16. Verse 1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The most ancient times of all are called 'the beginning', and are throughout the Prophets referred to as 'days of antiquity' and also 'days of eternity'. 'The beginning' also embodies within it that first Period when a person is being regenerated, for at that time he is being born anew and receiving life. Regeneration itself is therefore called a new creation of man. Almost everywhere in the prophetical sections 'to create', 'to form', and 'to make' mean to regenerate, though each of these verbs has a different shade of meaning, as in Isaiah,

Every one who is called by My name - I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, I have also made him. Isaiah 43:7

This is why the Lord is called Redeemer, One who forms from the womb, Maker, and also Creator, as in the same prophet,

I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Isaiah 43:15.

In David,

A people to be created will praise Jah. Psalms 102:18.

In the same author,

You send forth Your Spirit; they are created; and You renewest the face ¹ of the ground. Psalms 104:30.

'Heaven' means the internal man, and 'earth' the external man prior to regeneration. This will be seen further on.

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5059. When those who have lived in ways that are the opposite of conjugial love - that is, in adulterous ways - have drawn near me, they have introduced pain into my loins, the severity of which has depended on the nature of the adulterous life led by them. That influx also demonstrated that the loins corresponded to conjugial love. Furthermore their hell is situated beneath the area behind the loins, under the buttocks, where they live in filth and excrement. These are also the things that give them delight, for such filth and excrement correspond to the pleasure they gain in the spiritual world from such things. But in the Lord's Divine mercy more will be said about these spirits when the hells are described as a whole and individually.