That temptations are treated of in what is written to the church in Pergamos may be seen above, n. 130; that doctrine is the subject treated of in what is written to the churches in Ephesus and Smyrna may be seen above also, n. 93, 95, 112; that a life according to doctrine is treated of in what is written to the churches in Thyatira and Sardis, (n. 150, 182, and that faith according to life is treated of in what is written to the churches of Philadelphia and Laodicea, n. 203 and 227.) Because in what is written to this last church, namely, that in Laodicea, those who are in the doctrine of faith alone are treated of, and also, at the end, the nature of faith originating in charity, to what has already been said, it is here to be added, that love constitutes heaven; and because it does so, it also forms the church. For all the societies of heaven, which are innumerable, are arranged according to the affections of love, and also all within each society; so that it is affection, or love, according to which all things are arranged in the heavens, and not in any case faith alone. Spiritual affection, or love, is charity. It is therefore clear that no one can ever enter heaven unless he is in charity.

  
/ 1232  
  

Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Apocalypse Explained #547

Bestudeer deze passage

  
/ 1232  
  

547. Verse 5. And it was given 1 to them that they should not kill them, signifies that they should not be deprived of the faculty of understanding truth and perceiving good. This is evident from the signification of "men," as being the understanding of truth and the perception of good (See above, n. 546); and from the signification of "killing them," as being to destroy as regards the spiritual life (of which above, n. 315; but here to deprive of the faculty of understanding truth and perceiving good. This is the signification of "killing men," because every man is born into the faculty to understand truth and perceive good; for this faculty is the spiritual itself by which every man is distinguished from the beasts. This faculty man never destroys, for if he should destroy it he would be no longer a man but a beast. It appears as if the sensual man who is in the falsities of evil had destroyed it, because he neither understands truth nor perceives good when reading the Word or hearing it from others, but yet he has not destroyed the faculty itself to understand and perceive, but only the understanding of truth and the perception of good, so long as he is in the falsities in which he has confirmed himself from evil; for then he is averse to listen to truth, and this appears like an inability to understand it; but if the persuasion of falsity which obstructs is removed, he then understands and perceives that truth is truth and that good is good, just as a spiritual-rational man does.

[2] That this is so it has been given me to know by much experience; for there were many of the infernal crew who had confirmed themselves in falsities against truths and in evils against goods, who thence had become such that they were not willing to hear anything of truth, still less to understand it; and respecting these, therefore, others entertained the opinion that they were unable to understand truth; but the same spirits, when the persuasion of falsity was removed from them, came into the same power and faculty to understand truth as those had who were in the understanding of truth and the perception of good; but immediately upon their falling back into their former state they again appeared to be unable to understand truth, and indeed, were exceedingly indignant at having understood, declaring then that still it was not truth. For it is affection which belongs to the will that makes all the understanding there is with man; from affection is the life itself of the understanding. Consider whether anyone thinks without affection, and whether affection is not the life itself of thought, consequently the life of the understanding. We say an affection and mean the affection that is of love, or love in its continuity. This makes clear that man can indeed destroy the understanding of truth and the perception of good, which is done by means of the falsities of evil; and yet he does not on that account destroy the faculty to understand truth and perceive good; if he did he would no longer be a man, for the human itself consists in that faculty; from this it is that man lives after death, and appears then as a man; for with that faculty the Divine is conjoined. For this reason although a man in respect to his two lives, which are the life of his understanding and the life of his will, may have turned away from the Divine, yet by his ability to understand truth and to perceive good he has conjunction with the Divine, and consequently lives to eternity. From this it can now be seen that "it was given to the locusts that they should not kill men" signifies that still they should not be deprived of the faculty to understand truth and perceive good.

Voetnoten:

1. Latin has "said," but in the end of the number it is "given," with the Greek.

  
/ 1232  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.