39. Verse 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things, living creatures; and let birds fly above the earth, upon the face ¹ of the expanse of the heavens.

After the great lights have been kindled and lodged in the internal man, from which the external man receives its light, a person starts to live for the first time. Till then he can hardly be said to have lived, for he had imagined that the good he had done he had done from himself, and the truth he had uttered he had spoken from himself. And since man functioning from himself is dead - there being nothing in him that is not evil and false - therefore whatever he brings forth from himself is not living. So true is this that of himself he is incapable of doing any good deed that is in itself good. The fact that man cannot begin to think about good or to will it, and so cannot do good, unless the Lord is the source, is clear to everyone from the doctrine of faith, for the Lord says in Matthew,

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Matthew 13:37.

Nor can good come from anywhere else than the one fount itself of all good, as yet again He says,

Nobody is good but one, God. Luke 18:19.

[2] Nevertheless when the Lord is revitalizing a person, or regenerating him, He does allow him, to begin with, to imagine that good and truth originate in himself, for at that point a person cannot grasp anything else, or be led to believe and finally perceive, that all good and truth come from the Lord alone. As long as he held the former opinion his truths and goods were comparable to 'a tender plant', then 'a plant bearing seed', and after that 'a fruit tree', which are inanimate. But once he has been brought to life by love and faith and believes that the Lord is at work in every good deed he does and in every truth he utters, he is compared first to creeping things from the water and to birds which fly above the earth, and then to beasts, all of which are animate and are called 'living creatures'.

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3825. 'And Laban said, It is better for me to give her to you than for me to give her to another man; remain with me' means the means by which interior truth is joined to that good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the reward', of which the words in this reply are a definite promise, as the means by which the two are joined together, dealt with in 3816 - Rachel, to whom 'her' refers here, representing interior truth, and Jacob, to whom 'you' refers, representing good, as shown already. As regards the joining of the good represented by 'Jacob' to the good represented by 'Laban' through interior truth represented by 'Rachel', this is an arcanum which cannot be described easily and intelligibly. A clear mental image of both kinds of good, and also of the affection for interior truth, must be gained first. Furthermore the understanding of any subject is dependent on the ideas about it. No understanding exists if there is no idea at all about it; an obscure understanding if the idea is obscure; a perverted understanding if the idea is perverted; and a clear understanding if the idea is clear. The understanding is also dependent on the affections which cause the idea, even if clear, to be varied.

[2] Let it be stated briefly that with everyone who is being regenerated the good of his natural, like that represented here by 'Jacob', is first of all joined to good like that represented here by 'Laban', through the affection for interior truth, which is represented here by 'Rachel', and subsequently together with the good of the rational and its truth, which are 'Isaac and Rebekah'. By means of that initial conjunction a person is in a right state for receiving internal or spiritual truths, which are the means by which the natural is joined to the rational, that is, the external man to the internal.