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Genesis第2章

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1 And the heavens and the earth and all their host were finished.

2 And God had finished on the seventh day his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3 And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, because that on it he rested from all his work which God had created in making it.

4 These are the histories of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens,

5 and every shrub of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for Jehovah Elohim had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.

6 But a mist went up from the earth, and moistened the whole surface of the ground.

7 And Jehovah Elohim formed Man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and Man became a living soul.

8 And Jehovah Elohim planted a garden in Eden eastward, and there put Man whom he had formed.

9 And out of the ground Jehovah Elohim made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; and the tree of life, in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 And a river went out of Eden, to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four main streams.

11 The name of the one is Pison: that is it which surrounds the whole land of Havilah, where the gold is.

12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and the onyx stone are there.

13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: that is it which surrounds the whole land of Cush.

14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which flows forward toward Asshur. And the fourth river, that is Euphrates.

15 And Jehovah Elohim took Man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to till it and to guard it.

16 And Jehovah Elohim commanded Man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou shalt freely eat;

17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die.

18 And Jehovah Elohim said, It is not good that Man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate, his like.

19 And out of the ground Jehovah Elohim had formed every animal of the field and all fowl of the heavens, and brought [them] to Man, to see what he would call them; and whatever Man called each living soul, that was its name.

20 And Man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the heavens, and to every beast of the field; but as for Adam, he found no helpmate, his like.

21 And Jehovah Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon Man; and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up flesh in its stead.

22 And Jehovah Elohim built the rib that he had taken from Man into a woman; and brought her to Man.

23 And Man said, This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Woman, because this was taken out of a Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, Man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

   

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Arcana Coelestia#8891

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8891. 'For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and the sea' means regenerating and vivifying the things in the internal man and in the external. This is clear from the meaning of 'six days' as states of conflict, dealt with just above in 8888, and - when used in reference to Jehovah, that is, the Lord - as His labour with a person before he is regenerated, 8510; from the meaning of 'heaven and earth' as the Church or Lord's kingdom in a person, 'heaven' being in his internal man and 'earth' in his external, dealt with in 82, 1411, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 3355 (end), 4535, so that a person who has been regenerated is meant, that is, one who has acquired new life and accordingly been vivified; and from the meaning of 'the sea' as the sensory awareness adhering to the bodily level of a person's mind, dealt with in 8872.

[2] The present verse deals with the sanctifying of the seventh day or institution of the sabbath, describing it as follows,

In six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and sanctified it.

When people's thinking does not extend beyond the sense of the letter they cannot do other than suppose that the creation described in the first and second chapters of Genesis is the creation of the universe, and that there were six days within which heaven, earth, the sea, and all that is in them were created, and at length the human being in God's likeness. Yet is there anyone pondering on the details who fails to see that the creation of the universe is not what is meant there? For there are things in those chapters which common sense tells anyone are not literally true, for example, that days existed before the sun and moon, that light and darkness did so, and that plants and trees sprang up, when in fact it is through those [great] lights that light is given, light and darkness are divided, and so days come into being.

[3] Further on after these details, others of a similar nature follow which scarcely anyone who thinks more deeply will consider to have been literally possible, such as these: The woman was built out of the man's rib; two trees were placed in paradise, the fruit of one of which they were forbidden to eat; a serpent spoke from one of them to the wife of man (homo), who had been the wisest of mortal beings; what it said - what came out of the serpent's mouth - deceived them both; and the whole human race, numbering so very many thousands of thousands, was therefore condemned to hell. As soon as they are contemplated these and similar details there inevitably seem nonsensical to those who entertain any doubt about the holiness of the Word; and they lead to a denial of the Divine there. However it should be realized that every detail there down to the smallest is Divine; they all contain arcana which are clearly visible to angels in heaven, as in broad daylight. The reason why this should be so is that angels do not see the literal meaning of the Word but what lies within it, that is, spiritual and celestial realities, and Divine ones within these. When the first chapter of Genesis is read they perceive no other creation than the new creation of a human being, which is called regeneration. This is what is described there, 'paradise' being the wisdom of a person created anew. 'The two trees in the middle of it' are the two mental powers of that person, which are a will desiring good, meant by 'the tree of life', and an understanding seeing truth, meant by 'the tree of knowledge'. And the reason why they were forbidden to eat from this tree was that a person who has been regenerated or created anew ought no longer to be led by an understanding that sees truth but by a will desiring good, or else his newness of life is destroyed. Regarding these matters, see 202, 337, 2454, 2715, 3246, 3652, 4448, 5895 (end), 5897 (end), 7877, 7923, 7992, 8505, 8506, 8510, 8512, 8516, 8539, 8643, 8648, 8658, 8690, 8701, 8722. Consequently Adam or Man and Eve his wife there are used to mean a new Church, and 'eating from the tree of knowledge' to mean the decline of that Church from good into truth, consequently from love to the Lord and towards the neighbour into faith without such love. And this came about through reasoning arising from self-intelligence, that reasoning being meant by 'the serpent', see 195-197, 6398, 6399, 6949, 7293.

[4] From all this it is evident that the historical narratives regarding creation, and regarding the first human being and paradise, are the descriptions of fictitious historical events, containing heavenly and Divine realities within them. Making up such stories was in keeping with the accepted custom in the ancient Churches; and the custom also spread from them to many outside the Church, who in a similar way produced descriptions of fictitious historical events, wrapping up arcana within them, as is evident from writers belonging to most ancient times. For the ancient Churches were well acquainted with what such things as exist in the world meant in heaven. Nor were great exploits of sufficient importance for them to write about, only the things of heaven. Things of heaven occupied their minds because they thought on a more internal level than people do at the present day and so were in contact with angels; and for this reason they gained a delight out of putting together such stories. But they were led by the Lord to images which would be held sacred in Churches. Out of these they composed stories in which everything had a correspondence

[5] All this shows what 'heaven and earth' is used to mean in the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis - the internal Church and the external Church. The fact that they are meant by 'heaven and earth' is also clear from places in the Prophets which speak of a new heaven and a new earth, by which a new Church is to be understood, see 82, 1411, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 3355 (end), 4535.

From all this it is now evident that 'in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and the sea' means regenerating and vivifying the things in the internal man and in the external man.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.