SECRETS

of

HEAVEN

The New Century Edition

of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg

Jonathan S. Rose

Series Editor

Stuart Shotwell

Managing Editor

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

Wendy E. Closterman

Lisa Hyatt Cooper

George F. Dole

Sylvia Shaw

Alice B. Skinner

A Disclosure of

Secrets of Heaven

Contained in

Sacred Scripture

or

the Word of the Lord

Here First Those in

Genesis

Together with Amazing Things Seen

in the World of Spirits & in the Heaven of Angels

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

Volume 1

Translated from the Latin by Lisa Hyatt Cooper

SWEDENBORG FOUNDATION

West Chester, Pennsylvania

© Copyright 2009 by the Swedenborg Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

This ebook contains the translation of Secrets of Heaven volume 1 drawn from the print edition referenced below.

Originally published in Latin as Arcana Coelestia, London, 1749–1756. The present volume is indicated in red type in the list below:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Swedenborg, Emanuel, 1688–1772.

[Arcana coelestia. English]

A disclosure of secrets of heaven contained in Sacred Scripture, or, The Word of the Lord : here first those in Genesis, together with amazing things seen in the world of spirits and in the heaven of angels / Emanuel Swedenborg ; translated from the Latin by Lisa Hyatt Cooper ; with introductions by Wouter J. Hanegraaff and William Ross Woofenden ; annotated by Lisa Hyatt Cooper and Richard Smoley.

p. cm. -- (The new century edition of the works of Emanuel Swedenborg)

Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, p. ).

ISBN 978-0-87785-486-9 (hard cover) — ISBN 978-0-87785-504-0 (pbk.)

1. New Jerusalem Church—Doctrines. 2. Bible. O.T. Genesis—Commentaries.

3. Bible. O.T. Exodus—Commentaries. I. Cooper, Lisa Hyatt. II. Smoley,

Richard, 1956– III. Title. IV. Series: Swedenborg, Emanuel, 1688–1772.

Works. English. 2000.

BX8712.A8 2006

230'.94--dc22

2006011298

Senior copy editor, Alicia L. Dole. Cover design by Caroline Kline and Karen Connor. Text designed by Joanna V. Hill. Typesetting and diagrams by Alicia L. Dole. Index to prefaces, reader’s guide, introduction, and notes by Chara Cooper Daum, Alicia L. Dole, Kate Mertes, and Chara M. Odhner. Ornaments from the first Latin edition, 1749.

Cover image: NASA, C. R. O’Dell and S. K. Wong (Rice University)

Certain Scripture quotations so identified in the annotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For information about the New Century Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg, contact the Swedenborg Foundation, 320 North Church Street, West Chester, PA 19380 U.S.A.

Contents

Translator’s Preface

Lisa Hyatt Cooper

Works Cited in the Translator’s Preface

Selected List of Editions of Secrets of Heaven

Conventions Used in This Work

[Author’s Table of Contents]

Genesis Chapter 1

§§1–5 / [The Essential Nature of the Word]

Text of Genesis Chapter 1

§§6–13 / Summary of Genesis 1

§§14–63 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 1

§§64–66 / [Content and Mode in the Word]

Genesis Chapter 2

§§67–72 / [Secrets of the Other Life]

Text of Genesis Chapter 2:1–17

§§73–80 / Summary of Genesis 2:1–17

§§81–130 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 2:1–17

Text of Genesis Chapter 2:18–25

§§131–136 / Summary of Genesis 2:18–25

§§137–165 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 2:18–25

§§166–167 / [Representations of Inner Meaning]

§§168–181 / Our Resurrection from Death and Entry into Eternal Life

Genesis Chapter 3

§§182–189 / Our Entry, Once Revived, into Eternal Life (Continued)

Text of Genesis Chapter 3:1–13

§§190–193 / Summary of Genesis 3:1–13

§§194–233 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 3:1–13

Text of Genesis Chapter 3:14–19

§§234–240 / Summary of Genesis 3:14–19

§§241–279 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 3:14–19

Text of Genesis Chapter 3:20–24

§§280–285 / Summary of Genesis 3:20–24

§§286–313 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 3:20–24

§§314–319 / Our Entry into Eternal Life (Continued)

Genesis Chapter 4

§§320–323 / What the Life of the Soul or Spirit Is Like

Text of Genesis Chapter 4

§§324–336 / Summary of Genesis 4

§§337–442 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 4

§§443–448 / Several Examples from Spirits of Opinions They Adopted during Their Physical Lives Concerning the Soul or Spirit

Genesis Chapter 5

§§449–459 / Heaven and Heavenly Joy

Text of Genesis Chapter 5

§§460–467 / Summary of Genesis 5

§§468–536 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 5

§§537–546 / Heaven and Heavenly Joy (Continued)

Genesis Chapter 6

§§547–553 / Heaven and Heavenly Joy [Continued]

Text of Genesis Chapter 6:1–8

§§554–559 / Summary of Genesis 6:1–8

§§560–598 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 6:1–8

Text of Genesis Chapter 6:9–22

§§599–604 / Summary of Genesis 6:9–22

§§605–683 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 6:9–22

§§684–691 / The Communities That Make Up Heaven

Genesis Chapter 7

§§692–700 / Hell

Text of Genesis Chapter 7

§§701–704 / Summary of Genesis 7

§§705–813 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 7

§§814–823 / The Hells (Continued): The Hells of Those Who Spent Their Lives in Hatred, Revenge, and Cruelty

Genesis Chapter 8

§§824–831 / The Hells (Continued): The Hells of Those Who Spent Their Lives in Adultery and Lechery; in Addition, the Hells of Deceivers and Witches

Text of Genesis Chapter 8

§§832–837 / Summary of Genesis 8

§§838–937 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 8

§§938–946 / The Hells (Continued): Misers’ Hells, the Foul Jerusalem and Outlaws in the Wilderness, and the Feces-Laden Hells of Those Who Have Pursued Sensual Pleasure Alone

Biographical Note

Translator’s Preface

The work before you, A Disclosure of Secrets of Heaven Contained in Sacred Scripture, or the Word of the Lord, . . . Together with Amazing Things Seen in the World of Spirits and in the Heaven of Angels, is a translation of Emanuel Swedenborg’s Arcana Coelestia Quae in Scriptura Sacra, seu Verbo Domini Sunt, Detecta: Una cum Mirabilibus Quae Visa Sunt in Mundo Spirituum, et in Coelo Angelorum, published in London between 1749 and 1756.[1] Though traditionally this work has been identified by its Latin short title, Arcana Coelestia, throughout the present edition it will be referred to by the English short title Secrets of Heaven.

The Latin Sources of the Translation

As my source for the first volume of the eight-volume Latin original, I used the facsimile edition issued by the Swedenborg Institut (Swedenborg [1749] 1962?). For subsequent volumes, my source was the electronic facsimile prepared by Junchol Lee under the sponsorship of Je Hyung Bae, and published on compact disk by Philip Kyung Bae, all of the Bayside Korean Church (Swedenborg [1749–1756] 1999).

Though my translation is thus based on the first edition, I have also incorporated many of the emendations in the excellent third Latin edition, prepared by P. H. Johnson and others (Swedenborg [1749–1756] 1949–1973), as modified by John Elliott’s errata.[2] For volumes 3 through 15 of this edition I have also been able to consult Swedenborg’s draft manuscript of the work in the phototype edition (Swedenborg 1916). The number of errors in the text is not high, and the most frequent type of error is misnumbering, either of internal cross-references or in scriptural citations. It is fairly rare to encounter problems that significantly affect meaning.

This translation presents the original eight Latin volumes in fifteen English volumes. Each of the original Latin volumes has been split in two, except for the slender second volume, which was left whole and constitutes the third English volume. For a table aligning the Latin with the English volumes, see the copyright information of this edition.

Typographic and Numbering Conventions

The bulk of Secrets of Heaven is a verse-by-verse exposition of the inner meaning of Genesis and Exodus, but at the beginning of the early chapters and the end of all chapters Swedenborg also adds reports of his spiritual experiences. In the first Latin edition, mentioned above, this and some other similar material is in italics. For ease of reading, the current translation removes the italics from these passages.

On the other hand, I have added italics in many instances, to draw attention to phrases and individual words from the verses of Genesis and Exodus—phrases and words whose inner meaning Swedenborg sometimes discusses at length. (In the course of these discussions, he often quotes Scripture to demonstrate or illustrate the meaning, and the italics in such “proof passages” are his.)

Swedenborg numbered his theological works in sections extending anywhere from a few lines to several pages in length.[3] John Faulkner Potts, in preparing a concordance to the material, added subsection numbers, which I have taken from handwritten marks in the margins of Potts’s own copy of the second Latin edition.[4] These differ slightly from the subsection numbers in currently available translations and editions. I have also added a very small number of my own subsection numbers (such as §§1474:2, 1486:2).[5]

Verse numbering and (in a few instances) chapter breaks vary in different language editions of the Bible, and Swedenborg’s citations sometimes differ from those used in English Bibles. The present translation for the most part silently and consistently adopts the versification of the King James and other standard Protestant Bibles.[6]

Problematic Vocabulary in Secrets of Heaven

Seven terms used by Swedenborg deserve special attention: Lord, Jehovah, church, heavenly, spiritual, earthly, and bodily.

Swedenborg consistently refers to the Deity as “the Lord” (Dominus), and by this term, as he explains in §§14 and 15, he means the one God of the created universe and at the same time the incarnation of this one God in Jesus Christ. As a name for the Divine, it is equivalent to the Hebrew term adonai, and also to the Greek term ho kúrios frequently used by Jesus’ disciples. Although the Deity may incorporate both masculine and feminine or transcend gender altogether, the present edition refers to the Lord by masculine pronouns.

One of the names for the Deity in the Hebrew Bible is represented by the “tetragrammaton”—the four Hebrew consonants yhvh. Modern scholars generally agree that the name was pronounced “Yahweh,” but Swedenborg followed the practice of his day in rendering it as Jehovah, and I have carried this spelling over into the translation.

Swedenborg divides the world’s religious history into five phases and uses the term ecclesia, or “church,” to refer to each. According to this system, the earliest church lasted up to an era represented by the Flood and was replaced by what Swedenborg calls simply “the ancient church,” which in turn survived until Abraham’s time. With Abraham began the Jewish church, with the Lord’s first advent the Christian church, and with the publication of Swedenborg’s theological works a new church. This fourth turning point, according to Swedenborg’s later account, coincided with the Last Judgment, begun in 1757, and with the Lord’s Second Coming, which he explains more as spiritual than as physical events.[7]

The spiritual world, in Swedenborg’s description, is divided into three realms: heaven, hell, and the world of spirits, the last being a place of entry for the spirits of those who have recently died. Heaven is divided into two kingdoms, a heavenly one and a spiritual one. The heavenly kingdom is so called because it is the truest embodiment of heavenly qualities. The motivation of angels who live in it is love, especially love for the Lord. The spiritual kingdom is oriented more toward the spirit and the neighbor than the Lord, and the angels there are motivated more by truth than by love.

The terms “heavenly,” “spiritual,” and “earthly” (coelestis, spiritualis, naturalis) are each used by Swedenborg in more than one way. When he speaks of something as heavenly or as spiritual, he can mean that it is not hellish. Alternatively, he can mean that it does not belong to the physical world; and when he speaks of something as earthly, he can mean that it does belong to the physical world. But there is a third, more technical sense in which he uses these three terms. In this case “heavenly” refers to something emotive or volitional, “spiritual” to something intellectual, and “earthly” to a lower, more pragmatic level of the human psyche on which the two higher levels express themselves, in our everyday concerns, desires, knowledge, and actions. This third sense is illustrated in the accompanying chart (see figure 1).

“Bodily” (corporeus) is perhaps the most troublesome term I have struggled with in my translation, since it depends on a view of the psyche that is not current in Western culture. Swedenborg sees certain drives or passions or urges and even thought patterns as having their seat in or chief effect on the human body, and he refers to them as bodily. These are mainly connected with a self-centered attitude, and sometimes even with a desire for power, status, and control (self-love) as opposed to a desire for worldly advantages (materialism). He therefore describes ambition (see §49 of his 1768 work Marriage Love) and despotism (see §507:2 of his 1771 work True Christianity) as varieties of bodily love. The problem is not simply that the translation “bodily” might be incomprehensible to the reader but that in many instances where it seems comprehensible it will mislead by suggesting too narrow a range of possibilities. Secrets of Heaven 8, for instance, contains the statement that “trouble, misfortune, and grief . . . enable bodily and worldly concerns . . . to fade away and in effect die out.” What is the reader likely to picture as “bodily concerns”? Perhaps the basic human need for food, clothing, and shelter, or maybe a desire for sensual pleasures, but probably not abusiveness or emotional manipulation or a host of other coercive behaviors. Because people today do not commonly draw this particular connection between body and mind, English has no appropriate word for it, and I have had to content myself with “bodily,” despite its disadvantages.

Figure 1. Attributes classified by Swedenborg as heavenly, spiritual, and earthly

Swedenborg’s Renderings of Scripture

Swedenborg’s Scripture quotations constitute a distinct problem for the translator. The Latin into which they are rendered from the original Hebrew and Greek is very literal, by Swedenborg’s deliberate choice. In an unpublished work called The Old Testament Explained (= Swedenborg 1927–1951), written shortly before Secrets of Heaven, Swedenborg explains why he preferred the Latin translation of the Bible by the German scholar Sebastian Schmidt (1617–1696), which became his main source for scriptural quotations in Secrets of Heaven:[8]

The fact that many people have not absorbed any other meaning from the Word[9] than the literal one is a truth so obvious that anyone can recognize it. . . . It is an obvious truth, I say, because no one cares about anything else these days. The reason is that we concentrate on the most superficial realities and on the earthly realm—so much so that people have no idea at all what spiritual realities are.

As a result, even translators themselves, holding similar convictions, have paid little attention to translating the actual words of the text from their source (as Schmidt has) but have concentrated solely on elegant speech (as most have). So they have changed the words themselves [to ones] that simply tell the story. In this way they remove all the light that dwells exclusively in the meaning to be developed out of the actual words of God Messiah.

When they do this, the letter kills, because then the reader believes that it holds nothing inside it but what other history books do. So the reader despises the Word itself of God Messiah and rejects it.[10]

Swedenborg here distinguishes between “the words themselves,” which he considers it the translator’s duty to represent, and “the literal meaning,” or the bare storyline, which he believes to be leading the readers of his time astray. “Elegant speech,” or in other words, idiomatic translation, makes it too easy for the reader to become immersed in the “simple telling of the story” and to view that story (the “letter” that “kills”) as the whole message. A translation of the “words themselves,” on the other hand, because it is inherently difficult to read, enables the reader to see that the true message must lie deeper. It is the “actual words of God Messiah,” and sometimes even the phonemes that go to make up the words, that hold “all the light” of the inner meaning. Admittedly there are passages elsewhere in which Swedenborg points to the emotion behind the words and to the overarching idea presented by the words as the true inner meaning (§§1492, 1756:1, 2077:1, 2157, 2275, 2343:2). His actual translations, however, tend to hew closely to the philosophy he expresses in the Old Testament Explained passage, and in rendering them into English I have tried for a literalism that does not sacrifice comprehensibility.

For example, Swedenborg is scrupulous in representing a gender-neutral Hebrew word for a human being, such as adam by a gender-neutral Latin equivalent (usually homo), even in Genesis 2:25, which speaks of “the human and his wife,” and I have preserved this wording, despite the apparent oddity of it. I have striven to maintain concrete imagery, such as the mention of kidneys, which were viewed as the seat of emotion (“I, Jehovah, am examining the heart, testing the kidneys,” Jeremiah 17:10, §348), or the slightly unusual reference to the top of a mountain as a head (“Let those who live on the crag sing; from the head of the mountains let them shout,” Isaiah 42:11, §795:4). Less easy to defend is my attempt to adhere to Swedenborg’s word order, which closely tracks the Hebrew word order. I describe the practice as harder to defend because the inversion of expected patterns is much more noticeable in English, in which the order of words is a more significant indicator of grammatical function than in Latin. (Latin generally prefers to use word endings for this purpose.) Still, word order mattered to Swedenborg (see, for instance, §§47, 915), and I have kept the inversions I could, such as the one in the second half of Isaiah 42:11, quoted just above.

On the other hand, I have tried to reflect Swedenborg’s departures from word-for-word equivalency as well. His renderings of a given verse are capable of varying from place to place, and I have attempted to follow him. An example may be found in the quotation of Isaiah 30:17 in §§390, 649. Swedenborg changes a preposition slightly from one section to the next, so in §390 the verse reads “One thousand will flee at the reproach of one, and at the reproach of five you will flee,” and in §649 it reads “One thousand will flee before the reproach of one, before the reproach of five you will flee.” Another example appears in Swedenborg’s three quotations of Hosea 6:2:

§93: “He will bring us to life after two days; on the third day he will revive us, and we will live before him.”

§720: “He will bring us to life after two days; on the third day he will raise us up and we will live before him.”

§901:5: “Jehovah will bring us to life after two days; on the third day he will revive us, so that we may live before him.”

The change from “he” to “Jehovah,” from “revive” to “raise up” and back, from “and we will live” to “so that we may live”—all these represent variations in the Latin; and there were other variations in the renderings of this verse that I was unable to bring across.

Paradoxically, though, despite his scrupulous attention to all elements of form, Swedenborg does not seem greatly concerned with precision of quotation. The words he puts between quotation marks are occasionally paraphrases, adapted to suit the context in which they appear. Even when there is no obvious reason for a change, he will make substitutions. In §402:2, for instance, he quotes Zechariah 8:3 as speaking of “the mountain of Zion” (that is, Mount Zion) when the phrase in the original is “the mountain of Jehovah Sabaoth.” In his quotation of Isaiah 55:4 in §666:2, instead of repeating “peoples,” as the Hebrew does, he makes the second word “nations.” The quotation of Isaiah 7:22 in §680:5 changes “he will eat butter,” as it appears in the Hebrew, to “they will eat butter.” Frequently Swedenborg will change a “your” to a “his” or vice versa. I prefer not to treat these departures as errors, because their prevalence in the work of an author so attuned to certain kinds of detail suggests that the modern preoccupation with letter-perfect quotation is alien here. To hold Swedenborg to those standards would result in an explosion of annotations and risk misleading readers about his intentions. I leave most instances unmarked.

In addition, the citation that Swedenborg supplies after a quotation will often include verses not actually quoted. See §424, where in a discussion of the word artisan Swedenborg quotes from Jeremiah 10:8–9 but includes verse 3 in his citation because it speaks of a craftsperson. In §934:2, Ezekiel 8:2 is listed because of its great similarity to 1:27.

Instead of translating a Hebrew or Greek word, Swedenborg will occasionally transliterate it. One example is the qippod of Zephaniah 2:14 quoted in §655:2. For the most part I have carried such transliterations over into the English and provided information about them in the endnotes.

Acknowledgments

In the course of my work on Secrets of Heaven, I have occasionally consulted the translation of John Elliott (Swedenborg [1749–1756] 1983–1999) and even more rarely the version by John Clowes, as revised by Potts.[11] Elliott had a large influence on my development as a translator, and specifically as a translator of this work, since I served under him as American reader for the last six of his twelve volumes and as Latin consultant for the last five of the twelve. He was an unfailingly kind and generous teacher and colleague, and I hope I have managed to pay tribute to his independence of thought by taking my own quite different approach.

I have also had the help of a large number of scholars and assistants. Lee S. Woofenden was my main Latin consultant on this first volume, and I benefited from his knowledge of Hebrew as well. John L. Odhner was also a Latin consultant for several of the early chapters. Both of them provided references and other information. Kristin King, Shirley G. Gladish, and Rob Lawson acted as my literary editors, correcting my trajectory at its start in important ways; as I translate the remaining fourteen volumes of this title, their influence will make an increasing difference. I cannot say enough about the genius, care, attention to detail, patience, and kindness of my editors, Jonathan S. Rose and Stuart Shotwell. George F. Dole has specifically helped me understand the Hebrew underlying some of the Scripture quotations, but even more importantly, his steady sense of gratitude and joy in the work we are doing has warmed my spirit. These last three—Jonathan, Stuart, and George, my fellow translators—have awed and enlightened me with their penetrating analysis of and insights into translation in general and Swedenborgian translation in particular. All the members of the New Century Edition committee, past and present, have provided significant direct and indirect help; in addition to Jonathan, Stuart, and George, they are Wendy E. Closterman, David B. Eller, Robert H. Kirven, Sylvia Shaw, and Alice B. Skinner. Reuben P. Bell has shared his expertise in science (especially human anatomy), in the history of science, and in Swedenborg’s science, and has infected me with his tremendous enthusiasm for all matters scientific and theological. Mats Eskhult answered many questions about Hebrew. Alicia L. Dole, the senior copy editor of the series, has caught an amazing array of errors.

The Swedenborg Foundation was supportive of this project even before its inception and has shown unwavering commitment since. Several other foundations and many individuals have also contributed generously to it.

To all these I am indebted, and to countless other people as well. Everyone who has praised or criticized, encouraged or questioned, prayed for, talked about, or hoped in my work and the work of the New Century Edition has made a positive difference, and I thank them with a full heart.

Lisa Hyatt Cooper

Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania

April 2008

Works Cited in the Translator’s Preface

The Academy of the New Church College (ANCC) and the Swedenborg Foundation (SF). 1992. Transactions of the conference on the translation of the Neo-Latin of Emanuel Swedenborg held August 23–26, 1992, at the Academy of the New Church Swedenborg Library. Bryn Athyn, Pa.: Bryn Athyn College of the New Church Swedenborg Library. Photocopied.

Elliott, John. 1999. Errata in the Third Latin Edition of Arcana Caelestia. Photocopied.

Potts, John F. 1888–1902. The Swedenborg Concordance. A Complete Work of Reference to the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg; Based on the Original Latin Writings of the Author. 6 vols. London: Swedenborg Society.

Schmidt, Sebastian, trans. 1696. Biblia Sacra sive Testamentum Vetus et Novum ex Linguis Originalibus in Linguam Latinam Translatum. Strasbourg: J. F. Spoor.

Schmidt, Sebastian, trans., and Emanuel Swedenborg, annotator. 2005. Biblia Sacra sive Testamentum Vetus et Novum ex Linguis Originalibus in Linguam Latinam Translatum, ad Fidem Exemplaris Annotationibus Emanuelis Svedenborgii Manu Scriptis Locupletati. . . . Edited by R. L. Tafel. Bryn Athyn, Pa.: Academy of the New Church. First edition: 1872, Stockholm: Photolithographic Society.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. [1749–1756] 1783–1806. Arcana Coelestia: or Heavenly Mysteries Contained in the Sacred Scriptures, or Word of the Lord, Manifested and Laid Open; Beginning with the Book of Genesis. Interspersed with Relations of Wonderful Things Seen in the World of Spirits and the Heaven of Angels. 12 vols. [Translated by John Clowes]. Vols. 1–8, London: R. Hindmarsh. Vols. 9–10, London: J. Hodson. Vols. 11–12, London: J. Hodson and E. Hodson.

———. 1927–1951. The Word of the Old Testament Explained. 10 vols. Translated and edited by Alfred Acton. Bryn Athyn, Pa.: Academy of the New Church.

———. [1749–1756] 1995–1998. Arcana Coelestia. 12 vols. Translated by John Clowes, and edited and revised by John Faulkner Potts. West Chester, Pa.: Swedenborg Foundation. A revision of the translation by Clowes listed above as Swedenborg [1749–1756] 1783–1806.

Selected List of Editions of Secrets of Heaven

1. Edition of the Draft Latin Work

Swedenborg, Emanuel. 1916. Emanuelis Swedenborgii Autographa Editio Phototypica. Vols. 10–14. Stockholm: Lagrelius & Westphal. A phototyped edition of the rough copy mss. collected in Swedenborg’s papers in the Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, codices 8, 10, 80, 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (in approximate sequential order).

2. Editions of the Published Latin Work

Swedenborg, Emanuel. 1749–1756. Arcana Coelestia, Quae in Scriptura Sacra, seu Verbo Domini Sunt, Detecta: . . . Una cum Mirabilibus Quae Visa Sunt in Mundo Spirituum, et in Coelo Angelorum. 8 vols. [London: John Lewis].

———. [1749–1756] 1833–1842. Arcana Coelestia Quae in Scriptura Sacra seu Verbo Domini Sunt, Detecta: . . . Una cum Mirabilibus Quae Visa Sunt in Mundo Spirituum et in Coelo Angelorum. 13 vols. Edited by J.F.I. Tafel. Tübingen: Zu-Guttenberg.

———. [1749–1756] 1949–1973. Arcana Caelestia Quae in Scriptura Sacra seu Verbo Domini Sunt Detecta: Nempe Quae in Genesi et Exodo Una cum Mirabilibus Quae Visa Sunt in Mundo Spirituum et in Caelo Angelorum. 8 vols. Edited by P. H. Johnson, E. C. Mongredien, and John E. Elliott. London: Swedenborg Society.

3. Facsimiles of the First Latin Edition

Swedenborg, Emanuel. [1749] 1962? Arcana Coelestia, Quae in Scriptura Sacra, seu Verbo Domini Sunt, Detecta: Hic Primum Quae in Genesi. Una cum Mirabilibus Quae Visa Sunt in Mundo Spirituum, et in Coelo Angelorum. Vol. 1. Basel: Swedenborg Institut.

———. [1749–1756] 1999. Arcana Coelestia, Quae in Scriptura Sacra, seu Verbo Domini Sunt, Detecta: . . . Una cum Mirabilibus Quae Visa Sunt in Mundo Spirituum, et in Coelo Angelorum. 8 vols. Bayside, New York: Bayside Korean Church. In digital image format on compact disk.

4. English Translations of the Published Work

Swedenborg, Emanuel. [1750] 1750. Arcana Caelestia: or, Heavenly Secrets, Which Are in the Sacred Scripture, or, Word of the Lord, Laid Open: . . . Together with the Wonderful Things That Have Been Seen in the World of Spirits, and in the Heaven of Angels. [Translated by John Marchant]. [London: John Lewis]. Published as six separate chapters, this concurrent translation of volume 2 of the first Latin edition was commissioned by Swedenborg himself.

———. [1749–1756] 1783–1806. Arcana Coelestia: or Heavenly Mysteries Contained in the Sacred Scriptures, or Word of the Lord, Manifested and Laid Open; Beginning with the Book of Genesis. Interspersed with Relations of Wonderful Things Seen in the World of Spirits and the Heaven of Angels. 12 vols. [Translated by John Clowes]. Vols. 1–8, London: R. Hindmarsh. Vols. 9–10, London: J. Hodson. Vols. 11–12, London: J. Hodson and E. Hodson.

———. [1749–1756] 1857–1860. The Heavenly Secrets Which Are in the Holy Scripture, or Word of the Lord, Uncovered . . . Together with the Wonders Which Have Been Seen in the World of Spirits, and in the Heaven of Angels. 12 vols. [Translated by George Harrison]. London: William White.

———. [1749–1756] 1983–1999. Arcana Caelestia, Principally a Revelation of the Inner or Spiritual Meaning of Genesis and Exodus. 12 vols. Translated by John Elliott. London: Swedenborg Society.

———. [1749–1756] 1995–1998. Arcana Coelestia. 12 vols. Translated by John Clowes, and edited and revised by John Faulkner Potts. West Chester, Pa.: Swedenborg Foundation. A revision of the translation by Clowes listed above as Swedenborg [1749–1756] 1783–1806.

5. Translations of the Published Work in Other Languages

Versions of the work in its entirety have been or are being produced in Danish, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Swedish. Extracts of it have been published in Danish, French, German, Latvian, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.

Endnotes to the Translator’s Preface

1. For the original publication, see Swedenborg 1749–1756. Bibliographic data for versions of Secrets of Heaven mentioned here may be found in the selected list of editions that appears after the list of works cited in this preface. Translations in this preface are those of the author.

2. See Elliott 1999. I should add that I have been able to incorporate the emendations offered by the third Latin edition only where I am aware of them. Some are not marked in any way in that edition. See, for instance, §2342:1 in the third edition, where a reading of the rough draft manuscript, absque impuris et profanis (“without impure and profane things”), is silently substituted for the reading of the first printed edition, absque impuris (“without impure things”). A copy of Elliott’s errata may be found in the Swedenborg Library at Bryn Athyn College, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. (For the numbers that designate passages of Swedenborg’s works, see note 3 below.)

3. Swedenborgian scholars typically use these section numbers, rather than page numbers, in citing Swedenborg’s texts. They are uniform in most editions. In the volumes of Secrets of Heaven, section numbers where no work is specified should be understood to refer to Secrets of Heaven. For example, a bare reference to “§90” would mean “Secrets of Heaven §90.”

4. Potts’s copy is held in the Swedenborg Library, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. For Potts’s concordance itself, see Potts 1888–1902.

5. In the text, subsections are indicated in square brackets starting with the second subsection, [2]. In references, the subsection is indicated after the colon; thus §1474:2 indicates the second subsection of section 1474.

6. The discrepancies in Bible versification are particularly noteworthy where they coincide with chapter breaks in Secrets of Heaven, as occurs twice: in the transition from Exodus 7 to 8 in volume 10, and in the transition from Exodus 21 in volume 12 to Exodus 22 in volume 13.

7. While Swedenborg believed, on the basis of his encounters with the spiritual world, that an epochal “final judgment” was imminent (see §2121), he did not experience it until after the publication of the final volume of Secrets of Heaven. For more on the Last Judgment, see his 1758 work Last Judgment and his True Christianity, published in 1771, §§753–791. For the meaning of the Last Judgment and the Second Coming in Secrets of Heaven, see §§2117–2133, 3900:9, 4060:5, 4229–4231, 4332–4335.

8. For Schmidt’s translation, see Schmidt 1696 or Schmidt and Swedenborg 2005, the latter being a facsimile with Swedenborg’s annotations.

9. As can be seen from the full title of Secrets of Heaven given above, “the Word” is the term commonly used in Swedenborg’s tradition to refer to the Bible. It has a slightly limited application in Swedenborg’s use; see Secrets of Heaven 10325.

10. The Old Testament Explained (= Swedenborg 1927–1951) §2073. This passage was brought to my attention by John Elliott in a presentation he made on Swedenborg and Schmidt to a conference on the translation of the Neo-Latin of Emanuel Swedenborg held August 23–26, 1992, at the Academy of the New Church Swedenborg Library in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania; see ANCC and SF 1992, 122. The reference to “the letter that kills” is 2 Corinthians 3:6: “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.”

11. The original rendering by Clowes can be found in Swedenborg [1749–1756] 1783–1806; although slightly different from the electronic form I used, the revision by Potts can now most easily be found in Swedenborg [1749–1756] 1995–1998.

Conventions Used in This Work

More detailed information on several of the following points can be found in the translator’s preface.

Volume designation Secrets of Heaven was originally published in eight volumes; in this edition all but the second original volume have been divided into two. Thus Swedenborg’s eight volumes now fill fifteen volumes, of which this is the first. It corresponds to approximately the first half of Swedenborg’s volume 1.

Section numbers Following a practice common in his time, Swedenborg divided his published theological works into sections numbered in sequence from beginning to end. His original section numbers have been preserved in this edition; they appear in red boxes in the outside margins. Traditionally, these sections have been referred to as “numbers” and designated by the abbreviation “n.” In this edition, however, the more common section symbol (§) is used to designate the section numbers, and the sections are referred to as such.

Subsection numbers Because many sections throughout Swedenborg’s works are too long for precise cross-referencing, Swedenborgian scholar John F. Potts (1838–1923) further divided them into subsections; these have since become standard. They are indicated by bracketed numbers that appear in the text itself: [2], [3], and so on. Since the beginning of the first subsection coincides with the beginning of the section, it is not labeled in the text.

Citations of Swedenborg’s text As is common in Swedenborgian studies, text citations of Swedenborg’s works refer not to page numbers but to section numbers, which are uniform in most editions. In citations the section symbol (§) is generally omitted after the title of a work by Swedenborg. Thus “Secrets of Heaven 29” refers to section 29 (§29) of Swedenborg’s Secrets of Heaven. Subsection numbers are given after a colon; a reference such as “29:2” indicates subsection 2 of section 29. The reference “29:1” would indicate the first subsection of section 29, though that subsection is not in fact labeled in the text.

Citations of the Bible Biblical citations in this edition follow the accepted standard: a semicolon is used between book references and between chapter references, and a comma between verse references. Therefore “Matthew 5:11, 12; 6:1; 10:41, 42; Luke 6:23, 35” refers to Matthew chapter 5, verses 11 and 12; Matthew chapter 6, verse 1; Matthew chapter 10, verses 41 and 42; and Luke chapter 6, verses 23 and 35. Swedenborg often incorporated the numbers of verses not actually represented in his text when listing verse numbers for a passage he quoted; these apparently constitute a kind of “see also” reference to other material he felt was relevant, and are generally retained in this edition without annotation. This edition also follows Swedenborg where he cites contiguous verses individually (for example, John 14:8, 9, 10, 11), rather than as a range (John 14:8–11).

Quotations in Swedenborg The manner in which Swedenborg used the various conventions of quotation in the first edition suggests that he did not feel it necessary to belabor the distinction between direct quotation and paraphrase of the Bible; neither did he mark his omissions from or minor changes to material he quoted, a practice in which this edition generally follows him. One exception consists of those instances in which Swedenborg did not include a complete sentence at the beginning or end of a Bible quotation. The omission in such cases has been marked in this edition with added points of ellipsis.

Italicized terms Any words in indented scriptural extracts that are here set in italics reflect a similar emphasis in the first edition.

Changes to and insertions in the text This translation is based on the first Latin edition, published by Swedenborg himself. It incorporates the silent emendation of minor errors, not only in the text proper but in Bible verse references. The text has also been changed without notice where the verse numbering of the Latin Bible cited by Swedenborg differs from that of modern English Bibles. Throughout the translation, references or cross-references that are implied but not stated have been inserted in brackets.

Biblical Titles Swedenborg refers to the Hebrew Scriptures as the Old Testament and to the Greek Scriptures as the New Testament; his terminology has been adopted in this edition. As was the custom in his day, he refers to the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) as the books of Moses, or simply as “Moses”; for example, in §218 he writes “in Moses we read the following” and then quotes a passage from Exodus. Similarly, in sentences or phrases introducing quotations he sometimes refers to the Psalms as “David,” to Lamentations as “Jeremiah,” and to the Gospel of John, the Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation as simply “John.” References given in parentheses after the quotations specify their sources.

First seek God’s kingdom and its justice

and you will gain all.

—Matthew 6:33

[Author’s Table of Contents]

The “secrets of heaven” that have been disclosed to us in Sacred Scripture, or the Lord’s Word, can be found in the exposition of the Word’s inner meaning. To learn about the nature of this meaning, see what my experience has shown in §§1767–1777 and 1869–1879; and see too what appears in the body of the text in §§1–5, 64, 65, 66, 167, 605, 920, 937, 1143, 1224, 1404, 1405, 1408, 1409, 1502 at the end, 1540, 1659, 1756, 1783, 1807.

Accounts of the wonders I have seen in the world of spirits and in the heaven of angels are appended at the beginning and end of each chapter. In this first volume they are as follows:

1. Our resurrection from death and entry into eternal life §§168–181

2. Our entry, once revived, into eternal life (continued) 182–189

3. Our entry into eternal life (continued) 314–319

4. What the life of the soul or spirit is then like 320–323

5. Several examples from spirits of opinions they adopted during their physical lives concerning the soul or spirit 443–448

6. Heaven and heavenly joy 449–459

7. Heaven and heavenly joy (continued) 537–546

8. Heaven and heavenly joy (continued) 547–553

9. The communities that make up heaven 684–691

10. Hell 692–700

11. The hells of those who spent their lives in hatred, revenge, and cruelty 814–823

12. The hells of those who spent their lives in adultery and lechery; in addition, the hells of deceivers and witches 824–831

13. Misers’ hells; the foul Jerusalem and outlaws in the wilderness; and the feces-laden hells of those who have pursued sensual pleasure alone 938–946

14. A different set of hells than those already mentioned 947–970

15. Spiritual devastation 1106–1113

16. The earliest church, called “humankind,” or Adam 1114–1129

17. The pre-Flood people who died out 1265–1272

18. Location in the “universal human”; in addition, place and distance in the other life 1273–1278

19. Location and place in the other life; distance and time there as well (continued) 1376–1382

20. The ability of spirits and angels to perceive things; auras in the other life 1383–1400

21. Perception and auras in the other life (continued) 1504–1520

22. The light in which angels live 1521–1534

23. The light in which angels live (continued); their magnificent gardens and their dwellings 1619–1633

24. The way spirits and angels talk 1634–1650

25. The way spirits talk (continued) and how it varies 1757–1764

26. Sacred Scripture, or the Word, which conceals a divine message that lies open to the view of good spirits and angels 1767–1777

27. Sacred Scripture or the Word (continued) 1869–1879

General information about spirits and angels 1880–1885

Genesis Chapter 1

Genesis

1

The Word in the Old Testament contains secrets of heaven, and every single aspect of it has to do with the Lord, his heaven, the church, faith, and all the tenets of faith; but not a single person sees this in the letter. In the letter, or literal meaning, people see only that it deals for the most part with the external facts of the Jewish religion.

The truth is, however, that every part of the Old Testament holds an inner message. Except at a very few points, those inner depths never show on the surface. The exceptions are concepts that the Lord revealed and explained to the apostles, such as the fact that the sacrifices symbolize the Lord, and that the land of Canaan and Jerusalem symbolize heaven (which is why it is called the heavenly Canaan or Jerusalem [Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:16; 12:22; Revelation 21:2, 10]), as does Paradise.

2

The Christian world, though, remains deeply ignorant of the fact that each and every detail down to the smallest—even down to the tiniest jot—enfolds and symbolizes spiritual and heavenly matters; and because it lacks such knowledge, it also lacks much interest in the Old Testament.

Still, Christians can come to a proper understanding if they reflect on a single notion: that since the Word is the Lord’s and comes from him, it could not possibly exist unless it held within it the kinds of things that have to do with heaven, the church, and faith. Otherwise it could not be called the Lord’s Word, nor could it be said to contain any life. Where, after all, does life come from if not from what is living? That is, if not from the fact that every single thing in the Word relates to the Lord, who is truly life itself? Whatever does not look to him at some deeper level, then, is without life; in fact, if a single expression in the Word does not embody or reflect him in its own way, it is not divine.

3

Without this interior life, the Word in its letter is dead. It resembles a human being, in that a human has an outward self and an inward one, as the Christian world knows. The outer being, separated from the inner, is just a body and so is dead, but the inward being is what lives and allows the outward being to live. The inner being is a person’s soul.

In the same way, the letter of the Word by itself is a body without a soul.

4

The Word’s literal meaning alone, when it monopolizes our thinking, can never provide a view of the inner contents. Take for example this first chapter of Genesis. The literal meaning by itself offers no clue that it is speaking of anything but the world’s creation, the Garden of Eden (Paradise), and Adam, the first human ever created. Who supposes anything else?

The wisdom hidden in these details (and never before revealed) will be clear enough from what follows. The inner sense of the first chapter of Genesis deals in general with the process that creates us anew—that is to say, with regeneration—and in particular with the very earliest church; and it does so in such a way that not even the smallest syllable fails to represent, symbolize, and incorporate this meaning.

5

But without the Lord’s aid not a soul can possibly see that this is the case. As a result, it is proper to reveal in these preliminaries that the Lord in his divine mercy has granted me the opportunity for several years now, without break or interruption, to keep company with spirits and angels, to hear them talking, and to speak with them in turn. Consequently I have been able to see and hear the most amazing things in the other life, which have never before come into people’s awareness or thought.

In that world I have been taught about the different kinds of spirits, the situation of souls after death, hell (or the regrettable state of the faithless), and heaven (or the blissful state of the faithful). In particular I have learned what is taught in the faith acknowledged by the whole of heaven. All of these topics will, with the Lord’s divine mercy, be explored further in what follows.

Genesis 1

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

2. And the earth was void and emptiness; and there was darkness on the face of the abyss. And the Spirit of God was constantly moving on the face of the water.

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

4. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God made a distinction between light and darkness.

5. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

6. And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it exist to make a distinction among the waters, in the waters.”

7. And God made the expanse, and he made a distinction between the waters that were under the expanse and the waters that were over the expanse; and so it was done.

8. And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9. And God said, “Let the waters under heaven be gathered into one place, and let dry land appear,” and so it was done.

10. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.

11. And God said, “Let the earth cause the sprouting on the earth of the tender plant, of the plant bearing its seed, of the fruit tree making the fruit that holds its seed, each in the way of its kind,” and so it was done.

12. And the earth produced the tender plant, the plant bearing its seed in the way of its kind, and the tree making the fruit that held its seed in the way of its kind, and God saw that it was good.

13. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

14. And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to make a distinction between day and night; and they will act as signals and will be used for seasons for both the days and the years.

15. And they will act as lights in the expanse of the heavens to shed light on the earth”; and so it was done.

16. And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule by day and the smaller light to rule by night; and the stars.

17. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens, to shed light on the earth,

18. and to rule during the day and during the night, and to make a distinction between light and darkness; and God saw that it was good.

19. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20. And God said, “Let the waters cause the creeping animal—a living soul—to creep out. And let the bird flit over the land, over the face of the expanse of the heavens.”

21. And God created the big sea creatures, and every living, creeping soul that the waters caused to creep out, in all their kinds, and every bird on the wing, of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

22. And God blessed them, saying, “Reproduce and multiply and fill the water in the seas, and the birds will multiply on the land.”

23. And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24. And God said, “Let the earth produce each living soul according to its kind: the beast, and that which moves, and the wild animal of the earth, each according to its kind”; and so it was done.

25. And God made each wild animal of the earth according to its kind, and each beast according to its kind, and every animal creeping on the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

26. And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, after our likeness; and these will rule over the fish of the sea and over the bird in the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth, and over every creeping animal that creeps on the earth.”

27. And God created the human in his image; in God’s image he created them; male and female he created them.

28. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Reproduce and multiply, and fill the earth and harness it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the bird in the heavens and over every living animal creeping on the earth.”

29. And God said, “Here, now, I am giving you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth and every tree that has fruit; the tree that produces seed will serve you for food.

30. And every wild animal of the earth and every bird in the heavens and every animal creeping on the earth, in which there is a living soul—every green plant will serve them for nourishment.” And so it was done.

31. And God saw all that he had done and, yes, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Summary

6

The six days or time periods, meaning so many consecutive stages in a person’s regeneration, are these, in outline:

7

The first stage is preliminary, extending from infancy to just before regeneration, and is called void, emptiness, and darkness. The first stirring, which is the Lord’s mercy, is the Spirit of God in constant motion on the face of the water.

8

In the second stage, a distinction is drawn between the things that are the Lord’s and those that are our own. The things that are the Lord’s are called a “remnant” in the Word. In this instance the “remnant” refers principally to religious knowledge acquired from early childhood on. This remnant is stored away, not to reappear until we arrive at such a stage.

At present the second stage rarely comes into play without trouble, misfortune, and grief, which enable bodily and worldly concerns—things that are our own—to fade away and in effect die out. The things that belong to the outer self, then, are separated from those that belong to the inner self, the inner self containing the remnant that the Lord has put aside to await this time and this purpose.

9

The third stage is one of repentance. During this time, at the prompting of the inner self, we speak devoutly and reverently and yield a good harvest (acts of neighborly kindness, for instance). These effects are lifeless nonetheless, since we suppose that they come of our own doing. They are called the tender plant, then the seed-bearing plant, and lastly the fruit tree.

10

In the fourth stage, love stirs and faith enlightens us. Before this time we may have spoken devoutly and yielded a good harvest, but we did so in a state of trial and anguish, not at the call of faith and kindness. In consequence they are now kindled in our inner self and are called the two lights.

11

In the fifth stage, we speak with conviction and, in the process, strengthen ourselves in truth and goodness. The things we then produce have life in them and are called the fish of the sea and the birds in the heavens.

12

In the sixth stage, we act with conviction and therefore with love in speaking truth and doing good. What we then produce is called a living soul and a beast. Because we begin to act as much from love as from conviction, we become spiritual people, who are called [God’s] image.

In regard to our spiritual lives, we now find pleasure and nourishment in religious knowledge and acts of kindness; and these are called our food. In regard to our earthly lives, we still find pleasure and sustenance in things relating to our body and our senses, which cause strife until love takes charge and we develop a heavenly character.

13

Not everyone who undergoes regeneration reaches this stage. Some (the great majority, these days) arrive only at the first stage, some only at the second, some at the third, fourth, or fifth, very few at the sixth, and almost no one at the seventh.

Inner Meaning

14

From this point on, the term Lord is used in only one way: to refer to the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ; and the name “Lord” is used without any additions.

He is acknowledged and revered as Lord throughout heaven because he possesses all power in heaven and on earth.

He also commanded this when he said, “You address me as ‘Lord.’ You speak correctly, because so I am” (John 13:13). And his disciples called him Lord after the resurrection.

15

In the whole of heaven no one knows of any other Father than the Lord, since the Father and the Lord are one. As he himself said:

“I am the way and the truth and life.” Philip says, “Show us your Father.” Jesus says to him, “After all the time I’ve spent with you, don’t you know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen my Father. How then can you say, ‘Show us your Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in my Father and my Father is in me? Believe me, that I am in my Father and my Father is in me.” (John 14:6, 8, 9, 10, 11)

16

Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.

The word beginning is being used for the very earliest times. The prophets frequently call them “the days of old.”

“The beginning” includes the first period of regeneration too, as that is when people are being born anew and receiving life. Because of this, regeneration itself is called our new creation [2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15]. Almost everywhere in the prophetic books, the words creating, forming, and making stand for regenerating, though with differences. In Isaiah, for example:

All have been called by my name, and I have created them for my glory; I have formed them; yes, I have made them. (Isaiah 43:7)

This is why the Lord is called Redeemer, One-Who-Forms-from-the-Womb, Maker, and Creator, as in the same prophet:

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

In David:

The people created will praise Jah. (Psalms 102:18)

In the same author:

You send out your spirit—they will continue to be created—and you renew the face of the ground. (Psalms 104:30)

Heaven, or the sky, symbolizes the inner self, and the earth, before regeneration occurs, symbolizes the outer self, as may be seen below [§§17, 24:3, 27].

17

Genesis 1:2. And the earth was void and emptiness, and there was darkness on the face of the abyss, and the Spirit of God was constantly moving on the face of the water.

Before regeneration a person is called the void, empty earth, and also soil in which no seed of goodness or truth has been planted. Void refers to an absence of goodness and empty to an absence of truth. The result is darkness, in which a person is oblivious to or ignorant of anything having to do with faith in the Lord and consequently with a spiritual or heavenly life. The Lord portrays such a person this way in Jeremiah:

My people are dense; they do not know me. They are stupid children, without understanding. They are wise in doing evil but do not know how to do good. I looked at the earth, and there—void and emptiness; and to the heavens, and these had no light. (Jeremiah 4:22, 23, 25)

18

The face of the abyss means our cravings and the falsities these give rise to; we are wholly made up of cravings and falsities and wholly surrounded by them. Because no ray of light is in us, we are like an abyss, or something disorganized and dim.

Many passages in the Word also call such people abysses and sea depths, which are drained (that is, devastated) before a person is regenerated. In Isaiah, for instance:

Wake up, as in the days of old, the generations of eternity! Are you not draining the sea, the waters of the great abyss, and making the depths of the sea a path for the redeemed to cross? May those ransomed by Jehovah return! (Isaiah 51:9, 10, 11)

An individual of this type, observed from heaven, looks like a dark mass with no life at all to it.

The same words involve an individual’s overall spiritual devastation—a preliminary step to regeneration. (The prophets have much more to say about it.) Before we can learn what is true and be affected by what is good, the things that stand in the way and resist have to be put aside. The old self must die before the new self can be conceived.

19

The Spirit of God stands for the Lord’s mercy, which is portrayed as moving constantly, like a hen brooding over her eggs. What is being brooded over in this instance is what the Lord stores away in us, which throughout the Word is called “a remnant” [or “survivors”]. It is a knowledge of truth and goodness, which can never emerge into the light of day until our outer nature has been devastated. Such knowledge is here called the face of the water.

20

Genesis 1:3. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

The first step is taken when we begin to realize that goodness and truth are something transcendent.

People who focus exclusively on externals do not even know what is good or what is true; everything connected with self-love and love of worldly advantages they consider good, and anything that promotes those two loves they consider true. They are unaware that such “goodness” is evil and such “truth” false.

When we are conceived anew, however, we first begin to be aware that our “good” is not good. And as we advance further into the light, it dawns on us that the Lord exists and that he is goodness and truth itself.

The Lord says in John that we need to know of his existence:

Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. (John 8:24)

We need to know too that the Lord is goodness itself, or life, and truth itself, or light, and consequently that nothing good or true exists that does not come from him. This is also found in John:

In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was present with God, and the Word was God. Everything was made by him, and nothing that was made was made without him. In him was life, and the life was the light of humankind; but the light appears in the darkness. He was the true light that shines on every person coming into the world. (John 1:1, 3, 4, [5,] 9)

21

Genesis 1:4, 5. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God made a distinction between light and darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

The light is said to be good because it is from the Lord, who is goodness itself.

The darkness is whatever looked like light to us before our new conception and birth, because we saw evil as good and falsity as truth; but it is actually darkness—our lingering sense of self-sufficiency.

Absolutely everything that is the Lord’s is compared to the day, because it belongs to the light, and everything that is our own is compared to the night, because it belongs to the darkness. The Word draws this comparison in quite a few places.

22

Genesis 1:5. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

From this we now see what evening and morning mean. Evening is every preliminary stage, because such stages are marked by shadow, or by falsity and an absence of faith. Morning is all later stages, because these are marked by light, or by truth and religious knowledge.

Evening stands in general for everything that is our own, while morning stands for everything of the Lord’s. As David says, for example:

The Spirit of Jehovah has spoken in me and his words are on my tongue. The God of Israel has said, the rock of Israel has spoken to me. He is like the morning light when the sun rises, like a morning when there are no clouds, when because of the brightness, because of the rain, the tender grass springs from the earth. (2 Samuel 23:2, 3, 4)

Since evening is when there is no faith and morning is when there is faith, the Lord’s coming into the world is called morning. The period in which he came, being a time of no faith, is called evening. In Daniel:

The Holy One said to me, “Up till [the day’s second] evening, when it becomes morning, two thousand and three hundred times.” (Daniel 8:14, 26)

Morning in the Word is similarly taken to mean every coming of the Lord, so that it is a word for being created anew.

23

Nothing is more common in the Word than for a day to be understood as meaning the times, as in Isaiah:

The day of Jehovah is near. Look—the day of Jehovah is coming! I will shake heaven, and the earth will tremble right out of its place, on the day when my anger blazes up. The time of his coming is near, and its days will not be postponed. (Isaiah 13:6, 9, 13, 22)

In the same prophet:

In the days of old she was old. It will happen on that day that Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, corresponding to the days of one king. (Isaiah 23:7, 15)

Because a day stands for a time period, it is also taken to mean the state we are in during that period, as in Jeremiah:

Doom to us! For the day has faded, for the shadows of evening have lengthened. (Jeremiah 6:4)

In the same prophet:

If you nullify my compact with the day and my compact with the night, so that there is no daytime or night at their times . . . (Jeremiah 33:20, 25)

And again:

Renew our days as in ancient times. (Lamentations 5:21)

24

Genesis 1:6. And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it exist to make a distinction among the waters, in the waters.”

The next step occurs after the Spirit of God—the Lord’s mercy—brings out into daylight the knowledge of truth and goodness and provides the first glimmering that the Lord exists, that he is goodness and truth itself, and that nothing is good or true except what comes from him. The Spirit of God then makes a distinction between the inner and the outer being, and between the religious knowledge we possess in our inner selves and the secular knowledge belonging to our outer selves.

The inner self is called the expanse, the knowledge in the inner self is called the waters over the expanse, and the facts belonging to the outer self are called the waters under the expanse.

[2] Before we are reborn, we do not know even that an inner being exists, let alone what it is, imagining there is no difference between the two selves. This is because we are absorbed by bodily and worldly interests and merge the concerns of the inner being with those interests. Out of distinct and separate planes we make one dim, confused whole.

Therefore this verse first says that there should be an expanse in the middle of the waters, then that it should exist to make a distinction “among the waters, in the waters,” but not that it should make a distinction between one set of waters and another. The next verse says that.

[3] Genesis 1:7, 8. And God made the expanse, and he made a distinction between the waters that were under the expanse and the waters that were over the expanse, and so it was done; and God called the expanse heaven.

The second thing we begin to notice while being reborn, then, is that the inner self exists. We become aware that the attributes of the inner self are good feelings and true ideas, which are the Lord’s alone.

While we are being reborn, our outer self is such that it still believes we are acting on our own when we do what is good and speaking on our own when we speak what is true. The Lord uses those things—allowing them to seem like our own, since such is our mind-set—to lead us to doing what is good and speaking what is true. Consequently we first learn to distinguish what is under the expanse; only then do we learn to distinguish what is over the expanse.

Another secret from heaven is that the Lord leads us by means of things that really are our own—both the illusions of our senses and our cravings—but diverts us toward things that are true and good. So every single moment of regeneration carries us forward from evening to morning, just as it takes us from the outer self to the inner, or from earth to heaven. This is why the expanse (the inner self) is now called heaven.

25

Spreading out the earth and stretching out the heavens is a customary formula used by the prophets when they speak of our regeneration. In Isaiah, for example:

This is what Jehovah has said, your Redeemer and the one who formed you from the womb: “I am Jehovah, making all things, stretching the heavens out on my own and spreading the earth out by myself.” (Isaiah 44:24)

Again, where the Lord’s Coming is spoken of openly:

A crushed reed he does not break, and smoldering flax he does not quench; he propels judgment toward truth. [In other words, he does not break our illusions or extinguish our cravings but bends them toward truth and goodness. It continues:] God Jehovah creates the heavens and stretches them out. He spreads out the earth and the things it produces. He gives a soul to the people on it and spirit to everyone walking on it. (Isaiah 42:3, 4, 5)

Several other places could be cited as well.

26

Genesis 1:8. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

The meanings of evening, morning, and day are explained above at verse 5 [§§22–23].

27

Genesis 1:9. And God said, “Let the waters under heaven be gathered into one place, and let dry land appear”; and so it was done.

When we learn that we have an inner self and an outer, and that truth and goodness come from the inner self—or rather from the Lord by way of the inner self into the outer, even though this is contrary to appearances—this information, this knowledge of truth and goodness, is stored away in our memory. The knowledge takes its place among the secular facts we have learned, because anything instilled in our outward memory, whether earthly, spiritual, or heavenly, lodges there as a fact, and from there the Lord draws on it.

This knowledge is the waters gathered into one place and named seas. The outer being itself, on the other hand, is called dry land. Immediately afterward it is called earth, as the next verse shows.

28

Genesis 1:10. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of waters he called seas; and God saw that it was good.

To find waters symbolizing religious and secular knowledge, and seas symbolizing a body of such knowledge, is quite common in the Word. In Isaiah:

The earth will be full with the awareness of Jehovah, like the waters covering the sea. (Isaiah 11:9)

In the same prophet, where both kinds of knowledge are portrayed as lacking:

The water will disappear from the sea, the river will drain away and dry up, and the streams will recede. (Isaiah 19:5, 6)

In Haggai, where a new church is the subject:

I am shaking the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, and those who are the desire of every nation will come, and I will fill this House with glory. (Haggai 2:6, 7)

And in Zechariah, on the regenerating individual:

That will be a single day; it is known to Jehovah; it is not day or night. And it will happen that at the time of evening there will be light. And it will happen on that day that living water will go out from Jerusalem, part of it to the eastern sea and part of it to the western sea. (Zechariah 14:7, 8)

In a passage in David depicting a devastated person who is being reborn and will come to revere the Lord:

Jehovah does not despise his prisoners; the heavens and the earth, the seas and every creeping thing in them will praise him. (Psalms 69:33, 34)

In the following passage in Zechariah, the earth symbolizes that which receives something put into it:

Jehovah is stretching out the heavens and founding the earth and forming the human spirit in the middle of it. (Zechariah 12:1)

29

Genesis 1:11, 12. And God said, “Let the earth cause the sprouting on the earth of the tender plant, of the plant bearing its seed, of the fruit tree making the fruit that holds its seed, each in the way of its kind”; and so it was done. And the earth produced the tender plant, the plant bearing its seed in the way of its kind, and the tree making the fruit that held its seed in the way of its kind. And God saw that it was good.

When the earth (a person) is so well prepared as to be able to accept heavenly seed from the Lord and to produce good and truth in some degree, that is the time when the Lord first causes the sprouting of something tender, called the tender plant or grass. Next he stimulates something more useful that reseeds itself—the plant bearing its seed. Finally he germinates something good, which reproduces fruitfully—the tree making the fruit that holds its seed, each of these in the way of its kind.

During regeneration we naturally suppose at first that the good we do and the truth we speak come from ourselves, when the reality is that all good and truth come from the Lord. If we imagine they come from ourselves, then, we are not yet in possession of the life force belonging to true faith (although we can receive it later). We cannot believe yet that they come from the Lord, because we are being prepared to receive the living power of faith. This stage is represented in the story by things that have no living soul; animate creatures represent the stage of living faith to come.

[2] The Lord is the sower of seeds, the seed is his Word, and the earth is the human being, as he saw fit to say in Matthew 13:19–23, 37, 38, 39; Mark 4:14–20; and Luke 8:11–15. A similar description:

So God’s kingdom is like one who tosses seed into the earth and sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; how it happens, the person does not know. For the earth bears fruit readily—first a shoot, then an ear, then the full grain in the ear. (Mark 4:26, 27, 28)

“God’s kingdom” in its broadest sense means the whole of heaven. Less broadly it means the Lord’s true church. In its narrow sense it refers to everyone with true faith, which is to say, all who become reborn by living out their faith. Each of these people is also called a heaven (since they have heaven in them) and God’s kingdom (since they have God’s kingdom in them). The Lord himself teaches this in Luke:

Jesus was asked by the Pharisees, “When is God’s kingdom coming?” He answered them and said, “God’s kingdom does not come in an observable way, nor will they say, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’ because—look!—God’s kingdom is within you.” (Luke 17:20, 21)

This is the third step in our regeneration and the stage at which we repent. The process continues to advance from shadow to light, from evening to morning, and so it says:

[3] Genesis 1:13. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

30

Genesis 1:14, 15, 16, 17. And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to make a distinction between day and night; and they will act as signals and will be used for seasons for both the days and the years. And they will be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to shed light on the earth,” and so it was done. And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule by day and the smaller light to rule by night; and the stars. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens, to shed light on the earth.

We cannot understand the identity of these great lights very well unless we first know what the essence of faith is and how it develops in those who are being created anew.

The actual essence and life of faith is the Lord alone. No one who lacks faith in the Lord can have life, as he himself said in John:

Those who believe in the Son have eternal life, but those who do not believe in the Son will not see life; instead, God’s anger will rest on them. (John 3:36)

[2] The progress of faith in those who are being created anew is as follows. Initially such people are without any life, as no life exists in evil or falsity, only in goodness and truth. Afterward they receive life from the Lord through faith. The first form of faith to bring life is a memorized thing—a matter of fact. The next is faith in the intellect—faith truly understood. The last is faith in the heart, which is faith born of love, or saving faith.

In verses 3–13 the things that had no living soul represent factual faith and faith truly understood. Faith brought alive by love, however, is represented by the animate creatures in verses 20–25. Consequently this is the point at which love and the faith that rises out of it are first dealt with, and they are called lights. Love is the greater light that rules by day; faith springing from love is the smaller light that rules by night. And because they must unite as one, the verb used with “lights” is singular, “let it be” rather than “let them be.”

[3] Love and faith work the same way in our inner being as warmth and light work in our outer flesh and are therefore represented by warmth and light. This is why the lights are said to be placed in the expanse of the heavens, or our inner being, the greater light in our will and the smaller in our intellect. But they only seem to be present there, just as the light of the sun only appears to be in physical objects. It is the Lord’s mercy alone that stirs our will with love and our intellect with truth or faith.

31

The fact that the great lights symbolize love and faith and that they are named sun, moon, and stars can be seen in many places in the prophets. In Ezekiel, for instance:

When I blot you out I will cover the heavens and black out their stars; the sun I will cover with a cloud, and the moon will not make its light shine. All the lamps of light in the heavens I will black out above you, and I will bring shadow over your land. (Ezekiel 32:7, 8)

This passage is directed at Pharaoh and the Egyptians. In the Word, these people stand for sensory evidence and factual information, and the idea here is that they used both things to blot out love and faith. In Isaiah:

The day of Jehovah [comes] to make the earth a desolation, since neither the stars of the heavens nor their Orions will shine their light. The sun has been shadowed over in its emergence, and the moon will not radiate its light. (Isaiah 13:9, 10)

In Joel:

The day of Jehovah has come, a day of shadow and darkness. Before him the earth trembles, the heavens shake, the sun and moon turn black, and the stars hold back their rays. (Joel 2:1, 2, 10)

[2] The following passage in Isaiah discusses the Lord’s Coming and the light brought to the nations—in other words, a new church, and specifically the individuals who are in shadow but welcome the light and are being reborn.

Rise, shine, because your light has come! Look—shadows cover the earth, and darkness, the peoples. And Jehovah will dawn above you; and the nations will walk toward your light, and monarchs, toward the brightness of your rising. Jehovah will become an eternal light to you. No longer will your sun set, and your moon will not withdraw, because Jehovah will become an eternal light to you. (Isaiah 60:1, 2, 3, 19, 20)

In David:

Jehovah makes the heavens with understanding; he spreads the earth out on the waters; he makes the great lights—the sun to rule during the day and the moon and stars to rule during the night. (Psalms 136:5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

In the same author:

Give glory to Jehovah, sun and moon! Give glory to him, all you shining stars! Give glory to him, heavens of heavens and waters above the heavens! (Psalms 148:3, 4)

In all these places the sources of light symbolize love and faith.

[3] Because lights represented and symbolized love for and faith in the Lord, the Jewish church was commanded to keep a light burning perpetually, from evening to morning, since every activity that was required of that church represented the Lord. The command for the perpetual light was as follows:

Command the children of Israel to take oil for the light, to make [the fire of] the lamp go up continually. In the meeting tent, outside the veil that is by [the ark of] the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall arrange it before Jehovah, from evening till morning. (Exodus 27:20, 21)

This symbolizes love and faith, which the Lord kindles and causes to shine in our inner self, and through our inner into our outer self, as will be shown in its proper place [§9783], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

32

Love and faith are first called the great lights, then love is called the greater light and faith the smaller light. It says that love will rule during the day and that faith will rule during the night. Because this information is unknown and less accessible than ever at this time—the end of an era—the Lord in his divine mercy has allowed me to lay open the true situation.

It is especially well hidden in these final days because the close of the age has arrived and almost no love exists, consequently almost no faith. The Lord himself predicted this event in words recorded in the Gospels:

The sun will go dark, and the moon will not shed light, and the stars will fall down from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Matthew 24:29)

The sun here means love, which has gone dark. The moon means faith, which is not shedding light. The stars mean religious concepts (the powers and forces of the heavens), which are falling down from heaven.

[2] The earliest church acknowledged no faith besides love itself. Heavenly angels too have no idea what faith is if it is not a matter of love. The entirety of heaven gives itself over to love, because no other kind of life than that of love exists in the heavens. Love is the source of all their happiness, which is so immense that not a bit of it can be put into words or grasped in any way by the human mind.

People who dwell in love do love the Lord with all their heart, but they know, say, and perceive that all love comes from the Lord and from nowhere else, as does all life (which is the product of love alone) and so all happiness. Not the smallest measure of love, life, or happiness do they claim to possess on their own.

In the Lord’s transfiguration, the great light—the sun—represented the fact that he is the source of all love, since

His face shone like the sun, while his clothes became like the light. (Matthew 17:2)

The face symbolizes the deepest levels of being, while clothes symbolize the things that issue from those levels. So the sun (love) means the Lord’s divinity, and light (the wisdom that rises out of love), his humanity.

33

Anyone can see perfectly well that no hint of life ever exists without some kind of love and that no trace of joy ever exists unless it results from love. The nature of the love determines the nature of the life and of the joy.

If you were to take the things you love—the things you long for (since longings are bound up with love)—and set them aside, your thought processes would come to an immediate halt and you would be like a corpse. I have learned this through experience.

Self-love and materialism produce an imitation of life and an imitation of joy, but since they are diametrically opposed to genuine love—that is, loving the Lord above all and loving our neighbor as ourselves—it stands to reason that they are not forms of love but of hatred. Notice that the more we love ourselves and worldly goods, the more we hate our neighbor and therefore the Lord.

Genuine love, then, is love for the Lord, and genuine life is a life of love received from him. True joy is the joy of that life.

Only one genuine love can exist, so only one genuine life can exist, and it gives rise to true joy and happiness, like that felt by angels in heaven.

34

Love and faith can never be separated, because they make a single unit. This is why the sources of light when first mentioned are treated as grammatically singular in the statement, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens.” Let me report some surprising facts in this connection.

Because the Lord gives heavenly angels this kind of love, love reveals all religious knowledge to them. Love also gives them such a living and shining intelligence that it can hardly be described.

For spirits who learn the doctrinal tenets of faith but lack love, on the other hand, life is so chill and the light so dim that they cannot even approach the near side of the threshold to heaven’s entrance hall without fleeing in retreat.

Some say that they had believed in the Lord; but in actuality they had not lived as he taught. The Lord speaks of them this way in Matthew:

Not everyone saying “Lord! Lord!” to me will enter the kingdom of the heavens, but the one doing my will. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord! Lord! Haven’t we prophesied in your name?” (Matthew 7:21, 22)

See also what follows there, up to the end of Matthew 7.

[2] All this makes it clear that people who have love also have faith and consequently heavenly life. The same cannot be said of those who claim to have faith but do not lead a loving life.

A life of faith without love is like sunlight without warmth—the type of light that occurs in winter, when nothing grows and everything droops and dies. Faith rising out of love, on the contrary, is like light from the sun in spring, when everything grows and flourishes. Warmth from the sun is the fertile agent. The same is true in spiritual and heavenly affairs, which are typically represented in the Word by objects found in nature and human culture.

Nonbelief and belief without love are in fact compared to winter by the Lord in Mark where he made predictions concerning the close of the age:

Pray that your flight not occur in winter, as those will be days of distress. (Mark 13:18, 19)

The “flight” refers to the final days and to an individual’s final days before death as well. “Winter” is a life devoid of love. The “days of distress” are the person’s wretched condition in the other life.

35

Humans have two basic faculties: will and intellect. When the will regulates the intellect, the two together make one mind and as a result one life; under those circumstances, what we will and do is also what we think and intend. When the intellect is at odds with the will, though, as when we act in a way that contradicts what we claim to believe, our single mind is torn in two. One part wants to rise up to heaven while the other leans toward hell. And since the will drives everything, we would rush into hell heart and soul if the Lord did not take pity on us.

36

People who have separated faith from love do not even know what faith is. When they try to picture it, some see it merely as thought. Some view it only as thoughts about the Lord. A few equate it with the teachings of faith.

But faith is more than the knowledge and acknowledgment of all that is encompassed in the teachings of faith. First and foremost it is obedience to everything that faith teaches; and the primary thing faith teaches and requires our obedience to is love for the Lord and love for our neighbor. No one who lacks this possesses faith. The Lord teaches this so clearly in Mark that no one can doubt it:

The first of all the commandments is “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. Therefore you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your powers.” This is the first commandment. A second, similar one, of course, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:28–34)

In Matthew he calls the former the first and great commandment and says that the Law and the Prophets depend on these commandments (Matthew 22:35–40). “The Law and the Prophets” are the teachings of faith, all-inclusively, and the whole Word.

37

The words the lights will act as signals and will be used for seasons both for the days and for the years contain more hidden information than can be spelled out in the present work, even though none of it appears in the literal meaning. The only thing to be said at this time is that spiritual and heavenly things—as a group and individually—go through cycles, for which the daily and yearly cycles are metaphors. The daily cycle begins in the morning, extends to midday, then to evening, and through night to morning. The corresponding annual cycle begins with spring, extends to summer, then to fall, and through winter to spring.

These changes create changes in temperature and light and in the earth’s fertility, which are used as metaphors for changes in spiritual and heavenly conditions. Without change and variation, life would be monotonous and consequently lifeless. There would be no recognition or differentiation of goodness and truth, let alone any awareness of them.

The celestial cycles are called “statutes” in the prophets, as in Jeremiah:

The word spoken by Jehovah, who gives the sun as light for the day, the statutes of moon and stars as light for the night: “These statutes will not depart from before me.” (Jeremiah 31:35, 36)

And in the same prophet:

This is what Jehovah has said: “If my compact with day and night should cease, if I should cease to set the statutes of heaven and earth . . .” (Jeremiah 33:25)

But the subject will be explored further at Genesis 8:22 [§§933–936], the Lord’s divine mercy permitting.

38

Genesis 1:18. . . . and to rule during the day and during the night, and to make a distinction between light and darkness; and God saw that it was good.

Day means goodness and night evil, so in common parlance the good things people do are associated with the day, while the bad things they do are called deeds of the night.

Light means truth and darkness falsity, as the Lord says:

People loved darkness more than light. One who does the truth comes to the light. (John 3:19–21)

Genesis 1:19. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

39

Genesis 1:20. And God said, “Let the waters cause the creeping animal—a living soul—to creep out. And let the bird flit over the land, over the face of the expanse of the heavens.”

After the great lights are kindled and placed in the inner self, and the outer self is receiving light from them, the time arrives when we first start to live. Earlier, we can hardly be said to have been alive, thinking as we did that the good we perform and the truth we speak originate in ourselves. On our own we are dead and have nothing but evil and falsity inside, with the result that nothing we produce from ourselves has life. So true is this that by our own power we cannot do anything good—at least not anything inherently good.

From the doctrine taught by faith, anyone can see that we cannot so much as think a good thought or will a good result or consequently do a good deed except through the Lord’s power. After all, in Matthew the Lord says:

The one who sows good seed is the Son of Humankind. (Matthew 13:37)

Good cannot come from anywhere but this same unique source, as he also says:

Nobody is good except the one God. (Luke 18:19)

[2] Still, when the Lord brings us back to life, or regenerates us, he at first allows us to harbor these mistaken ideas. At that stage we cannot view the situation in any other way. Neither can we be led in any other way to believe and then perceive that everything good and true comes from the Lord alone.

As long as our thinking ran along these lines, the truth and goodness we possessed were equated with a tender plant or grass, next with a plant bearing seed, then with a fruit tree, none of which has a living soul. Now, when love and faith have brought us to life and we believe that the Lord brings about all the good we do and the truth we speak, we are compared initially to creeping animals of the water and birds flitting over the land and later to beasts. All these are animate and are called living souls.

40

The creeping animals that the waters breed symbolize facts that the outer self knows. Birds in general symbolize logical reasoning; they also symbolize matters that we truly understand, which belong to the inner self.

The following verses in Isaiah demonstrate the symbolism of the creeping animals of the waters—fish—as facts:

I came and there was no man. In my censure I will dry up the sea; I will make the rivers a desert; their fish will stink from lack of water and die of thirst; I will dress the heavens in black. (Isaiah 50:2, 3)

[2] Evidence still clearer appears in Ezekiel, where the Lord describes a new temple, the general meaning of which is a new church and an adherent of the church or person reborn (since everyone who is reborn is a temple to the Lord).

The Lord Jehovah said to me, “That water, which will go out to the boundary toward the east and go toward the sea, will be channeled down into the sea, and the water [of the sea] will be cured. And it will come about that every living soul that creeps out in any place where the water of the rivers goes will survive; and the fish will be very numerous, because that water goes there and will be cured, and everything will live, wherever the river goes. And it will happen that the fishers will stand over it from En-gedi to En-eglaim; they will be there spreading their nets. Their fish will be of all kinds, like the fish of the great sea, very numerous.” (Ezekiel 47:8, 9, 10)

“Fishers from En-gedi to En-eglaim spreading their nets” symbolize people who are to teach the earthly plane of the human mind about the truths that make up faith.

[3] Passages in the prophets establish the fact that birds symbolize logical reasoning and concepts truly understood. In Isaiah, for example:

I am calling the winged creature from the sunrise, the man I planned on, from a faraway land. (Isaiah 46:11)

In Jeremiah:

I looked and there, not a human! And every bird of the heavens had fled. (Jeremiah 4:25)

In Ezekiel:

I will plant a cutting of the tall cedar, and it will lift its branch and make fruit and become a majestic cedar. And every bird of every wing will live under it; in the shade of its branches they will live. (Ezekiel 17:[22,] 23)

And in Hosea, where the subject is a new church, or the regenerate person:

And I will strike a pact with them on that day—with the wild animal of the field, and with the bird in the heavens and the creature that moves on the ground. (Hosea 2:18)

The wild animal obviously does not mean a wild animal or the bird a bird, because the Lord is sealing a new pact with them.

41

Nothing that is a person’s very own has any life in it. When presented to view, it looks hard as bone, and black. Everything that comes from the Lord, on the other hand, has life. It has a spiritual and heavenly quality and looks like something living and human.

Incredibly, perhaps (although it is absolutely true), each word, each mental image, and each scintilla of thought in an angelic spirit is alive. Passion received from the Lord, who is life itself, permeates every single thing about such a spirit.

Things that come from the Lord, then, contain life because they contain faith in him, and they are symbolized here by a living soul. Additionally, they have the equivalent of a physical body, symbolized by that which moves or creeps. This information remains obscure to the human mind, but since the verse talks about a living soul that moves, I need at least to mention it.

42

Genesis 1:21. And God created the big sea creatures, and every living, creeping soul that the waters caused to creep out, in all their kinds, and every bird on the wing, of every kind; and God saw that it was good.

Fish symbolize facts, as already stated [§40]. In this instance they symbolize facts animated by faith that is received from the Lord, which therefore possess vitality. Big sea creatures symbolize general categories of facts, from which come subcategories. (Not one thing exists anywhere in the world that does not belong to some general category. The category allows the particular item to come into being and continue in existence.)

The prophets mention sea monsters or whales a number of times, and when they do, these symbolize general categories of facts. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, representing human wisdom or understanding (that is, factual information in general), is called a large sea creature, as in Ezekiel:

Here, now, I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, you great sea creature, lying in the middle of your rivers, who has said, “The river is mine, and I have made myself.” (Ezekiel 29:3)

[2] Another:

Raise a lamentation over Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and you are to tell him, “But you are like a monster in the seas; and you have emerged among your rivers and churned the waters with your feet.” (Ezekiel 32:2)

This image symbolizes those who want to use facts (meaning they want to use their own powers) to initiate themselves into religious mysteries. In Isaiah:

On that day Jehovah, with his steely and great and mighty sword, will exact punishment on Leviathan the stretched-out serpent and on Leviathan the coiled serpent; and he will kill the monsters that are in the sea. (Isaiah 27:1)

Killing the monsters that are in the sea means leaving such people without awareness even of general facts. In Jeremiah:

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has devoured me, has churned me up; he has rendered me an empty container, like a sea monster he has swallowed me down, filled his belly with the savors of me, hurled me out. (Jeremiah 51:34)

In other words, “Nebuchadnezzar” has swallowed up all religious knowledge (the “savors”) as the sea monster did to Jonah. In Jonah’s case the monster stood for people who possess the broad outlines of this knowledge in the form of facts and who wolf them down.

43

Genesis 1:22. And God blessed them, saying, “Reproduce and multiply and fill the water in the seas, and the birds will multiply on the land.”

Everything with life from the Lord in it reproduces and multiplies beyond measure—not so much during our physical lives, but to an astounding degree in the next life.

In the Word, reproducing or being fruitful applies to the elements of love, and multiplying, to the elements of faith. Fruit born of love holds the seed by which it multiplies so prolifically.

The Lord’s blessing in the Word also symbolizes fruitfulness and multiplication, because these are its result.

Genesis 1:23. And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

44

Genesis 1:24, 25. And God said, “Let the earth produce each living soul according to its kind: the beast, and that which moves, and the wild animal of the earth, each according to its kind”; and so it was done. And God made each wild animal of the earth according to its kind, and each beast according to its kind, and every animal creeping on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Like the earth, we are unable to produce any good unless we have first been sown with religious insights, which enable us to see what to believe and do.

The role of the intellect is to hear the Word, while the role of the will is to do it. To hear the Word and not act is to claim we believe it although we do not live by it. People who act like this separate the two and split their minds. The Lord says they are stupid:

Everyone who hears my words and does them I compare to a prudent man who built his house on rock. But everyone who hears my words and does not do them I compare to a stupid man who built his house on sand. (Matthew 7:24, 26)

What the intellect grasps is symbolized, as shown [§40], by creeping animals that the waters cause to creep out and birds flying over the land and over the face of the expanse. What the will is intent on is symbolized by the living soul that the earth is to produce, by the beast and that which creeps, and by the wild animal of the earth.

45

People who lived in the earliest times used the same kinds of symbols for the contents of the intellect and the will. In consequence, the different types of creature have a similar representation in the prophets and throughout the Old Testament Word.

Beasts are of two kinds: bad (because they are dangerous) and good (because they are tame). Bad animals—bears, wolves, and [feral] dogs, for instance—symbolize evil things in us. Good animals—young cattle, sheep, lambs—symbolize the good, gentle things in us. Because the present theme concerns people who are being reborn, the beasts in this verse are the good, tame ones, symbolizing feelings of affection.

The traits in us that belong to a lower order and rise more out of our body are called the wild animals of the earth; they are cravings and appetites.

46

Many examples from the Word can clarify the fact that beasts or animals symbolize the feelings we have—negative feelings if we are evil, positive feelings if we are good. Take these verses in Ezekiel:

Here, now, I am yours, [mountains of Israel,] and I will turn to face you so that you may be tilled and sown; and I will multiply human and animal upon you, and they will multiply and reproduce; and I will cause you to live as in your ancient times. (Ezekiel 36:9, 10, 11)

This speaks of regeneration. In Joel:

Do not be afraid, animals of my field; because the living-places of the desert have become grassy. (Joel 2:22)

In David:

I was dull-witted; I was like the animals, in God’s sight. (Psalms 73:22)

In Jeremiah:

Look! The days are coming when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of human and the seed of animal; and I will watch over them to build and to plant. (Jeremiah 31:27, 28)

This speaks of regeneration.

[2] Wild animals have the same symbolism. In Hosea, for example:

I will strike a pact with them on that day—with the wild animal of the field, and with the bird in the heavens and the creeping animal of the earth. (Hosea 2:18)

In Job:

Of the wild animal of the earth you are not to be afraid, as you will have a compact with the stones of the field, and the wild animal of the field will be peaceful toward you. (Job 5:22, 23)

In Ezekiel:

I will strike a pact of peace with you and bring an end on the earth to the evil wild animal, so that people may live securely in the wilderness. (Ezekiel 34:25)

In Isaiah:

The wild animal of the field will honor me because I have put water in the desert. (Isaiah 43:20)

In Ezekiel:

In its branches nested every bird of the heavens, and under its branches bred every wild animal of the field, and in its shade lived all the great nations. (Ezekiel 31:6)

This describes Assyrians, who symbolize a person with a spiritual focus and who are being compared to the Garden of Eden. In David:

Give glory to Jehovah, all you angels of his; give glory from the earth, you sea creatures, fruit tree, wild animal, and every beast, creeping animal, and bird on the wing. (Psalms 148:2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10)

This lists exactly the same things [as the present chapter]: sea creatures, fruit tree, wild animal, beast, creeping animal, and bird. Unless they symbolized living things in us, they could never be said to give glory to Jehovah.

[3] The prophets draw a careful distinction between the animals of the earth and the animals of the field.

It is good things that have been called animals up to this point, just as the people closest to the Lord in heaven are termed living creatures both in Ezekiel [1; 10] and in John:

All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell down before the throne on their faces and worshiped the Lamb. (Revelation 7:11; 19:4)

People to whom the gospel is to be preached are also called created beings, since they are to be created anew:

Go throughout the world and preach the gospel to every created being. (Mark 16:15)

47

More evidence that these words enfold the mysteries of regeneration can be seen in differences between the present verse and the last. The last says that the earth produced the living soul, the beast, and the wild animal of the earth. The present one employs a different order, saying that God made the wild animal of the earth and then the beast. At first we produce results as if on our own, as we do later, too, before developing a heavenly nature. Regeneration, then, starts with the outer self and moves to the inner, which is why a change in the order occurs, and outermost things come first.

48

All this verifies the premise: In the fifth stage we speak with conviction (an attribute of the intellect) and in the process strengthen ourselves in truth and goodness. The things we then produce have life in them and are called the fish of the sea and the birds in the heavens. And in the sixth stage we act with conviction (an attribute of the intellect) and therefore with love (an attribute of the will) in speaking truth and doing good. What we then produce is called a living soul, an animal. Because this is the point at which we begin to act as much with love as with conviction, we become spiritual people, who are called [God’s] image—the very next subject.

49

Genesis 1:26. And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, after our likeness; and these will rule over the fish of the sea and over the bird in the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth, and over every creeping animal that creeps on the earth.”

To members of the earliest church, whom the Lord addressed face to face, he appeared as a human being. (Many things could be told about these people, but this is not the right time.) As a consequence, they used the term human for none but him, or for his qualities. They did not even call themselves human, excepting whatever they could tell he gave them, such as all the good embraced by love and all the truth espoused by faith. These traits they described as human, because they were the Lord’s.

[2] As a consequence, the terms human being and son of humankind in the prophets have the Lord as their highest meaning. At a lower but still internal level, the meaning is wisdom and understanding and accordingly everyone who has been reborn. An example from Jeremiah:

I looked at the earth, and there—void and emptiness; and to the heavens, and there—no light in them! I looked, and there—not a human! And all the birds of the heavens had fled. (Jeremiah 4:23, 25)

At the inner level, the following passage in Isaiah uses a human being to mean one reborn, and on the highest level the Lord himself, as an exemplar:

This is what Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel and its fashioner, has said: “I made the earth, and the human being on it I created. My hands stretched out the heavens, and to their whole army I gave commands.” (Isaiah 45:11, 12, 13)

[3] For this reason, the prophets saw the Lord as a human being. Ezekiel was one who did:

Above the expanse was a seeming appearance of sapphire stone, like a throne, and on the likeness of a throne was what looked like the appearance of a person on it, high above. (Ezekiel 1:26)

When Daniel saw the Lord, he called him “Son of Humankind,” or human being, which is the same thing:

I looked, and there! In the clouds of the sky, it was as if the Son of Humankind was coming. And he came to the Ancient One, and they brought him before [the Ancient One]. And he was given power to rule, and glory, and kingship; and all peoples, nations, and tongues will serve him. His ruling power is eternal, a power that will not pass away, and his kingship one that will not perish. (Daniel 7:13, 14)

[4] In fact, the Lord often calls himself Son of Humankind, or human; echoing the prophecy in Daniel that he will come in glory, he says:

They will see the Son of Humankind coming in the clouds of the sky with strength and glory. (Matthew 24:27, 30)

“The clouds of the heavens” (or sky) is what the literal meaning of the Word is called. “Strength and glory” are terms for the Word’s inner meaning, which at each and every point focuses exclusively on the Lord and his kingdom. This focus is what gives the inner meaning strength and glory.

50

What the people of the earliest church meant when they spoke of the Lord’s image involves more than can be put into words.

People have no idea whatever that the Lord governs them through angels and spirits, or that at least two spirits and two angels accompany each of them. The spirits create a link with the world of spirits, and the angels create one with heaven. We cannot possibly live without a channel of communication open to the world of spirits through spirits and to heaven through angels (and in this way to the Lord through heaven). Our life depends totally on such a connection. If the spirits and angels withdrew from us, we would be destroyed in a second.

[2] As long as we are unregenerate, we are governed in a completely different way than the regenerate. Before regeneration we have with us evil spirits whose grip on us is so strong that the angels, though present, can achieve hardly any results. All they can do is head us off from rushing into the worst kind of evil and divert us toward some form of good. They even use our own appetites to lead us toward good, and the illusions of our senses to lead us toward truth. Under these circumstances we communicate with the world of spirits by means of the spirits around us but not so much with heaven, since the evil spirits are in charge and the angels only deflect their influence.

[3] When we are regenerate, on the other hand, the angels are in charge, inspiring us with all kinds of goodness and truth and instilling a horror and fear of evil and falsity.

Angels do give us guidance, but they are mere helpers; the Lord alone governs us, through angels and spirits. Since angels have their assisting role, the words of this verse appear in the plural—“Let us make a human in our image.” But since only the Lord rules and manages us, the next verse uses the singular—“God created the human in his image.” The Lord states his role clearly in Isaiah:

This is what Jehovah has said, your Redeemer and the one who formed you from the womb: “I, Jehovah, make all things, stretching the heavens out on my own, spreading the earth out by myself.” (Isaiah 44:24)

The angels themselves confess that they have no power but act only at the Lord’s behest.

51

As far as an image is concerned, it is not the likeness of another thing but is after a likeness of it, which explains the wording “Let us make a human in our image, after our likeness.” A person with a spiritual character is an image, but a person with a heavenly character is a likeness or exact copy. Genesis 1 deals with the spiritual person, Genesis 2 with the heavenly person.

The Lord calls the person of spiritual character (or an “image”) a child of light, as he does in John:

Those who walk in the dark do not know where they are heading. As long as you have the light, believe in the light, in order to be children of light. (John 12:35, 36)

He also calls such a person a friend:

You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. (John 15:14, 15)

But the person of heavenly character (or a “likeness”) he calls God’s child in John:

As many as did accept him, to them he gave the power to be God’s children, to those believing in his name, who had their birth not from blood or from the flesh’s will or from a man’s will but from God. (John 1:12, 13)

52

As long as we are spiritual, we rule the outer self first and from this the inner, as illustrated here in Genesis 1:26: and they will rule over the fish of the sea and over the bird in the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth, and over every creeping animal that creeps on the earth. When we become heavenly, though, and do good because we love to, we rule the inner self first and from it the outer. The Lord describes this as being true of himself; and as it is true of him, it is also true of the heavenly type of person, who is a likeness of him. The words appear in David:

You have made him rule over the works of your hands; all things you have put under his feet: the flock and all the herds, and also the animals of the fields, the bird in the heavens, and the fish of the sea—that which travels the paths of the seas. (Psalms 8:6–8)

In this passage, animals receive the first mention, next the bird, then the fish of the sea, because the heavenly person proceeds from love, which belongs to the will. Things are different with the spiritual person, for whom the fish and birds come first and the animals follow; fish and birds are associated with the intellect, which concerns itself with faith.

53

Genesis 1:27. And God created the human in his image; in God’s image he created them.

Image comes up twice in this verse because faith, which belongs to the intellect, is called his image, but love, which belongs to the will, is called God’s image. Love comes second in the spiritual person but first in the heavenly person.

54

Male and female he created them.

The inner meaning of male and female was very familiar to the earliest church, although their successors lost touch with this secret when they lost sight of any deeper import to the Word.

These earliest people found their greatest happiness and pleasure in marriage. Whenever they could possibly draw a comparison between something else and marriage, they did so, in order to perceive the happiness of marriage in that other entity. Being people of depth, they enjoyed only the deeper aspects of things. External objects were just for looking at; their thoughts were occupied instead with the things those objects represented. External objects, then, were nothing to them, serving only as a springboard for reflection on inner realities, and these for contemplation of heavenly realities and so of the Lord, who was everything to them. The same process caused them to reflect on the heavenly marriage, which they could tell was the source of the happiness in their own marriages.

As a result, they called the intellect in the spiritual being male and the will there female; and when the two worked together, they called it a marriage.

That religion initiated the practice, which became quite common, of calling the church Daughter or Virgin (as in “the Virgin Zion,” “the Virgin Jerusalem”) and also Wife, on account of its desire for good. For more on this, see the treatment of Genesis 2:24 and 3:15.

55

Genesis 1:28. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Reproduce and multiply, and fill the earth and harness it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the bird in the heavens and over every living animal creeping on the earth.”

The earliest people called the interconnection of intellect and will or of faith and love a marriage, so the generation of any good from that marriage they termed reproduction, and the generation of any truth they termed multiplication. Because they did so, the prophets did so too; in Ezekiel, for instance:

I will multiply human and animal upon you, [mountains of Israel,] and they will multiply and reproduce; and I will cause you to live as in your ancient times. And I will do good to you beyond that at your beginnings, and you will know that I am Jehovah. And I will cause humankind—my people Israel—to walk upon you. (Ezekiel 36:8, 9, 10, 11, 12)

Humankind here means the spiritual being, which is also called Israel; the ancient times mean the very earliest church; and the beginnings mean the ancient church, which followed the Flood. The multiplying (of truth) comes before the reproducing (of good) because these verses describe the person who is being reborn, not the one who has been reborn already.

[2] When the intellect couples with the will in us, or faith with love, the Lord through Isaiah calls us a married land:

No longer will your land be named Devastated; but you will be called I Am Well Pleased with Her, and your land, Married, since Jehovah will take pleasure in you. And your land will be married. (Isaiah 62:4)

The fruits of truth produced by this marriage are called sons, while the fruits of goodness are called daughters, as occurs quite often in the Word.

[3] The earth is filled when truth and goodness proliferate, because when the Lord blesses and says things (that is, operates), goodness and truth grow beyond measure. As he states:

The kingdom of the heavens is like a mustard seed that you have taken and sown in your field, which to be sure is the smallest of all the seeds; but when it has grown, it is bigger than all the plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches. (Matthew 13:31, 32)

The mustard seed is the good we have before developing a spiritual orientation; it is the smallest of all the seeds, because we suppose that we do good on our own. Anything we do on our own is evil through and through, but since we are engaged in the process of being reborn, we have a trace—the smallest possible trace—of goodness. [4] Later, as faith becomes more closely connected with love, it grows larger—a plant. When the connection is completed, it turns into a tree, and then the birds of the heavens (which here as before [§§11; 40:1, 3; 48] are true ideas, or the contents of the intellect) nest in its branches (the facts we know).

When we are spiritual people or are becoming spiritual, we are subject to conflict; and this is why it says harness the earth, and rule.

56

Genesis 1:29. And God said, “Here, now, I am giving you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth and every tree that has fruit; the tree that produces seed will serve you for food.”

A person whose nature is heavenly enjoys only heavenly things, which are called heavenly food because they harmonize with the life such a person lives. A person whose nature is spiritual enjoys spiritual things, which are called spiritual food because they harmonize with the life this person lives. A person focused on the physical world similarly enjoys earthly things, which are called food because they are vital to such a person; these are mainly facts.

As spiritual people are the subject at present, their spiritual food is depicted by the representative items here. The seed-bearing plant represents a spiritual type of this food, as does the tree that has fruit; the more general term for both is the tree that produces seed. These people’s earthly food is described in the next verse.

57

The seed-bearing plant is every true idea that looks toward a useful goal. The tree that has fruit is religious good; the fruit is what the Lord gives the heavenly person, but the seed leading to new fruit is what he gives the spiritual person, which is why it says the tree that produces seed will serve you for food.

The next chapter, treating of the heavenly type of person, will demonstrate that heavenly food is called the fruit from a tree. Here the Lord’s words through Ezekiel will suffice:

Beside the river, on its bank, on this side and that, grows every food tree. Its leaf will not fall, and its fruit will not be used up. Month by month it is reborn, because its waters are going out from the sanctuary. And its fruit will serve as food, and its leaf, as medicine. (Ezekiel 47:12)

“Water from the sanctuary” symbolizes the living energy and mercy of the Lord, who is the “sanctuary.” The fruit symbolizes wisdom, which is food to people of heavenly character. The leaf is intelligence, which is given to them for a purpose referred to as “medicine.”

The idea that spiritual food is called a plant (or grass), though, is expressed in David:

My shepherd, I will lack nothing. In grassy pastures you make me lie down. (Psalms 23:1, 2)

58

Genesis 1:30. “And every wild animal of the earth and every bird in the heavens and every animal creeping on the earth, in which there is a living soul—every green plant will serve them for nourishment”; and so it was done.

This verse depicts the spiritual person’s earthly food. The wild animal of the earth symbolizes such a person’s earthly plane of existence, as does the bird in the heavens, both of which received for nourishment the green plant or grass. Concerning this person’s two kinds of food—both earthly and spiritual—David has the following to say:

Jehovah causes grain to sprout for the beast and plants for the service of humankind, to bring bread from the earth. (Psalms 104:14)

“The beast” stands for the wild animal of the earth and at the same time for the bird in the heavens, both of which David mentions in verses 11 and 12 of the same Psalm.

59

In this verse the nourishment of the earthly self is restricted to green plants for the following reason.

While we are being reborn and learning to concern ourselves with the spirit, we are in constant battle (which is why the Lord’s church is described as militant). Up to this point our cravings have controlled us, because our whole being is cobbled together out of nothing but those cravings and the distorted ideas they spawn. We cannot rid ourselves of those longings and distortions instantaneously during regeneration; to do so would destroy us completely, since we have not yet acquired another way of life. Consequently, evil spirits are left with us for a long time to trigger our appetites, which then break down in countless different ways, and break down so thoroughly that the Lord can turn them into something good. This is the way we reform.

In the time of battle, evil spirits leave us no other nourishment than the equivalent of green plants. (Those spirits hold an absolute hatred for everything good and true—for anything having to do with love for the Lord and faith in him, these being the only good and true things that exist—because such things hold eternal life within them.) But from time to time the Lord gives us additional food that can be compared to seed-bearing plants and fruit trees: calm and peace, with their accompanying joy and happiness.

[2] If the Lord were not protecting us every moment, every split second, we would be wiped out instantly. Hatred against any aspect of love for the Lord or faith in him dominates the world of spirits, and the hatred is so deadly that it defies description.

I can testify to the truth of this absolutely. For several years now I have visited the next world and the spirits there, though remaining in my body, and the evil ones (the worst, in fact) have crowded around me, sometimes numbering in the thousands. They have been allowed to spew out their venom and harass me in every possible way, but still they were unable to hurt a single hair on my head, so closely did the Lord guard me.

All these years of experience have taught me a great deal about the nature of the world of spirits and about the conflict that those who are being reborn inevitably suffer if they are to win the happiness of eternal life.

No one, however, can learn enough from a general description to develop an unshakable belief in this information, so the details, with the Lord’s divine mercy, must come in what follows.

60

Genesis 1:31. And God saw all that he had done and, yes, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

This time it says very good but previously it said simply good, because now the components of faith combine with those of love to make one entity. A marriage between spiritual and heavenly things has taken place.

61

“Spiritual” is the adjective for anything having to do with religious knowledge. “Heavenly” applies to everything having to do with love for the Lord and for our neighbor. Spiritual things fall in the province of our intellect; heavenly things, in that of our will.

62

The periods and stages of our regeneration—both the whole process and individual cycles within it—divide into six, and these six are called our days of creation. Step by step we advance from being nonhuman to being somewhat human, though only a little, then more and more so up to the sixth day, when we become [God’s] image.

63

All the while the Lord is constantly fighting on our behalf against evil and falsity and through these battles strengthens us in truth and goodness. The time of conflict is when the Lord is at work (for which reason the prophets call a regenerate person the work of God’s fingers [Psalms 8:3, 6; Isaiah 19:25; 29:23; 45:11; 60:21; 64:8; Lamentations 4:2]), and he does not rest until love takes the lead. Then the conflict ends.

When the work progresses so far that faith is united with love, it is called very good, since the Lord now makes us likenesses of himself.

At the end of the sixth day, evil spirits retreat and good ones take their place. We are led into heaven, or the Paradise of heaven, described in the next chapter.

64

This, then, is the Word’s inner meaning, the true and genuine life in it, which does not reveal itself at all in the literal meaning. But the number of secrets hidden within is so large that volumes would fail to unfold all of them. I have offered just a few, of a type confirming that regeneration is the theme and that it progresses from outer to inner self.

That is what angels see in the Word. They know nothing whatever of the literal contents, or the most obvious meaning of even one word, still less the names of different lands, cities, rivers, and people that come up so frequently in the narrative and prophetic parts. All they picture are the things those words and names symbolize. Adam in Paradise, for instance, brings the earliest church to their minds—and not even the church itself but its belief in the Lord. Noah brings up the picture of that church’s remnant among its successors, lasting up to Abram’s time. Abraham never makes them think of a man who lived long ago but of a saving faith, which he represented. And so on. In sum, they see spiritual and heavenly realities in the Word, completely separate from the words and names.

65

Several people found themselves carried up into heaven’s outermost entry hall while I was reading the Word, and they spoke to me from there. They said that they had no inkling of a single word or letter there but saw only the things symbolized on the next deeper level of meaning. These things, according to their description, were so beautiful, followed in such a perfect sequence, and affected them so deeply that they called it glory.

66

The Word has four major modes of writing:

1. The mode of [the people in] the earliest church. Their method of expressing themselves involved thought of the spiritual and heavenly things represented by the earthly, mundane objects they mentioned. Not only did they express themselves in words representing higher things, they also spun those words into a kind of narrative thread to lend them greater life. This practice gave the earliest people the fullest pleasure possible.

This early manner of writing is meant in Hannah’s prophecy: “Speak deeply, deeply; let what is ancient come out of your mouth” (1 Samuel 2:3). David calls those representative signs “enigmas from ancient times” (Psalms 78:2, 3, 4). Moses received the present accounts of creation and the Garden of Eden, extending up to the time of Abram, from the descendants of the earliest church.

[2] 2. The narrative mode. This mode is used in the books of Moses from Abram’s story on, and in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The historical events in these books are exactly what they appear to be in the literal sense, but as a whole and in detail they still contain an entirely different meaning on the inner plane. What follows will, with the Lord’s divine mercy, explain that meaning in order.

3. The prophetic mode. The inspiration for this was the mode used by the earliest church, a manner of writing [the authors] revered. But the prophetic mode lacks the cohesiveness and semi-historical quality of the earliest church’s mode. It is choppy, and almost completely unintelligible except on the inner level, which holds profound secrets forming a well-connected chain of ideas. They deal with our outer and inner beings, the many stages of the church, heaven itself, and—at the very core—the Lord.

4. David’s Psalms. This mode is midway between the prophetic mode and people’s usual way of speaking. The inner meaning speaks of the Lord under the character of David when he was king.

Genesis Chapter 2

67

The Lord in his divine mercy has given me the opportunity to learn the inner meaning of the Word, which contains deeply hidden secrets that no one has ever been aware of before. No one can become aware of them without learning how things stand in the other life, since almost all of the Word’s inner meaning looks, speaks, and points to that life. For these reasons, I have been granted the privilege of disclosing what I have heard and seen over the past several years of interaction with spirits and angels.

68

I realize many will claim that no one can talk to spirits and angels as long as bodily life continues, or that I am hallucinating, or that I have circulated such stories in order to play on people’s credulity, and so on. But none of this worries me; I have seen, I have heard, I have felt.

69

The Lord created us to be capable of communicating with spirits and angels while still living in our bodies, as people actually did in the earliest times. After all, we are one with spirits and angels. In fact we ourselves are spirits clothed in flesh.

Over time, though, people have immersed themselves so deeply in bodily and worldly concerns that almost nothing else interests them, and so the path has closed; but as soon as the body-driven concerns that absorb us drop away, it opens and we find ourselves among spirits, living life together with them.

70

Now that I may reveal what I have experienced for the past several years, I must begin with the circumstances of our resurrection, or the way in which we leave bodily life to enter eternal life.

To convince me that people live on after death, I was allowed to talk and spend time with many people known to me during their physical life, which I did, not just for a day or a week, but for months and almost as much as a year. Our interactions were the same as they had been in the world.

These acquaintances were positively astounded that while living the life of the body they had been (and many others still are) so skeptical—skeptical to the point that they did not believe they would continue to live after death. The truth, they found, is that little more than a day passes after the demise of the body before we enter the next life, since that life is a continuation of this.

71

However, the account of our resurrection would end up scattered and disconnected if it were mixed in with explanations of scriptural texts. So by the Lord’s divine mercy I will add it in a more orderly fashion at the beginning and end of each chapter in addition to making remarks along the way.

72

Allow me, then, to offer at the end of this chapter an account of our revival from the dead and entry into eternal life [§§168–181].

Text of Genesis Chapter 2

1. And the heavens and the earth were completed, and their whole army.

2. And on the seventh day God completed the work that he had done; and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.

3. And God blessed the seventh day and consecrated it, because on it he rested from all the work that he had done as God in creating it.

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.

5. And no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, and no plant of the field was yet sprouting, because Jehovah God had not made it rain on the earth. And there was no human to cultivate the ground.

6. And he made a mist rise up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

7. And Jehovah God formed a human, dirt from the ground, and he breathed into the human’s nostrils the breath of lives, and the human was made into a living soul.

8. And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden, on the east, and put in it the human whom he had formed.

9. And Jehovah God caused to sprout from the ground every tree desirable in appearance and good for food, and the tree of lives in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10. And a river was going out from Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four headwaters.

11. The name of the first is Pishon; it is circling the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.

12. And the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium there, and shoham stone.

13. And the name of the second river is Gihon; it is circling the whole land of Cush.

14. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; it goes east toward Assyria. And the fourth river is the Phrath.

15. And Jehovah God took the human and put the human in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to guard it.

16. And Jehovah God commanded the human concerning it, saying, “From every tree of the garden you definitely may eat.

17. But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat, because on the day on which you eat from it you will surely die.”

Summary

73

Having been changed from lifeless people to people focused on spirit, we are now changed from spiritual to heavenly; and heavenly people are the subject here (verse 1).

74

The heavenly person is the seventh day, on which the Lord rests (verses 2, 3).

75

The shrub and the plant sprouting from the ground and watered by the mist provide a picture of the factual knowledge and reason in such people (verses 5, 6).

76

The breath of lives breathed into the human provides a picture of the life force in them (verse 7).

77

The garden on the east in Eden depicts their intelligence. The trees in the garden that were desirable in appearance are times when they perceive a thing to be true; the trees good to eat are times when they perceive a thing to be good. The tree of lives portrays their love; the tree of knowledge, their faith (verses 8, 9).

78

The river in the garden depicts wisdom. It branches into four rivers, of which the first is goodness and truth themselves. The second is a knowledge of everything involved in goodness and truth, or in love and faith; these things belong to the inner self. The third is the faculty of reason, and the fourth is secular knowledge, both of which belong to the outer self. All of these flow from wisdom, and wisdom flows from love for the Lord and faith in him (verses 10, 11, 12, 13, 14).

79

People of heavenly character are this kind of garden. They are free to enjoy everything in the garden, but because it is the Lord’s, they are not given personal possession of any of it (verse 15).

80

In addition, they are always allowed to depend on the perception they receive from the Lord to tell them what is good or true. They are not to depend on themselves or the world around them, though; in other words, when they inquire into the mysteries of faith, they are not to rely on sensory evidence or secular knowledge. To do so would be the death of their heavenly quality (verses 16, 17).

Inner Meaning

81

This chapter deals with the heavenly person; the last dealt with the spiritual person, who previously had been lifeless. In modern times, though, people know nothing about the character of a heavenly person and very little about that of a spiritual person or of a lifeless one. Let me clarify the differences through a brief discussion of each type.

1. The only truth and goodness that lifeless people acknowledge are bodily and worldly kinds, and these they revere.

Spiritual people acknowledge spiritual and heavenly types of truth and goodness, but their acknowledgment stems from faith—as do their actions—and not as much from love.

Heavenly people believe and perceive truth and goodness of spiritual and heavenly kinds, but they acknowledge no other faith than one that springs from love; and love is also what moves them to action.

[2] 2. Those who are lifeless fixate purely on bodily and worldly life as their goals. They do not know what eternal life is or what the Lord is. If they have heard about these, they have no belief in them.

Those who are spiritual focus first on eternal life as their goal, and then on the Lord.

Those who are heavenly concentrate first on the Lord as their goal, and then on his kingdom and eternal life.

[3] 3. When the lifeless undergo conflict, they almost always give in. When they are free of conflict, evil and falsity master them, and they are slaves to it. Their restraints are external and include fear of the law and fear of losing their life, wealth, profits, and consequent reputation.

The spiritual are subject to conflict, but they always win. The restraints that curb them are internal ones termed the bonds of conscience.

Heavenly people experience no conflict. If evil and falsity attack them, they spurn them, which is why they are called victors. They have no apparent restraints to curb them, being free, but they do have invisible restraints, which are the goodness and truth they perceive.

82

Genesis 2:1. And the heavens and the earth were completed, and their whole army.

This means that we are now spiritual—so much so that we have become “the sixth day.” Heaven is our inner and the earth our outer being. Their army is love and faith, and knowledge about love and faith. These things were symbolized earlier by the great lights and the stars.

Scriptural passages quoted in the preceding chapter demonstrate that the inner being is called heaven and the outer being is called earth. Let me add another from Isaiah:

I will render a man more rare than solid gold, and a human being [more rare] than the precious gold of Ophir. Therefore I will strike the heavens with terror, and the earth will quake out of its place. (Isaiah 13:12, 13)

And another:

You will forget Jehovah your maker, who stretches out the heavens and founds the earth. But I will put my words in your mouth, and in the shadow of my hand I will hide you, to stretch out heaven and found the earth. (Isaiah 51:13, 16)

All of this makes it clear that both heaven and earth refer to humankind.

Although the earliest church forms the subject here, the Word in its inner depths is such that whatever it says about the church applies also to every individual in the church. If we were not each a church, we could not be part of the church. Likewise, anyone who is not a temple to the Lord cannot be what the Temple symbolizes: a church and a heaven.

This is why the earliest church is referred to as a human being in the singular.

83

The verse says that the heavens, the earth, and their whole army are completed when we become “the sixth day.” At this point faith and love join forces, and when they do, love rather than faith begins to play the leading role—that is, heavenly rather than spiritual qualities take the lead. To put heavenly qualities first is to be a heavenly person.

84

Genesis 2:2, 3. And on the seventh day God completed the work that he had done; and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. And God blessed the seventh day and consecrated it, because on it he rested from all the work that he had done as God in creating it.

A heavenly person is the seventh day. And since the Lord worked through six days, that individual is called his work. Conflict then comes to an end, as a result of which the Lord is said to rest from all his work. This is why the seventh day was consecrated and named “Sabbath,” from [a Hebrew word for] rest. In the process the human being has been made, formed, and created, as the words themselves clearly indicate.

85

Lack of information is another reason why these secrets—that a person of heavenly character is the seventh day, that this explains the consecration of the seventh day, and that it was named “Sabbath” for the idea of rest—have continued to lie hidden. No one knows what a heavenly person is, and few what a spiritual person is. Inevitably, in their ignorance, people have considered a spiritual person the same as a heavenly one, when a rather large difference separates the two (see §81).

In regard to the seventh day, evidence that a heavenly person is the seventh day or Sabbath can be found in the identity of the Lord himself as the Sabbath. As he says, “The Son of Humankind is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28), meaning that the Lord is the true human being and the Sabbath itself.

He calls his kingdom in the heavens and on earth the Sabbath, or eternal peace and rest.

[2] The earliest church (the subject here) more than all later ones was the Lord’s Sabbath.

In every subsequent church, the inmost part, closest to the Lord, has also been the Sabbath.

The same holds true for all regenerate people when they develop a heavenly nature, as they are then likenesses of the Lord. They are past the six days of conflict, or labor.

In the Jewish church, all these considerations were represented by the work days and by the seventh day, the Sabbath. That church had no customs that did not represent something about the Lord and his kingdom.

The ark represented the same kind of thing in its travels and its repose. Its travels in the wilderness represented conflict and trial; its repose, a time of peace. So when it set out on a journey, Moses said, “Rise, Jehovah, and let your enemies scatter, and let those who hate you run from your face”; and when it came to rest, he said, “Come back, Jehovah, to the countless thousands of Israel.” This is from Numbers 10:35, 36. Verse 33 of the same chapter portrays the ark as setting out from the mountain of Jehovah “to find rest for them.”

[3] Isaiah uses the Sabbath to paint a picture of the heavenly person’s quiet rest:

If you turn your foot back from the Sabbath by not doing your own desire on my holy day; if you refer to those things that belong to the Sabbath as pleasures honoring the holiness of Jehovah, and you honor [the Sabbath] by not going your own ways and not gaining your own desire or speaking a word [of your own]; then you will be a pleasure to Jehovah, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth and will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob. (Isaiah 58:13, 14)

Heavenly people act not on their own desire but on the Lord’s pleasure, which is his desire. So they are blessed with inner peace and happiness (their being “lifted up on the heights of the earth”) and at the same time with outer calm and enjoyment (their being “fed with Jacob’s inheritance”).

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When spiritual people (who are now the “sixth day”) begin to turn heavenly (a process first alluded to here), they have reached the eve of the Sabbath. In the Jewish religion, this was represented by the commencement of the Sabbath observance in the evening. Heavenly people are the morning, soon to be described.

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A further reason a heavenly person is identified as Sabbath rest is the fact that struggle ends when a person becomes heavenly. Evil spirits retreat and good ones move closer. Heavenly angels approach too, and when they are nearby, evil spirits, unable to be anywhere near, escape far away.

Because we have done none of the fighting ourselves—the Lord does all the fighting for us—he is the one said to rest.

88

Spiritual people are called God’s work after they have developed a heavenly nature, because the Lord has fought for them all on his own. He is the one who has made, formed, and created them. That is why this verse says that God completed his work on the seventh day and, twice, that he rested from all his work. The prophets frequently call such people the work of Jehovah’s hands or fingers. An example describing the regenerate person occurs in Isaiah:

This is what Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel and its fashioner, has said: “Do you seek signs from me concerning my children, and command me concerning the work of my hands? I made the earth, and the human being on it I myself created! My hands stretched out the heavens, and to their whole army I gave commands!” Because this is what Jehovah has said in creating the heavens (he is God, forming the earth and making it; he is firming it; he has not created it a void; he has formed it to be inhabited): “I am Jehovah, and no one is God except me.” (Isaiah 45:11, 12, 18, 21)

This passage shows how creating people anew—regenerating them—is the Lord’s work alone.

The words create, form (or fashion), and make (or do) are used in fairly different ways, as in the preceding quotation from Isaiah, which says “creating the heavens, forming the earth, and making it.” Likewise in another passage:

All have been called by my name, and I have created them for my glory; I have formed them; yes, I have made them. (Isaiah 43:7)

The same is true in Genesis 1 and 2, as for instance here, where it says, “He rested from all the work that he had done as God in creating it.” The inner meaning maintains a distinct idea for each of these words. Similarly in places where the Lord is called Creator, or Fashioner, or Maker.

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.

90

Genesis 2:5, 6. And no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, and no plant of the field was yet sprouting, because Jehovah God had not made it rain on the earth; and there was no human to cultivate the ground. And he made a mist rise up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

The shrub of the field and the plant of the field in general mean everything that the person’s outer self produces. The earth is the outer self that the person had when spiritual. The ground—and the field—is the outer self when the person becomes heavenly. The rain, soon afterward called mist, is the peaceful calm that follows the end of battle.

91

For one who knows nothing of the conditions a person experiences when changing from spiritual to heavenly, however, the ramifications of all this are impossible to understand, since they are fairly deep mysteries.

When we are spiritual, our outer self is not yet willing to obey and serve the inner self, which causes strife. When we become heavenly, then our outer self starts to obey and serve the inner, which brings an end to strife and the beginning of calm (see §87). The rain and mist symbolize this calm, because it acts like a mist, coming from our inner self to water and drench the outer self. Such calm, which comes of peace, causes the growth of the “shrub of the field” and the “plant of the field”—specifically, rational ideas and factual knowledge having an origin that is heavenly and spiritual at the same time.

92

None but those who have experienced a state of peace can appreciate the nature of the peaceful tranquility that the outer self enjoys when there is an end to struggle, or to the disquiet of burning desires and misconceptions. That state is so joyful that it surpasses all our notions of joy. It is not simply an end to our struggles but a vibrancy welling up from deep-seated peace, affecting our outer being beyond the capacity of words to describe it.

That state gives birth to religious truth and a loving goodness, which draw their life from the joy of peace.

93

Here is how the Lord, through Ezekiel, depicts the circumstances of a heavenly person who has been gifted with peace and calm, created anew by the rain, and delivered from enslavement to evil and falsity:

I will strike a pact of peace with them and bring an end on the earth to the evil wild animal; and they will live securely in the wilderness and sleep in forests. And I will make them—and the environs of my hill—a blessing and cause the rain to fall in its season; showers of blessing there will be. And the tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its produce, and they will be secure on their own ground; and they will know that I am Jehovah, in that I have broken the straps of their yoke and freed them from the hand of those forcing them to serve them. You are my flock, the flock of my pasture, you are humankind; I am your God. (Ezekiel 34:25, 26, 27, 31)

Through Hosea he describes this as happening on the third day (which means the same thing as the seventh, in the Word):

He will bring us to life after two days; on the third day he will revive us, and we will live before him, and we will know and press on toward knowing Jehovah. His emergence has been prepared like the dawn, and he will come like rain to us, like the late rain watering the earth. (Hosea 6:2, 3)

In a passage from Ezekiel that speaks of the ancient church, he compares it to a young shoot in the field:

I have made you a young shoot in the field, and you have grown and matured and come into [the time of] the most beautiful of ornaments. (Ezekiel 16:7)

He also compares it to a seedling of Jehovah God’s planting and to the work of his hands, in Isaiah 60:21.

94

Genesis 2:7. And Jehovah God formed a human, dirt from the ground, and he breathed into the human’s nostrils the breath of lives; and the human was made into a living soul.

To form a human, dirt from the ground is to form our outer self, which was not previously human; verse 5, after all, says that there was no person to cultivate the ground. To breathe into the human’s nostrils the breath of lives is to put life into our faith and love. The human was made into a living soul means that our outer self has also been brought to life.

95

The subject here is life in the outer self. While the two preceding verses deal with the life in our faith or intellect, the present one deals with the life in the love we feel, or in our will.

So far our outer being has not wanted to obey or serve the inner but has instead kept up a battle with it, so during this time the outer being has not been human. Now, though, when we have taken on a heavenly nature, our outer self is beginning to offer some obedience and service to the inner self and is becoming human, through a living faith and vibrant love. A living faith prepares us to be human; a vibrant love makes us so.

96

It says that Jehovah God blew in through the person’s nostrils. In ancient times and in the Word, nostrils meant anything that was pleasing, from the idea of fragrance, which symbolizes perception. In many places, therefore, we read that Jehovah smelled a restful smell from the burnt offerings and from other offerings representing himself and his kingdom. Since he finds the various aspects of love and faith most pleasing, the text says that he blew the breath of lives in through the nostrils.

For this reason Jehovah’s anointed—the Lord—is called the breath [or spirit] of the nostrils (Lamentations 4:20).

The Lord conveyed the same idea by breathing on the disciples, as John reports:

He breathed on them and said, “Receive the holy spirit.” (John 20:22)

97

The nature of the earliest church provides yet another reason for the use of breathing and breath as depictions of a life force. The people of that church could perceive the quality of love and faith in others from the quality of their breathing—a quality that gradually changed over the generations. Nothing can be said about this kind of respiration any longer, since time has buried any knowledge of it. The earliest people knew all about it, and people in the next life do too, but no one left on the globe today does.

In consequence, people of the earliest church used wind as a metaphor for spirit or life. So does the Lord when he speaks of our regeneration in John:

The spirit (wind) blows where it wishes, and you hear its voice but do not know where it may be coming from or where it may be going off to; this is the way with everyone who is born from the spirit. (John 3:8)

David has something similar:

By Jehovah’s word were the heavens made, and by the spirit (wind) of his mouth, the whole army of them. (Psalms 33:6)

And again:

You gather their spirit, they pass away and return to their dust; you send your spirit out, they continue to be created, and you renew the face of the ground. (Psalms 104:29, 30)

It can be seen in Job that breath stands for the vital quality of faith and love:

There is a spirit in humankind, and the breath of Shaddai makes them understand. (Job 32:8)

Again:

The spirit of God made me, and the breath of Shaddai gave me life. (Job 33:4)

98

Genesis 2:8. And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden, on the east; and he put in it the human whom he had formed.

The garden symbolizes intelligence, Eden love, and the east the Lord. So the garden on the east in Eden symbolizes the intelligence of heavenly people, which comes to them from the Lord, love being the conduit.

99

The inner life in people whose nature is spiritual is structured as follows: The faith they have does allow the Lord to enter into the things they understand, the things they grasp rationally, and the things they know. But since the more superficial levels of their mind are in conflict with the deeper levels, it does not seem as though their intelligence comes from the Lord. It appears to come from themselves and to be a product of their factual information and rational processes.

For people whose character is heavenly, on the other hand, the inner life is patterned in such a way that the Lord enters into their understanding, reason, and knowledge by way of love and the convictions of love. And since they are free of conflict, they can see that this is so.

The structure that so far has stood upside down in the spiritual person, then, returns to its proper position in the heavenly person. The heavenly structure, or the heavenly person, is called the garden on the east in Eden.

The garden planted by Jehovah God on the east in Eden is, in the highest sense, the Lord himself.

In the [next] deepest sense (which is also the universal sense), the garden is the Lord’s kingdom or heaven, where we are put when we become heavenly. At that stage we keep company with angels in heaven and almost come to be one of them. (We were, in fact, created to be in heaven while at the same time living on earth.) All our thoughts then lie open, as do all the individual ideas that make up our thoughts, and all our words and deeds too, if these have anything heavenly or spiritual in them; and this openness extends clear to the Lord. His life, you see, is present in everyone, giving each the ability to perceive.

100

We can see in Isaiah too that a garden symbolizes intelligence and Eden love:

Jehovah will comfort Zion, he will comfort all its wastelands, and he will make its wilderness like Eden and its desert like a garden of Jehovah. Joy and gladness will be found in it; acclamation and the voice of song. (Isaiah 51:3)

The prophet uses wilderness, joy, and acclamation to express the heavenly (or loving) aspects of faith; desert, gladness, and the voice of song express further spiritual (or intellectual) aspects. The first set of words relates to Eden, the second to the garden. This particular prophet fairly consistently uses two words for a single idea, one word symbolizing heavenly things, and the other, spiritual things.

For more on the meaning of the Garden of Eden, see the explanation of verse 10, below [§108].

101

The identification of the Lord as the east is also evident throughout the Word. In Ezekiel, for example:

He led me to the gate, a gate that looks out on the path to the east, and look! The glory of Israel’s God came by way of the east, and his voice was like the voice of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. (Ezekiel 43:1, 2, 4)

The practices of the Jewish church represented inner things; and as the Lord is the east, their sacred custom before the Temple was built was to turn their faces to the east when praying.

102

Genesis 2:9. And Jehovah God caused to sprout from the ground every tree desirable in appearance and good for food, and the tree of lives in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A tree symbolizes perception; a tree desirable in appearance, perception of truth, and a tree good for food, perception of goodness. The tree of lives symbolizes love and the faith it leads to; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes faith based on evidence from the senses, that is, on secular knowledge.

103

The reason trees symbolize different kinds of perception here is that the chapter has to do with heavenly people. The situation is otherwise when spiritual people are the topic. The nature of the subject determines the nature of the things said about it.

104

People today have no idea what perception is. It is an inner feeling for whether a thing is true and good—a feeling that can come only from the Lord—which was very familiar to the people of the earliest church. The sensation is so clear for angels that it gives them awareness and recognition of truth and goodness, of what comes from the Lord and what from themselves. In addition, it enables them to detect the character of anyone they meet simply from that person’s manner of approach or from a single one of his or her ideas.

Spiritual people have no perception, although they have conscience. People who are lifeless do not even have conscience, and many do not know what conscience is, much less perception.

105

The tree of lives is love and the faith it leads to; in the middle of the garden means in the will that belongs to the inner self.

The main thing the Lord possesses in a person or angel is the will, which the Word refers to as the heart. Since none of us can do good on our own, our will or heart is not ours, even though it is described as ours. What is truly our own is self-interest, which we call our will.

Because the will is the middle of the garden, in which stands the tree of lives, and we have no will aside from self-interest, this tree is the Lord’s mercy, the source of all love and faith and so of all life.

106

For further explanation of the trees in the garden, or perception; the tree of lives, or love and consequent faith; and the tree of knowledge, or faith based on the senses and secular knowledge, see below [§§125–130, 198–209].

107

Genesis 2:10. And a river was issuing from Eden to water the garden; and from there it parted and became four headwaters.

The river from Eden symbolizes wisdom born of love (Eden being love). To water the garden is to give the gift of intelligence or understanding. From there it parted into four headwaters portrays intelligence under the image of the four rivers, as discussed below.

108

Since the earliest people compared the human being to a garden, they compared all aspects of wisdom to rivers; or rather than compare them they actually called them those things, because that was their manner of speaking. The prophets later used the same device, sometimes making the comparison, sometimes using the direct name. An example from Isaiah:

In the shadows your light will rise, and your darkness will be like daylight; and you will be like a watered garden and like an outlet of water, whose waters will not prove false. (Isaiah 58:10, 11)

This passage is talking about people who accept the gift of faith and love. Another example:

They are planted as valleys are, as gardens beside the river. Like tents has Jehovah planted them, like cedars beside the water. (Numbers 24:6)

The subject of this verse is regenerate people. In Jeremiah:

Blessed is the man who trusts in Jehovah. He will be like a tree planted by the water, and above the brook he will send out his roots. (Jeremiah 17:7, 8)

Here is a passage in Ezekiel in which people are not compared to but called a garden, and trees beside the rivers:

The water made [the cedar] grow; the depths of the water raised it up. A river was winding all around its planting-place and sent out its channels of water to all the trees of the field. Beautiful it became in its size, in the length of its branches, because its root was [going out] to many waters. The cedars cast no shadow on it in the garden of God; the firs were not equal to its branches, and the sycamores did not rival its limbs. No tree in God’s garden was equal to it in its beauty. Beautiful he made it in the profusion of its branches, and all the trees of Eden in God’s garden strove to match it. (Ezekiel 31:4, 7, 8, 9)

These quotations indicate that in comparing humans (or what humans have inside them) to a garden, the earliest people included the idea of the water or rivers that watered the garden. It is also apparent that they took the water and rivers to mean the things that would stimulate growth.

109

Although wisdom and understanding seem to reside in us, they belong to the Lord alone, as noted [§99], and this is clearly expressed in Ezekiel under representative images of the same kind:

There! Water going out under the doorsill of the House toward the east, because the House faces east. And he said, “That water is going out to the boundary toward the east, and it runs down onto the plain and goes to the sea, having been channeled out into the sea, and the water [of the sea] will be cured. And it will come about that every living soul that creeps in any place where the water of the rivers goes will survive. And beside the river, on its bank, on this side and that, will grow every food tree. Its branch will not wither, and its fruit will not be used up. Month by month it is reborn, because its water comes out from the sanctuary. And its fruit therefore will serve as food, and its leaf as medicine.” (Ezekiel 47:1, 8, 9, 12)

In this instance the east symbolizes the Lord, as does the sanctuary from which spring the water and rivers. Likewise in John:

He showed me a pure river of the water of life, brilliant as crystal, going out from the throne of God and the Lamb. In the middle of its street and of the river, on this side and that, was the tree of life, making twelve fruits, offering up its fruit each month; and the leaf of the tree served as medicine for the nations. (Revelation 22:1, 2)

110

Genesis 2:11, 12. The name of the first is Pishon; it is circling the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and shoham stone there.

The first river, Pishon, symbolizes the intelligence that goes with a faith based on love. The land of Havilah symbolizes the mind; gold, goodness; and bdellium and shoham, truth. Gold comes up twice because it symbolizes the goodness that goes with love and the goodness that goes with a faith based on love. Both bdellium and shoham are mentioned because one symbolizes truth that belongs to love and the other symbolizes truth that belongs to a faith based on love.

All these qualities belong to a person whose nature is heavenly.

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Telling more about the inner meaning of these things, however, would be difficult, as people today know nothing about them. They have no concept, for instance, of a faith based on love, of wisdom, or of the intelligence that comes from these. Shallow people know hardly anything but secular facts, which they call understanding and wisdom, and also faith. They do not even know what love is, and many are unacquainted with the will and intellect and the fact that these two combine to form the mind. In reality, each of the above attributes has a distinct and in fact a unique identity; and the Lord attends to the finest possible distinctions in organizing all of heaven according to differences in love and faith, which are endless.

112

People should be aware, though, that the only wisdom comes from love and so from the Lord, and the only intelligence comes from faith and so, again, from the Lord. What is more, all good comes from love and so from the Lord, and all truth comes from faith and so from the Lord. When these things do not come from love and faith and so from the Lord, they are counterfeit, even though they bear the same names as the real entities.

113

Nothing is more common in the Word than for gold to symbolize and represent the goodness that belongs to wisdom or to love. All the gold used for the ark, the Temple, the golden table, the lampstands, the utensils, and Aaron’s garments had this symbolism and representation.

The prophets use gold in a similar way. In Ezekiel, for instance:

In your wisdom and in your understanding you made yourself riches, and you made gold and silver for your treasuries. (Ezekiel 28:4)

This explicitly states that gold and silver (goodness and truth) come from wisdom and understanding. Silver here symbolizes truth, as does the silver in the tabernacle and the Temple. In Isaiah:

A horde of camels will blanket you, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; they will all come from Sheba. Gold and frankincense they will carry, and Jehovah’s praises they will proclaim. (Isaiah 60:6)

The sages from the East did the same when they came to Jesus at his birth and fell on their faces and worshiped him:

And they opened their treasure chests and offered him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (Matthew 2:1, 11)

Here too gold symbolizes goodness. Frankincense and myrrh symbolize things that are pleasing [to the Lord], because they spring from love and faith. This is why they are called “Jehovah’s praises.” So in David it says:

And [the poor] will live, and [God] will give them some of Sheba’s gold and pray for them continually; every day he will bless them. (Psalms 72:15)

114

Precious stones in the Word, such as those on the breastplate of judgment and the shoulders of Aaron’s ephod, symbolized and represented religious truth. The gold, the fibers of blue-violet, red-violet, and double-dyed scarlet, and the fine linen of the breastplate represented different aspects of love; the precious stones represented aspects of a faith based on love. So did the two memorial stones on the shoulders of the ephod, which were shoham stones in gold settings. (See Exodus 28:9–22.) The Book of Ezekiel openly draws the same connection where it talks about a person who owns heavenly riches—wisdom and understanding:

You were full of wisdom and perfect in beauty in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering: ruby, topaz, diamond; tarshish, shoham, and jasper; sapphire, chrysoprase, emerald; and gold is what the tambourines and pipes in you were crafted from. On the day when you were created, they were prepared; you were perfect in your ways on the day when you were created. (Ezekiel 28:12, 13, 15)

The stones here do not mean stones but the heavenly and spiritual qualities of faith, as anyone can see. In fact every stone represented some essential ingredient of faith.

115

The earliest people, when mentioning the names of various lands, had the symbolism of those places in mind. The same is true of people today who adopt the idea that the land of Canaan and Mount Zion symbolize heaven. When such people hear these names, they do not even think of the land or the mountain but only about the things they stand for. Likewise in the present verse in regard to the land of Havilah, which comes up again in Genesis 25:18; in that verse the subject is Ishmael’s offspring, who “lived from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is before Egypt as you come into Assyria.”

For people who look at things the way heaven does, what the words of this verse suggest is simply intelligence and what stems from intelligence. They take circling, for instance (as in “the river Pishon circles the whole land of Havilah”), to mean “flowing in.” So the fact that gold settings circled the shoham stones on the shoulders of Aaron’s ephod (Exodus 28:11) suggests to them that the good we love flows into the truth we believe. There are many other examples.

116

Genesis 2:13. And the name of the second river is Gihon; it is circling the whole land of Cush.

The second river, called Gihon, symbolizes knowledge about everything involved in goodness and truth, or in love and faith. The land of Cush symbolizes our mental abilities.

Will and intellect constitute the mind. The attributes portrayed by the first river belong to the will, while those portrayed by this second river belong to the intellect, which houses our knowledge of goodness and truth.

117

The land of Cush, or Ethiopia, was also rich in gold, precious stones, and perfumes, and these, as stated, symbolize goodness, truth, and offshoots of goodness and truth pleasing [to the Lord], such as a knowledge of love and faith. The symbolism becomes clear above in §113, in the quotations from Isaiah 60:6; Matthew 2:1, 11; and the Psalms of David 72:15.

From the prophets we can see that Cush, or Ethiopia, has the same meaning in the Word as Sheba. Here is an example from Zephaniah that also mentions the rivers of Cush:

In the morning, he will offer his judgment as a light, because “At that time I will turn toward peoples of transparent speech, so that they may all call on the name of Jehovah, so that they may serve him with a single shoulder. From the ford of Cush’s rivers my worshipers will bring me my offering.” (Zephaniah 3:5, 9, 10)

And in Daniel, where it speaks of the northern and southern monarchs:

He will rule over the hidden treasures of gold and silver and over all the desirable things of Egypt. And the Libyans and Ethiopians will be under his tread. (Daniel 11:43)

Egypt stands for secular knowledge and Ethiopians for religious knowledge. [2] In Ezekiel:

The dealers of Sheba and Raamah were your dealers, in the finest of every perfume, and in every precious stone, and gold. (Ezekiel 27:22)

These commodities again symbolize religious knowledge. In David, where the subject is the Lord and therefore the heavenly individual:

In his days the upright individual will flourish, as will great peace, until the moon is no more. The monarchs of Tarshish and of the islands will bring their tribute; the monarchs of Sheba and Seba will deliver their gift. (Psalms 72:7, 10)

All this symbolizes the heavenly qualities of faith, as is plain from the verses before and after these in the same chapter.

Similar things are symbolized by the queen of Sheba, who came to Solomon and posed riddles, and who carried perfumes, gold, and precious stones to him (1 Kings 10:1, 2, 3). As in the prophets, everything in the narrative portions of the Word symbolizes, represents, and incorporates hidden wisdom.

118

Genesis 2:14. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; it goes toward the east, to Assyria. And the fourth river, it is the Phrath.

The river Hiddekel is the ability to reason—that is, the clear-sightedness of reason. Assyria is the mind that does the reasoning. The fact that the river goes east to Assyria means that this ability comes from the Lord through the inner self to the part of the mind that reasons, which is located in the outer self.

The Phrath, or Euphrates, is factual knowledge, which is the final boundary of the mind.

119

The prophets provide clear evidence that Assyria symbolizes the reasoning mind, or a person’s ability to think rationally. In Ezekiel, for instance:

Here, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, beautiful in its branch, and [forming] a shady grove, and tall in its height; and its bough was surrounded by dense growth. The water made it grow; the depth of the water raised it up. A river was winding all around its planting-place. (Ezekiel 31:3, 4)

The ability to reason is here called a cedar in Lebanon. The bough surrounded by dense growth symbolizes factual information in the memory, which resembles such a bough. Still more plainly in Isaiah:

On that day there will be a path from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve Assyria. On that day Israel will be third to Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the middle of the earth, whom Jehovah Sabaoth will bless, saying, “A blessing on my people Egypt and on the work of my hands, Assyria, and on my inheritance, Israel!” (Isaiah 19:23, 24, 25)

Here and in many other places, Egypt symbolizes factual information, Assyria the ability to reason, and Israel the ability to understand.

120

Like Egypt, the Euphrates symbolizes secular knowledge—facts—and the sensory impressions on which facts are based. The prophetic parts of the Word make this clear, as in Micah:

My enemy has said, “Where is Jehovah your God?” A day will come on which he will build your bulwarks. That is the day the set limit will be far off; that is the day when he will come all the way to you from Assyria, and to the cities of Egypt and to the River [Euphrates]. (Micah 7:10, 11, 12)

This is how the prophets spoke about the Coming of the Lord, who was to regenerate us, so that we would come to be like heaven’s inhabitants. In Jeremiah:

What does it matter whether you go to Egypt to drink the waters of the Sihor? And what does it matter whether you go to Assyria to drink the waters of the River [Euphrates]? (Jeremiah 2:18)

Egypt and the Euphrates alike stand for facts, Assyria for rationalizations constructed out of them. In David:

You have caused a grapevine to travel from Egypt; you have driven away the nations; you have planted it. You have sent its offshoots all the way out to the sea, and its tendrils to the River [Euphrates]. (Psalms 80:8, 11)

In this passage the river Euphrates again stands for sensory and factual information. The Euphrates, after all, formed the boundary of Israel’s dominions on the Assyrian side. Similarly for spiritual and heavenly people, facts in the memory are the outer limit of understanding and wisdom.

These words spoken to Abraham have the identical symbolism:

To your seed I will give this land, from the river of Egypt all the way to the great river, the river Euphrates. (Genesis 15:18)

These two boundaries symbolize the same things.

121

How the inner life of heavenly people is organized, or the order in which its constituent parts develop, may be illustrated by these rivers. To be specific, the pattern starts with the Lord, who is the east. From him comes wisdom, through wisdom comes understanding, through understanding comes reason; and reason, in turn, makes the facts we have memorized come alive. This is the proper way for the inner life to be organized, and that is how it is organized in heavenly people.

This is why the elders of Israel, in representing heavenly people, were described as wise, understanding, and knowledgeable (Deuteronomy 1:13, 15). Likewise Bezalel, the maker of the ark, is described as being “filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in every kind of work” (Exodus 31:3; 35:31; 36:1, 2).

122

Genesis 2:15. And Jehovah God took the human and put the human in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to guard it.

The Garden of Eden symbolizes everything in a heavenly person, which is the subject here. Cultivating the garden and guarding it means that such a person is free to enjoy all of those things but not to claim personal possession of them, because they are the Lord’s.

123

Heavenly people acknowledge, because they perceive, that absolutely everything is the Lord’s. Spiritual people too acknowledge it, but only in speech, because they have learned it from the Word. Worldly and body-centered people do not accept or agree with the idea; they claim as their own any ability they discover inside themselves, and if they lose it, they consider it completely destroyed.

124

Various things the Lord taught make it clear that wisdom, understanding, reason, and knowledge are not ours but the Lord’s. In Matthew, for example, the Lord equated himself with a householder who planted a vineyard, set a hedge around it, and rented it to some growers (Matthew 21:33). In John:

The spirit of truth will lead you into all truth, since he will not speak on his own authority but will speak whatever he hears. He will give me glory, because he will take from what is mine and proclaim it to you. (John 16:13, 14)

Again in John:

None of us can acquire anything unless it is given to us from heaven. (John 3:27)

Anyone privileged to learn even just a few of heaven’s secrets knows that this is true.

125

Genesis 2:16. And Jehovah God commanded the human concerning it, saying, “From every tree of the garden you are definitely to eat.”

To eat from every tree is to depend on perception in order to know and recognize what is good and true; a tree is perception, as stated [§102].

The people of the earliest church knew about true faith through revelations, since they spoke with the Lord and angels. They were also taught through visions and dreams, which filled them with the exquisite pleasures of Paradise.

They received from the Lord an uninterrupted state of perception, which enabled them to tell immediately whether or not a thought based on memorized information was true and good. This ability was so unerring that if something false surfaced, it inspired not merely distaste but even horror in them. It is the same with angels.

Later on, the earliest church’s perceptive abilities were replaced by a knowledge of truth and goodness based [at first] on the prior revelations and afterward on revelations recorded in the Word.

126

Genesis 2:17. “But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat, because on the day on which you eat from it you will surely die.”

The meaning of verses 16 and 17 is that people are allowed to depend on any perception they receive from the Lord to tell them what is true or good but not on themselves or the world around them (in other words, when inquiring into religious mysteries, they are not to rely on sense impressions or facts); and that to do so would be the death of their heavenly quality.

127

People’s desire to rely on sensory evidence or secular knowledge when investigating religious mysteries caused the fall of the earliest church, and specifically of the generation that inherited it, as described in the next chapter. But more than that, it causes the fall of every church, because it breeds not only falsities but also wickedness in life.

128

When we are under the sway of the world and our bodies, we say in our hearts, “As for faith and its ramifications, if my senses do not teach me to see, or if facts do not teach me to understand, I refuse to believe.” In confirmation, we remind ourselves that what holds true on the earthly plane cannot conflict with spiritual realities. So we want our senses to teach us about heavenly and divine affairs. This is as impossible as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The more we rely on sensory evidence in order to gain wisdom, the more we blind ourselves, to the point that we stop believing in anything, even the existence of a spiritual dimension or of eternal life. That is the consequence of our original assumption.

This is what eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil means; and the more we eat from it, the more deadened we become.

If we do not rely on the world for our wisdom, on the other hand, but on the Lord, we tell ourselves at heart to believe in the Lord, that is, in all that the Lord has said in the Word, because those are reliable truths. This is the principle on which we base our thinking. We use rational argument, factual knowledge, sensory evidence, and physical phenomena in confirmation, but whatever fails to confirm the Word we put aside.

129

Clearly our assumptions control us, even when they are utterly false. All our knowledge and our sophistry bolster these assumptions, drawing together endless supporting arguments that harden us in our false ideas. If we seize, then, on the premise that we will believe nothing until we see and understand it, we will never be able to believe anything. Spiritual and heavenly concepts remain beyond the range of our eyesight, beyond the grasp of our imagination.

The proper method is to learn wisdom from the Lord, that is, from his Word. Then all goes well, and in addition light is shed on our rational thinking and factual knowledge.

By no means, you see, is the acquisition of knowledge forbidden. Knowledge is useful for our lives, and pleasurable. For a believer no prohibition exists on thinking and speaking the way the well-educated of the world do. But we are to do so on the principle of belief in the Lord’s Word and of using earthly truth to confirm spiritual and heavenly truth so far as we can, using language familiar to the academic world. The Lord, not ourselves, must be the source of our principles. This is life; the other way is death.

130

For those wanting to learn wisdom from the world, the “garden” is sensory evidence and factual information; their “Eden” is self-love and materialism. Their east is west; that is, they are their own east. Their Euphrates is all the factual knowledge they have learned—damnable knowledge. Their second river, in the area of Assyria, is insane reasoning and the falsity it spawns. Their third river, in the area of Cush, is principles that advocate evil and falsity, developed out of such reasoning; these are the catechism of their faith. Their fourth is the wisdom that results. The Word describes this wisdom as magic, and that is why Egypt, which symbolizes scholarly learning, also symbolizes occult knowledge, having adopted the magical arts. The reason is given in various places in the Word: they wanted to teach themselves wisdom. Ezekiel speaks of them this way:

This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: “Here, now, I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, you great sea creature, lying in the middle of his rivers, who has said, ‘My river is mine, and I have made myself.’ And the land of Egypt will become a desolation and wasteland—and they will know that I am Jehovah—because he said, ‘The river is mine, and I myself have made it.’” (Ezekiel 29:3, 9)

In another passage treating of Pharaoh the Egyptian, the same prophet refers to people of this type as trees of Eden in hell:

. . . when I make him go down into hell, accompanying those going down into the pit. Whom have you come to resemble this way, in glory and in greatness, among the trees of Eden, when you were made to go down with the trees of Eden into the underground realm, in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those stabbed by the sword? This is Pharaoh and all his horde. (Ezekiel 31:16, 18)

The trees of Eden stand for facts and religious knowledge from the Word, which such people accordingly profane by the use of crooked reasoning.

Text of Genesis Chapter 2:18–25

18. And Jehovah God said, “It is not good for the human to be alone. Let me make him an aid that seems to be his.”

19. And out of the soil Jehovah God formed every animal of the field and every bird in the heavens and brought it to the human to see what he would call it. And whatever the human called the living soul, that was its name.

20. And the human gave names to every beast and to the bird in the heavens and to every wild animal of the field; but for the human no aid was found that seemed to be his.

21. And Jehovah God made slumber fall on the human, and he went to sleep. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place.

22. And Jehovah God built a woman out of the rib that he took from the human and brought her to the human.

23. And the human said, “This time, bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This is why she will be called ‘wife’: because she was taken from man.”

24. Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

25. And they were both naked, the human and his wife, and did not blush.

Summary

131

These verses deal with later generations of the earliest church, who strove for autonomy.

132

Human nature is such that we are not content with the Lord’s leading but also desire to be led by ourselves and the world, or in other words, to act independently. Consequently the present verses treat of the sense of autonomy yielded to humankind (verse 18).

133

People are first given the ability to recognize the positive feelings and true concepts given them as gifts by the Lord, but still they seek independence (verses 19, 20).

134

So they are brought into a state of self-governance and are granted a sense of autonomy, as depicted by the rib from which the woman was built (verses 21, 22, 23).

135

Then heavenly, spiritual life is linked so closely with the sense of independence that they seem to form a unit (verse 24).

136

The Lord introduces innocence into their self-direction to keep it from becoming objectionable (verse 25).

Inner Meaning

137

Three chapters of Genesis deal generally with the earliest church (called the human) from its first period to its last, when it died. The earlier part of this chapter tells of its heyday, when it formed a heavenly individual. The current section speaks of that church and its descendants when they ardently sought autonomy.

138

Genesis 2:18. And Jehovah God said, “It is not good for the human to be alone. Let me make him an aid that seems to be his.”

Being alone symbolizes being discontent with the Lord’s leading and desiring to be led by oneself and the world. An aid that seems to be his symbolizes a sense of autonomy, later referred to as the rib from which the woman was built [Genesis 2:22].

139

The ancients described people who were led by the Lord (the way people of heavenly character are) as living alone because evil or rather evil spirits no longer bothered them. In the Jewish church, the same circumstances were represented by the promise that when the other nations had been driven out they would live alone. For this reason the Word predicts several times that the Lord’s church would be alone. An example from Jeremiah:

Rise, go up to a nation at rest, living securely. No double doors, no bar on the gate do they have; they live alone. (Jeremiah 49:31)

In a prophecy of Moses’:

Israel has lived securely, alone. (Deuteronomy 33:28)

Still more explicitly in Balaam’s prophecy:

Look, a people that lives alone and is not counted among the nations! (Numbers 23:9)

Here the nations stand for different kinds of evil.

The generation that inherited the earliest church did not wish to live alone or, what is the same, to be heavenly or, again, to be led by the Lord as a heavenly individual. They wanted to be in among the nations, as the Jewish church was. Since this was what they wanted, the verse says that it was not good for the human to be alone. Those who yearn for evil are already involved in it, and they are allowed to have it.

140

A key to the reason why an aid that seemed to be his symbolizes a sense of autonomy lies in the nature of autonomy and in the story that follows. Since the people in the church being discussed here had good character, they were granted self-direction, but of a kind that only appeared to be theirs, which is why the verse says the aid seemed to be his.

141

An endless number of things can be said about self-rule in the individual, specifically about its nature in a body-oriented or worldly person, in a spiritual person, and in a heavenly person.

In carnal, materialistic people, their sense of autonomy is the all-in-all. They know nothing else. If it died, they would think they had died, as noted earlier [§123].

Autonomy looks the same in spiritual people. Although they know and admit that the Lord is the life in all things, that he is the giver of wisdom and understanding and so of thought and action, they do not really believe it.

Heavenly people, however, acknowledge that the Lord is the life of all and the giver of thought and action because they perceive that it is so, and they have no desire at all for autonomy. Yet even though they do not seek autonomy, the Lord gives it to them. This autonomy or selfhood is directly bound up with their ability to perceive what is good and true and with their happiness.

Such is the autonomy or selfhood present in angels, and its presence brings them the highest peace and tranquility. Their selfhood is composed of qualities that belong to the Lord, who governs their self-governance, or rather governs them through their self-governance. This selfhood is the epitome of heavenliness; the selfhood of a body-centered person, on the other hand, is hellish. More about autonomy or selfhood will follow, however.

142

Genesis 2:19, 20. And out of the soil Jehovah God formed every animal of the field and every bird in the heavens and brought it to the human to see what he would call it. And whatever the human called the living soul, that was its name. And the human gave names to every beast and to the bird in the heavens and to every wild animal of the field; but for the human no aid was found that seemed to be his.

Animals symbolize emotions of a heavenly type; birds in the heavens symbolize emotions of a spiritual type. To put it another way, animals symbolize the contents of the will, birds the contents of the intellect. Bringing them to the human to see, so that he could call them by name, means granting humankind the ability to recognize the nature of those feelings; the fact that he gave them names means that people recognized the nature of the feelings. At the same time, even though they recognized the nature of the virtuous emotions and true concepts given them as gifts by the Lord, they still strove for autonomy, as expressed in the same words used before: he did not find an aid that seemed to be his.

143

These days it may seem strange that in ancient times animals and beasts symbolized feelings and similar human qualities. But [in the first place] people then viewed things the way heaven does, and [in the second place] animals represent these qualities in the world of spirits as well. (In fact a quality is represented by an animal whose nature reflects that quality.) In consequence, when the ancients mentioned the animals they meant nothing else than the qualities.

In the Word, too, no other meaning is intended in any passage that mentions animals in general or in particular. The whole of the prophetic portion is full of these references. Not knowing what each species of animal symbolizes makes it impossible to understand what the Word contains in its inner meaning.

As noted above [§45], animals are of two kinds: bad (because they are dangerous) and good (because they are harmless). The good ones, such as sheep, lambs, and doves, symbolize positive emotions. Here, where the heavenly person (or the heavenly kind of spiritual person) is the subject, that is their symbolism.

Sections 45 and 46 quoted several places in the Word that show that animals in general symbolize feelings, eliminating the need for further demonstration here.

144

In regard to the idea that naming things means recognizing their nature, it needs to be realized that the ancients took a name to mean simply the essence of a thing, and seeing something and naming it to mean recognizing its nature. This was due to the fact that they gave their daughters and sons names with a relevant meaning. Every name had a unique element that indicated where people were from and what they were like. Explanations further on concerning Jacob’s twelve sons will, by the Lord’s divine mercy, demonstrate this.

Since names, then, told where people were from and what they were like, that is exactly what naming something meant to those ancient people. Such a manner of speaking was familiar to them, and anyone who fails to understand it will be puzzled by the symbolism.

145

In the Word as well, a name means the essence of a thing and seeing something and naming it means recognizing its nature, as in Isaiah:

I will give you the treasures of the dark and the hidden riches of secret places, in order that you may know that I am Jehovah; the one who gives you your name; the God of Israel. For the sake of my servant Jacob and of Israel my chosen, I have also called you by your name; I have surnamed you, but you do not know me. (Isaiah 45:3, 4)

Calling by name and naming symbolize foreseeing a person’s nature. In the same author:

A new name will be given to you, which the mouth of Jehovah will declare. (Isaiah 62:2)

This time it means that the person will change, as is evident from the verses before and after it. Again:

Don’t be afraid, Israel, because I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name: You Are Mine. (Isaiah 43:1)

The message here is that he knows what we are like. Once again:

Raise your eyes up high and see who has created those things, leading their legions out by number. He will call them all by name. (Isaiah 40:26)

In other words, he knows everyone. In Revelation:

You have a few names in Sardis that have not defiled their clothes. Those who conquer will be dressed in white clothes, and I will not delete their name from the book of life; and I will proclaim their name before my Father and before his angels. (Revelation 3:4, 5)

In another place:

. . . those whose names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life. (Revelation 13:8)

In none of these places does names literally mean names but rather what the people are like. No one knows anyone’s name in heaven, either, but each knows what the other is like.

146

From all these explanations you can see how the symbolism interconnects. Verse 18 said, “It is not good for the human to be alone. Let me make him an aid that seems to be his.” Next come the animals and birds, which also appeared earlier, and then immediately the same words recur, “For the human no aid was found that seemed to be his.” That is, when humans received the ability to recognize their own nature—the nature of their good emotions and true concepts—they still sought independence. After all, when people are such that they want to rule themselves, they begin to despise all that the Lord has to offer them, no matter how clearly those things are presented and illustrated for them.

147

Genesis 2:21. And Jehovah God made slumber fall on the human, and he went to sleep. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place.

The rib, a chest bone, means that part of our identity which is hardly alive and yet is our very own, so that we love it tenderly. The flesh in place of the rib means the part of our identity that is alive. Slumber means a state brought over us to make it seem to us as if we have autonomy. This state is like sleep because in it we have no idea that we do not live, think, speak, and act on our own; but when we begin to realize how wrong this view is, we are roused from our sleep and wake up.

148

Our identity or independence—which is indeed our own and is therefore tenderly loved by us—was called a rib or chest bone because to the earliest people the chest, with its heart and lungs, symbolized our tender love for others. Since bones are only minimally alive, they symbolized attributes of relatively little value. Flesh, however, symbolized attributes that have a living quality.

The reason for these symbolisms lies deeply hidden but was known to the earliest people. It will, with the Lord’s divine mercy, be discussed later.

149

The Word also uses bones as a symbol for a person’s sense of self and specifically for a sense of self brought to life by the Lord. In Isaiah:

Jehovah will satisfy your soul in the barrens, and he will make your bones ready; and you will be like a well-watered garden. (Isaiah 58:11)

In the same author:

Then you will see, and your heart will rejoice, and your bones will be like sprouting grass. (Isaiah 66:14)

In David:

All my bones will say, “Jehovah, who is like you?” (Psalms 35:10)

This appears still more clearly in Ezekiel, where it talks about bones that will take on flesh and have breath enter them:

The hand of Jehovah put me in the middle of the valley, and the valley was full of bones. And he said to me, “Prophesy over those bones, and you are to say to them, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of Jehovah. This is what the Lord Jehovih has said to these bones: “See? I am bringing breath into you, and you will live. And I will put tendons on you and bring flesh up over you and draw skin over you and put breath in you, and you will live. And you will know that I am Jehovah.”’” (Ezekiel 37:1, 4, 5, 6)

[2] Human selfhood, viewed from heaven, looks completely bony, lifeless, and hideous—inherently dead. But once the Lord gives it life, it appears to have flesh. Human selfhood is in fact nothing more than a dead trifle, even though it seems to its owner to be significant and indeed all-important. Anything living in us comes from the Lord’s life. If his life withdrew from us, we would fall dead as a stone. We are merely organs designed to receive life, but the nature of the organ that we are determines how we respond to that life.

Only the Lord has autonomy. By his own power he redeems us and by his own power he saves us. This autonomy or selfhood of his is life, and it causes our selfhood, which is inherently dead, to come alive. The Lord’s words in Luke symbolize his selfhood:

A spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones as you see I have. (Luke 24:39, 40)

Another sign was the fact that not a bone of the Passover lamb was to be broken (Exodus 12:46).

150

Our condition when we rely on ourselves or when we think we live by our own power can be compared to slumber or unconsciousness. The people of old actually called that condition slumber, and the Word speaks of it as “being flooded with a spirit of slumber” [Isaiah 29:10] and “sleeping a sleep” [Jeremiah 51:39, 57].

The truth that human selfhood is inherently dead, that none of us have any life on our own, is demonstrated in the world of spirits by vivid experience—so vivid that evil spirits, who love nothing but selfhood or a sense of autonomy and obstinately insist that they live independently, become convinced and admit that life is not theirs after all.

I more than any other have been given the opportunity in the last several years to see what “human autonomy” amounts to, finding as I have that not a single one of my thoughts originated in me. I have been able to perceive with utmost clarity that every component idea in my thinking has come from outside, and sometimes I have seen where it came from and how it entered.

Therefore those who suppose they live by their own power have it wrong. By believing that they live independently, they adopt all possible evil and falsity as their own, and this they would never do if they believed the situation to be as it really is.

151

Genesis 2:22. And Jehovah God built a woman out of the rib that he took from the human and brought her to the human.

Building means reconstructing what has fallen down. A rib symbolizes a sense of self devoid of life. A woman symbolizes a sense of self brought to life by the Lord. Bringing her to the human means giving people a sense of self.

Unlike their parents, the members of the generation that inherited the earliest church preferred not to have a heavenly character but to lead themselves. They sought selfhood or a sense of autonomy, so it was yielded to them. Still, it was a living selfhood, vivified by the Lord, so it is called a woman and later a wife.

152

If you give it even a little thought, you can see that woman did not come from the rib of man and that these words involve deeper secrets than have ever yet come to light. The fact that the woman symbolizes selfhood is indicated by her being the one who was deceived [Genesis 3:1–6], since nothing ever deceives us besides our self-absorption or, what is the same, love for ourselves and for the material world.

153

The exact wording is that the woman was built out of a rib, not that she was made, formed, or created, as before [§88], where regeneration was discussed. Build is used because it means reconstructing what has fallen. It is similar to places where the Word uses build of evil, raise up of falsities, and renew of both. In Isaiah, for instance:

They will rebuild the eternal wastelands, the ancient desolate places they will raise up, and they will renew the wasted cities, the desolate places of generation after generation. (Isaiah 61:4)

Wastelands here and elsewhere stand for evil, while desolate places stand for falsities; build is applied to the former and raise up to the latter—a distinction carefully observed in other prophetic passages. In Jeremiah:

I will build you again so that you may be built up, virgin Israel. (Jeremiah 31:4)

154

Nothing evil or false can possibly exist that is not our own and the product of our “autonomy.” Human selfhood is wickedness itself, and consequently a human being is nothing but evil and falsity.

This fact has stood out whenever I have seen people’s intrinsic characteristics presented visually in the world of spirits. The sight is as ugly as any a painter could paint—with variations, according to the nature of the particular personality involved. It is so hideous that the individual whose traits are being displayed shudders at herself or himself and wants to run, as if from the Devil.

When the Lord gives life to our intrinsic characteristics, though, they look lovely and beautiful—with variations, depending on the particular life involved and the heavenly quality the Lord can add to it. Those provided with charity, or enlivened by it, look like boys and girls with strikingly beautiful faces. Those for whom the quality is innocence look like toddlers, naked but decked out in different ways, with flower garlands around their chests or tiaras on their heads, living at play in diamond-bright air, attuned to the happiness that wells up from deep within.

155

The words a woman was built out of a rib conceal more than anyone can ever see in the literal meaning, since the Lord’s Word is such that deep down it concerns itself with the Lord himself and his kingdom. This is the source of all life in the Word. In the same vein, the inmost concern here is the heavenly marriage.

The heavenly marriage is something that exists in our selfhood. Moreover, it is because of the heavenly marriage that our selfhood, after being brought to life by the Lord, is called the Lord’s bride and wife.

When the Lord brings it to life, our sense of self gives us the ability to perceive all the good desired by love and all the truth taught by faith. So it holds within it all wisdom and understanding, joined to an indescribable happiness.

Still, a few words will not be enough to explain the nature of this living autonomy called the Lord’s bride and wife. I can offer only this much: that angels perceive that they live from the Lord, although when not reflecting, they are under the full impression that they live on their own. This living selfhood is a sensation affecting all of them, telling them something has changed whenever they depart in the least from a loving goodness and religious truth. They enjoy their customary peace and happiness, which defies description, when they share in a perception that they live from the Lord.

A living sense of self is also what Jeremiah refers to when he says,

Jehovah has created something new in the earth: a woman will encircle a man. (Jeremiah 31:22)

This too is talking about the heavenly marriage, the woman symbolizing a sense of autonomy brought to life by the Lord. She is said to encircle the man because our self-life encircles us as the fleshed-out rib encircles the heart.

156

Genesis 2:23. And the human said, “This time, bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This is why she will be called ‘wife’: because she was taken from man.”

Bone from one’s bones and flesh from one’s flesh symbolizes the sense of autonomy of our outer being; bone symbolizes that autonomy without much life, and flesh symbolizes that autonomy with life. The man, though, symbolizes our inner being, and because the inner being is intimately coupled with the outer being, as the next verse says, this desire to rule ourselves is here called a wife—the term used in the next verse—instead of a woman as before. This time means that it has now been accomplished, because our state has changed.

157

Since bone of one’s bones and flesh of one’s flesh symbolized what is our own in the outer being (which holds the inner being), in ancient times they used bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh to refer to anyone who could be called theirs. This was so whether they belonged to the same household or the same clan or had some other relationship. Laban so described Jacob:

You are certainly my bone and my flesh. (Genesis 29:14)

Abimelech said the same of his mother’s brothers and of the clan of his maternal grandfather’s household:

Remember that I am your bone and your flesh. (Judges 9:1, 2, 3)

The tribe of Israel also described themselves that way to David:

Here now, we are your bone and we are your flesh. (2 Samuel 5:1)

158

The following passage from Isaiah shows that a man symbolizes the inner being or, what is the same, someone understanding and wise:

I am looking, and there is not a man, and [seeking] among them, and there is not a counselor. (Isaiah 41:28)

In other words, there is no one wise or understanding. In Jeremiah:

Dash about through the streets of Jerusalem and see whether you find a man, whether he is exercising judgment, seeking truth. (Jeremiah 5:1)

Exercising judgment stands for being wise; and seeking truth, for having understanding.

159

It is not easy to perceive how the situation stands with all this unless one knows what heavenly people’s state is like—that their inner being is distinguished from their outer being. The distinction is clear enough that they can tell what belongs to their inner and what to their outer being. They can also tell how the Lord uses the inner being to regulate the outer.

But the condition of this later generation changed because of their desire for autonomy, which belongs to the outer being. They no longer perceived the distinction between their inner and outer beings; for them it was as if the inner and outer were one. This perception is a result of the desire for autonomy.

160

Genesis 2:24. Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Leaving father and mother is leaving the inner being behind, as it is the inner being that conceives and gives birth to the outer being. To cling to one’s wife is to have an inner being within our outer being. That they are to be one flesh means that the two coexist there. Prior to this time the inner being was spirit, as was the outer being through its connection with the inner. Now, however, they become flesh.

By this means, heavenly, spiritual life was linked so closely with the sense of independence that they seemed to form a unit.

161

This later generation of the earliest church was not evil; they were still good. And because they were eager to live in their outer being or selfhood, the Lord granted them their wish. In his mercy, though, he wove a heavenly-spiritual quality into their self-sufficiency.

In order to understand how the inner and outer being act in concert, or appear as one, it is necessary to know how the one exerts an influence on the other. To form at least some idea of this, take action as an example. An action that does not have charity (or love and faith) behind it and the Lord behind that is not an action that can be called either a charitable deed or the fruit of faith.

162

All laws ordaining what is true and right flow from heavenly origins, or from the structure of the inner life in a person who belongs to heaven. Heaven, taken as a whole, is a heavenly person because the Lord alone is a heavenly person. He is the totality of each and every thing in heaven and in the heavenly individual. This is how the inhabitants there come to be called heavenly.

Since heavenly origins or the structure of a heavenly person’s life is the source from which arises every law ordaining what is true and right—most of all the law for marriage—the heavenly marriage is the source and pattern for all marriages on earth. The heavenly marriage allows for one Lord and one heaven, or one church with the Lord as head. The resulting law for marriage is that there must be one man and one wife. When there are, they represent the heavenly marriage and provide a model of the heavenly person.

Not only was this law revealed to the men of the earliest church, it was also written on their inner being. Consequently a man in those times had just one wife and set up one household. But when the descendants of those earliest people stopped being deep people and became shallow instead, they began to marry many wives.

[2] For the men of the earliest church, the love that belongs to marriage was like heaven itself and its happiness, because their marriages represented the heavenly marriage. When that church started to go downhill, they no longer found happiness in marriage love but in the enjoyment of many partners instead—a pleasure that resides in the outer self. The Lord calls this phenomenon hard-heartedness, the grounds on which Moses allowed them to marry multiple wives. As the Lord himself teaches:

Because of your hardness of heart Moses wrote you this commandment. From the beginning of creation, though, God made them male and female. Therefore a person shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two will become one flesh; so they are no longer two but one flesh. What God has joined together, then, no human shall separate. (Mark 10:5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

163

Genesis 2:25. And they were both naked, the human and his wife, and did not blush.

They were naked and did not blush means that they were innocent; the Lord introduced innocence into their selfhood to keep it from being objectionable.

164

Human selfhood, as noted [§§39, 59, 154], is nothing but evil; presented in visual form it is extremely ugly. But when infused by the Lord with charitable love and innocence, it appears virtuous and lovely, as stated in §154.

Love for our fellow humans and innocence are what excuse self-centeredness, or a person’s evil and falsity. Not only do they excuse it, they almost eliminate it, as anyone can see in young children. When toddlers show love to each other and to their parents while glowing with childish innocence, what is actually evil and false in them does not seem so and even gives pleasure.

This shows that no one can be let into heaven without some innocence, as the Lord said:

“Allow the little children to come to me and do not stop them. These are the kind who make up God’s kingdom. Truly, I say to you: anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it.” So taking them up into the curve of his arms, he put his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:14, 15, 16)

165

The symbolism of their unembarrassed nakedness as innocence is highlighted by what followed, when their integrity and innocence deserted them. Then they blushed at their nakedness, which seemed like a disgrace to them, and that is why they hid.

Certain representative acts in the world of spirits also demonstrate that unembarrassed nudity symbolizes innocence. When spirits want to exonerate themselves and display their blamelessness, they show themselves naked, to testify to their innocence.

The strongest confirmation of this meaning is supplied by the innocent in heaven, who look like naked toddlers, wearing garlands that reflect their particular kind of innocence. Inhabitants with less innocence appear in beautiful, shimmery clothes—diamondlike silk, you might say—of a kind the prophets sometimes saw angels wearing.

166

This is what the Word contains in this chapter, but the contents I have laid bare are few. Since they have to do with the person of heavenly character, and hardly anything is known about such a person these days, the little I have disclosed must seem murky to some.

167

If people realized how much was hidden in each verse, they would be dumbfounded. So much is hidden that it could never be told. This fact is scarcely visible in the letter.

To give some idea in a few words: In the world of spirits (since it is a representative world) the literal words, just as they are, are represented in a living way, arranged in beautiful display. Any live representation in that world is then perceived in all its finer detail by the angelic spirits in the second heaven. What the angelic spirits see is then perceived by the angels in the third heaven in great richness. These angels see the represented text filled with angelic ideas for which there are no words, and by the Lord’s good pleasure, they see it in all its boundless variety. Such is the nature of the Lord’s Word.

Our Resurrection from Death and Entry into Eternal Life

168

In accordance with my promise [§72], I will now relate the steps by which we move from bodily life into eternal life, in order to show how a person is revived. The explanation is based not on hearsay but on my own personal experience.

169

I was brought into a state in which I was unaware of physical sensation—almost into the condition of someone who is dying. My inner life and thinking remained unimpaired, however, so that I would perceive and remember what was happening. I underwent the same experiences as those who have died and are being revived, when their breathing is at first consistent with continued life and then falls silent.

170

Heavenly angels were present, occupying the area of my heart, so that I seemed to be at one with them in my heart. We were so close that at last hardly anything of my own remained to me besides thought and the perception that comes with thought. This lasted several hours.

171

In this way I was removed from communication with spirits in the world of spirits. They assumed I had departed bodily life.

172

In addition to the heavenly angels occupying the region of my heart, there were two angels sitting at my head. I perceived that this is so for everyone.

173

The angels sitting at my head were completely silent, communicating their thoughts only by the face, so that I felt something like a new face come over me—two new faces, in fact, since there were two angels.

When the angels perceive that their faces are being mirrored, they know the person is dead.

174

After recognizing their faces on me, they caused certain changes in the area around my mouth and in this way shared their thoughts with me. (To speak through the area around someone else’s mouth is common for heavenly angels.) I was able to perceive their thought-speech.

175

I smelled a sweet fragrance, like that from an embalmed corpse. Whenever heavenly angels are present, the scent of a dead body comes across as sweet. If evil spirits smell it, they cannot come near.

176

All the while I remained at one with the heavenly angels, held in a fairly close embrace in the area around my heart, as I perceived and also felt in my pulse.

177

The idea was instilled in me that angels hold us in any thoughts we have at the moment of death that are devout and holy. I also gathered that when people are dying most of them are thinking about eternal life—few are thinking about their salvation or happiness—so the angels keep them in that thought about eternal life.

178

The heavenly angels hold us in this thought quite a while before withdrawing and leaving us to the spiritual angels who then become our companions. Meanwhile we fully, if dimly, believe that we are still alive in our bodies.

179

As soon as the internal organs of the body grow cold, our living substances, wherever they are located, are separated out. This would happen even if they were lost in the thousand interlinking passages of a labyrinth. The Lord’s mercy, which I had already experienced as a living and powerful pull, is so strong that it could not leave any living element behind.

180

The heavenly angels sitting at my head remained with me a while after I was “revived” without speaking except in their silent way. From their thought-speech I learned that they completely discounted all my misconceptions and falsities. It was not that they ridiculed them; they appeared not to care about them at all.

They speak by thoughts, without sound. This is the way they start to talk with the souls whom they accompany in the beginning.

181

People revived in this way by the heavenly angels are still experiencing a dim sort of life. When it is time to pass the people on to the spiritual angels, the heavenly angels wait a little and then withdraw once the spiritual angels have arrived. I was also shown how the latter enable the reviving soul to receive the use of light. See the beginning of the next chapter for more on this.

Genesis Chapter 3

Our Entry, Once Revived, into Eternal Life

(Continued)

182

When heavenly angels are present with the revived, they do not leave them; they love each one. But if our soul is such that we can no longer enjoy the company of heavenly angels, we long to get away from them, at which point spiritual angels arrive and give us the gift of light. Until then, we do not have the use of our sight, only of our thoughts.

183

I was shown how these angels do their work. They seemed to roll a kind of membrane off my left eye toward the nasal septum to open my eye and give it the use of the light. To the person being revived this seems to be exactly what is happening, but it is only an appearance.

184

When this small membrane seems to have been rolled off, a dim kind of glow can be seen, like the light seen through the eyelids on waking. We are in a peaceful state, still protected by the heavenly angels.

Next there appears a shadowy something the color of the sky, with a tiny star in it; but I sensed that different people experience this differently.

185

Afterward something seems to be rolled gently off the face, and we return to consciousness. The angels take the greatest care at this point to prevent any idea from rising out of us unless it is a fairly gentle, loving one. Now we learn that we are a spirit.

186

This is when we start to live, and at first things are happy and cheerful, since we feel we have entered on eternal life. This stage is represented by a brilliant light with a beautiful golden tinge, symbolizing the fact that our first stage of life is heavenly, with a touch of the spiritual.

187

Then we are welcomed into a community of good spirits. This is represented by a young adult astride a horse, directing it toward hell, although the horse is unable to move a step. We are represented by a young adult because as soon as we come into eternal life we find ourselves among angels and so seem to ourselves to be in the prime of our youth.

188

The kind of life that comes next is represented by a scene in which the youth dismounts and goes on foot because of the horse’s inability to move from the spot. The thought is planted in our minds that we will be taught about truth and goodness.

189

Then some gently rising paths become visible, symbolizing the fact that we will be led gradually toward heaven by a knowledge of truth and goodness and an acknowledgment of our own nature. Unless we acknowledge who we are and learn what is true and good, we can never be led there.

See the continuation at the end of this chapter [§§314–319].

Genesis 3

1. And the snake was crafty above every wild animal of the field that Jehovah God had made, and it said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

2. And the woman said to the snake, “We are to eat from the fruit of the tree of the garden.

3. But from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You may not eat from it, nor are you to touch it, or you will die from it.’”

4. And the snake said to the woman, “You are not going to ‘surely die,’

5. because God knows that on the day when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6. And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating, and that it was appealing to the eyes, and a tree desirable for lending insight. And she took some of its fruit and ate, and she gave to her husband too, who was with her, and he ate.

7. And the eyes of both were opened and they realized that they were naked. And they sewed together the leaf of the fig tree and made loincloths for themselves.

8. And they heard the voice of Jehovah God, going alone in the garden at the breeze of the day. And the human hid himself, as did his wife, from Jehovah God’s face, in the middle of the tree of the garden.

9. And Jehovah God called to the human and said to him, “Where are you?”

10. And he said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

11. And he said, “Who pointed out to you that you were naked? You ate from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat, didn’t you?”

12. And the human said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.”

13. And Jehovah God said to the woman, “Why have you done this?” And the woman said, “The snake deceived me and I ate.”

Summary

190

These verses deal with the third stage of the earliest church, in which people’s eagerness for autonomy amounted to a passion.

191

Driven by self-love they began at this point to believe nothing that they could not grasp with the physical senses. The snake represents sensory abilities; the woman represents self-love; and the man represents the ability to reason.

192

The snake (the senses) therefore persuaded the woman to examine closely the tenets of faith in the Lord, to see whether they were true. This is symbolized by the eating from the tree of knowledge. The fact that the man ate symbolizes consent on the part of the human being’s rational mind (verses 1–6).

193

But they perceived that they were behaving wrongly, as symbolized by the fact that their eyes were opened and that they heard Jehovah’s voice (verses 7, 8). This remaining trace of perception, together with the leaf of the fig tree that they used in making loincloths for themselves (verse 7), the shame they displayed in hiding in the middle of the tree of the garden (verses 8, 9), and their acknowledgment and confession (verses 10, 11, 12, 13), makes it clear that they retained an earthly kind of goodness.

Inner Meaning

194

Genesis 3:1. And the snake was crafty above every wild animal of the field that Jehovah God had made; and it said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

The snake is used here to mean our senses, which we trust. The wild animal of the field, here as before [§46], means every emotion in our outer self. The woman means selfhood. The snake’s words—“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree’?”—mean that for the first time they had doubts.

The subject is the third generation of the earliest church, who began to disbelieve what had been revealed unless they could see and feel that it was so. This verse and another just below depict the first phase they went through as a skeptical one.

195

The earliest people did not compare various human traits to animals and birds but called them such. That was their manner of speaking. This practice persisted in the ancient church, which came after the Flood, and the [Old Testament] prophets perpetuated it.

Snakes was their word for a person’s sensory abilities. This was because sense impressions rise directly out of the body, just as snakes lie directly on the ground. Those people referred to false logic concerning the mysteries of faith, when it sprang from sense impressions, as snake venom, and they called the logicians themselves snakes. People who employ this kind of logic spend much time constructing arguments based on things they can sense and specifically on things they can see—things of the earth, their body, the world, and nature—and that is why the snake was described as being crafty above every wild animal of the field.

[2] David uses similar words:

They sharpen their tongue like a snake; the venom of an asp is on their lips. (Psalms 140:3, 4, 5)

This speaks of people who beguile others with their false reasoning. In the same author:

They go astray from the womb, speaking a lie; they have venom like the venom of a snake. Like a deaf poison asp, they stop up their ear so as not to hear the voice of those who murmur, of a sage who associates in societies. (Psalms 58:3, 4, 5)

The snake venom refers to specious arguments, which tend to prevent people from even listening to anything wise—the “voice of a sage.” That is the source of a customary saying among the ancients that a snake would stop up its ear. In Amos:

. . . as if you come into the house and lean your hand on the wall and a snake bites you. Isn’t the day of Jehovah shadow and not light? And isn’t there darkness and not radiance on that day? (Amos 5:19, 20)

The hand on the wall stands for our independent powers and for confidence in the evidence of our senses. These cause blindness, as described. [3] In Jeremiah:

The sound of Egypt will travel like a snake, because they will travel in strength and come with axes against her, as if they were woodcutters. “Let them cut down her forest,” says Jehovah, “because it will not be explored. For they have become more numerous than locusts and there is no counting them. The daughter of Egypt has been shamed; she will be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.” (Jeremiah 46:20, 22, 23, 24)

Egypt stands for sophistry about divine subjects based on physical sensation and factual knowledge. Sophistic arguments are called the sound of a snake, and the blindness that results is symbolized by the people of the north. In Job:

They will suck the venom of asps; the tongue of a viper will kill them. They will not see torrents, streaming rivers of honey and butter. (Job 20:16, 17)

Rivers of honey and butter are spiritual and heavenly qualities, which reasoners “will not see.” Their arguments are called the venom of asps and the tongue of a viper. For more on the meaning of a snake, see below at verses 14 and 15 [§§242–251, 254, 257–259].

196

In ancient times, people who put more trust in what they learned through their senses than in what had been revealed were called snakes. The situation now is even worse, since some people not only believe nothing except what they can see and touch but also use facts unknown to the ancients to confirm their point of view. The result is that they blind themselves far more profoundly.

People who judge heavenly matters on the basis of the senses, book learning, or philosophical reasoning blind themselves so badly that they no longer see or hear anything at all. They become not just deaf snakes but the much more deadly flying snakes the Word also mentions [Isaiah 14:29; 30:6]. To see how they do this to themselves, take their beliefs about spirit as an illustration.

[2] Sense-oriented people, or those who believe only what their senses tell them, deny that spirit exists because they cannot see it. “It isn’t anything,” they say, “because I can’t sense it. If I can see or touch something, then I know it exists.”

Scholars, or people who depend on written knowledge for their conclusions, say, “What is spirit but a puff of air, maybe, or body heat?”—or something else within the scope of their learning. “And when it’s snuffed out, the spirit vanishes. Don’t animals also have a body, physical senses, and something like reason? Yet people say animals are destined to die, while the human spirit is destined to live on.” So they deny that spirit exists.

[3] Philosophers, who claim to be keener of intellect than anyone else, speak of spirit in technical terms. These terms they do not even understand themselves, since they debate them, claiming that not a single word that derives from [notions of] matter, organic substance, or extension in space can be applied [to the human spirit]. So they bury the idea in speculation until it disappears from their sight and turns into nothing.

The saner ones admit that thought exists; but when they argue about thought, they eventually come to the conclusion that it will dissolve when the body dies, because they separate it from any kind of substance.

Everyone, then, who analyzes the question on the basis of the senses, written knowledge, or philosophy denies that spirit exists. And when they deny its existence, they believe absolutely nothing that is said about spirit or spiritual things. If you ask the simple at heart, on the other hand, they say that they know it exists because the Lord said they would live on after death. They do not snuff out their rational capacity; instead they make it a living thing by means of the Lord’s Word.

197

When the earliest people (whose nature was heavenly) spoke of a snake, they meant watchfulness. They also meant the sensory level of the mind, which enabled them to watch out for any evil that might otherwise hurt them. This is illustrated by the Lord’s words to the disciples:

Here, I’m sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So be shrewd as snakes and simple as doves. (Matthew 10:16)

Something similar was meant by the bronze snake lifted up in the wilderness [Numbers 21:9]. It symbolized the sensory level in the Lord—the only heavenly person and the only being who watches over and provides for everything. That is why the people who looked on the bronze snake were saved.

198

Genesis 3:2, 3. And the woman said to the snake, “We are to eat from the fruit of the tree of the garden; but from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You shall not eat from it, nor are you to touch it, or you will die from it.’”

The fruit of the tree of the garden means the goodness and truth revealed to [this third generation] by the people of the earliest church. The fruit of the tree that was in the middle of the garden, from which they were not to eat, means religious goodness and truth, which they were not to learn about from themselves. The ban on touching it means that they were also not to think about religious goodness and truth from themselves, or from their senses and the facts they knew. That they would die from it means that this is how faith—that is, all wisdom and understanding—would perish.

199

As stated, the fruit of the tree from which they were to eat symbolizes religious goodness and truth, as it had been revealed to this generation by the earliest church; in other words, it symbolizes religious knowledge. This can be seen in the fact that they are told to eat from the fruit of the tree of the garden, not from the tree of the garden as before, in chapter 2, verse 16, where the heavenly person or the earliest church is the subject. The tree of the garden, as noted there [§125], symbolizes perception of what is good and true. This sort of goodness and truth, because it is a product of perception, is here called fruit. Fruit has the same symbolism in many other places in the Word.

200

The present verse says that the tree of knowledge was in the middle of the garden, but Genesis 2:9 above says that the tree of lives was in the middle, implying that the tree of knowledge was not. The reason is that the middle of the garden symbolizes the inmost core. The core of the heavenly individual, or the earliest church, was the tree of lives, which is love and the faith that develops out of love. With the people of this ensuing generation (who could be called heavenly-spiritual people), the middle of the garden, or the core, was faith.

Further description is impossible because no one today has any idea at all what the people who lived in that earliest era were like. Their character was completely unlike any found in our own age.

Their character was such (to give just a small idea) that good taught them about truth; that is to say, love taught them what belonged to faith. But when that generation passed away, another with a completely different nature took its place. The new descendants did not learn from good about truth; they did not learn from love about faith’s tenets. Instead, from truth they acquired facts about goodness. To put it another way, from religious knowledge they acquired facts about love. And many of them gained little more than facts.

This change was made after the Flood, to prevent the world’s destruction.

201

Since the character of the earliest people in the times before the Flood is not to be seen or found these days, it is not easy to explain the real meaning of these words. The real meaning is common knowledge in heaven, though, because those angels and angelic spirits who are called heavenly have the same nature as regenerate people of the earliest days, before the Flood. But the angels and angelic spirits who are called spiritual share the characteristics of regenerate people living after the Flood. Both natures come in unlimited variety.

202

The earliest church, which was a heavenly person, was such that it did not eat from the tree of knowledge; it was not from sense impressions and facts that people learned what belongs to faith. In fact they were not allowed even to touch that tree; they were not allowed even to think about any matter of faith on the basis of sense impressions or facts. Had they done so, they would have slipped from a heavenly life into a spiritual life and lower.

Heavenly angels live this same way. Those who are more profoundly heavenly do not even allow faith to be mentioned, nor anything that has a spiritual [rather than heavenly] quality. (If others do mention faith, in its place they perceive love, in an altered form known to themselves alone; whatever has to do with faith they see as stemming from love and goodwill.) They have a still harder time listening to a logical treatment of faith, and least of all can they stand to hear a coldly factual treatment. This is because the Lord gives them a perception through love of what is good and true. From perception they recognize immediately whether a thing is so or not. Consequently when they hear any discussion of faith, they have no other response than “That’s true” or “That’s not true,” because they perceive so from the Lord. Here lies the meaning of the Lord’s words in Matthew:

Your conversation shall be “Yes, yes,” “No, no.” Anything beyond these comes from evil. (Matthew 5:37)

Such is the meaning of the prohibition on even touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge, since these humans would have fallen prey to evil if they had—which is to say they would have died from it.

Heavenly angels, by the way, discuss all kinds of things, just as others do, but their speech, being formed and derived from love, is heavenly. It is harder to describe than the speech of spiritual angels.

203

Spiritual angels, on the other hand, do talk about faith, and they use intellectual, rational, and scientific concepts to confirm their religious beliefs; but they never rely on those concepts for their conclusions about faith. Anyone who does so is in the grip of evil. Spiritual angels too receive from the Lord a perception of everything having to do with faith, but theirs is not the same kind of perception that heavenly angels have. The perception experienced by spiritual angels is an ability supplied by conscience and brought to life by the Lord. It looks like heavenly perception, but it is only spiritual, not heavenly.

204

Genesis 3:4, 5. And the snake said to the woman, “You are not going to ‘surely die,’ because God knows that on the day when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

If they ate from the fruit of the tree their eyes would be opened means that if they scrutinized the tenets of faith from a sensory or factual standpoint—that is, from their own minds—they would see clearly that those tenets were not true. Their being like God, knowing good and evil means that if they judged good and evil for themselves they would be like God and would be able to lead themselves.

205

Every verse holds inside it some particular state or change of state within the church. The first few verses spoke of a perception remaining among them that [this self-direction] was unacceptable even though they yearned for it. The present verses speak of a creeping uncertainty about whether it might actually be permissible, because it would allow them to see whether the things they had heard from their elders were true, and their eyes would be opened.

In the end, because self-love began to predominate in them, the text speaks of a state in which they could lead themselves and so resemble the Lord. Self-love carries with it the desire not to be led by the Lord but by oneself and, being led by oneself, to turn to sensory evidence and secular knowledge as the criteria for belief.

206

What group of people believes more firmly that their eyes are open and that like God they can identify good and evil than those who admire themselves and at the same time boast a good secular education? But what group is more blind? Just ask them and you will find that they have no idea of the existence of spirit, let alone a belief in it. Spiritual life and heavenly life they know nothing about. Eternal life they do not acknowledge, since they believe they will die like brute animals. They positively refuse to recognize the Lord, worshiping themselves and the material world instead. Those who want to speak cautiously say that some Supreme Entity rules all things, although they do not know what it is.

[2] These are their principles, and privately they use many arguments from the senses and from the academic disciplines to prove them. They would do so publicly as well, if they dared.

Such people want to be recognized as gods or as fonts of wisdom, but if you ask them whether they know what it is to lack selfhood, they will answer that it is nonexistence; once deprived of it, they would be nothing. If you ask whether they know what it is to live from the Lord, they consider the concept a fantasy. If you inquired whether they knew what conscience was, they would describe it as nothing more than an imaginary something-or-other good for keeping the common people under control. If you inquired whether they knew what perception was they would do nothing but sneer and call it a sign of religious mania.

This is their wisdom. These are the people who have their eyes open; these are the people who are gods. Principles like these, which they consider clearer than daylight, are their starting points. From there they go on to reason about the mysteries of faith. What is the result but a chasm of the deepest darkness? Such people more than any are snakes that lead the world astray [Revelation 12:9].

But the descendants of the earliest church were not yet like this. What verses 14 to 19 of the current chapter say about them shows what they were later to become.

207

Genesis 3:6. And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating, and that it was appealing to the eyes, and a tree desirable for lending insight. And she took some of its fruit, and she ate and gave to her husband too, who was with her, and he ate.

Good for eating means intense desire. Appealing to the eyes means delusion. Desirable for lending insight means sensual pleasure. These three are properties of our selfhood (or the woman). Her husband’s eating symbolizes the rational mind’s consent (§265).

208

This was the fourth generation of the earliest church. They allowed themselves to be seduced by self-love and were unwilling to believe what had been revealed unless they saw it confirmed by evidence from the senses and by facts.

209

The words employed here—the tree was good for eating, appealing to the eyes, desirable for lending insight—are expressions that applied to the nature of the people living in that earliest era. They have to do with the will in particular, because the evils of those people gushed out of their will. Where the Word describes those who came after the Flood, it uses words that refer not so much to the will as to the intellect. Among the earliest people, you see, goodness led to truth, while for the people who followed the Flood, truth led to goodness.

210

To explain what selfhood is: Human selfhood is everything evil and false that wells up out of self-love and materialism. It is the tendency not to believe in the Lord or his Word but in ourselves and to think that what we do not grasp on a sensory or factual basis is nothing. The result of these tendencies is nothing but evil and falsity, which cause us to see everything backward—evil things as good, good things as evil, false things as true, and true things as false. That which exists we consider to be nothing, while that which is nothing we consider to be everything. We call hatred love, darkness light, death life, and the other way around. The Word calls people who succumb to this way of thinking lame and blind.

This, then, is human selfhood, which in itself is hellish and damnable.

211

Genesis 3:7. And the eyes of both were opened and they realized that they were naked.

Their eyes were opened means that an inner voice caused them to realize and admit that they were naked, in other words, that they now lived in evil and no longer in the innocence they had had before.

212

The fact that the opening of one’s eyes means an inner voice is indicated by similar instances in the Word. Take Balaam’s words describing himself: because he had visions, he calls himself a man whose eyes were open (Numbers 24:3, 4). And when Jonathan tasted some honeycomb and his inner voice told him he had done wrong, it says that his eyes saw, so that they were enlightened to see what he had not known (1 Samuel 14:27, 29). In many other passages from the Word, eyes are taken to mean the intellect and so an inner dictate issuing from it. In David, for example:

Give light to my eyes to prevent me from sleeping the sleep of death. (Psalms 13:3)

This stands for a request that light shine on the intellect. In Ezekiel:

. . . who have eyes to see and do not see. (Ezekiel 12:2)

This means those who refuse to understand. In Isaiah:

Their eyes you must smear over, to prevent them from seeing with their eyes. (Isaiah 6:10)

This stands for their being so blind that they could not understand. Moses told the people:

Jehovah has not given you a heart for knowing or eyes for seeing or ears for hearing. (Deuteronomy 29:4)

A heart stands for the will and eyes for the intellect. Isaiah says that the Lord will “open blind eyes” (Isaiah 42:7). In the same author:

Out of the darkness and out of the shadows, the eyes of the blind will see. (Isaiah 29:18)

213

They realized that they were naked means that they recognized and admitted that they were living in evil and not in the innocence they had had before. This can be deduced from the last verse of the previous chapter, where it says, “And they were both naked, the human and his wife, and did not blush.” Their lack of embarrassment over their nakedness symbolizes their innocence, as may be seen there [§§163–165].

The symbolism is just the opposite when they do show embarrassment, as is the case here, where they sewed fig leaves together and hid themselves. When innocence is lacking in us, nakedness is a matter of shame and scandal because we are conscious of wrong thoughts. For this reason, nudity in the Word is seen as a bad and shameful thing and is used to portray a perverted church. Ezekiel, for instance, says that the church was naked, bare, and trampled in its blood (Ezekiel 16:7, 22). In the same author:

Let them leave her naked and bare, and let her nakedness be unveiled. (Ezekiel 23:29)

In John:

I advise you to buy white clothes, so that you will be dressed and the shame of your nakedness will not be exposed. (Revelation 3:18)

And concerning the last days:

Fortunate are those who are watchful and keep their clothes, to avoid walking naked and letting others see their shame. (Revelation 16:15)

In Deuteronomy:

If a man finds any nakedness whatever in his wife, let him write her a document of divorce. (Deuteronomy 24:1)

Likewise Aaron and his sons were required to have linen shorts to cover the flesh of their nakedness when they approached the altar to minister; otherwise they would bear their sin and die (Exodus 28:42, 43).

214

They are said to be naked because they have been left to their own devices. Those who are left to their own devices or left on their own no longer retain any understanding or wisdom (that is, faith) and so are stripped of truth and goodness. As a result they live in evil.

215

The fact that our selfhood is nothing but evil and falsity has become clear to me from experience with spirits. Everything they have said to me on their own authority has been so consistently evil and false that I have only had to know they were speaking on their own in order to realize immediately that what they were saying was false. Yet the spirits themselves were so sure of the truth of their assertions that they never doubted them. People on earth who resemble them do the same.

Similarly there have been people who take to debating what constitutes spiritual and heavenly life, or faith, and they always succumb to doubt and even denial, as I have been allowed to see. To cavil about faith is to doubt and deny. Because such people reason from themselves or from a self-centered point of view, they stumble into undiluted falsity and so into an abyss of darkness—that is, of falsity. While they are in this abyss, the slightest objection overpowers a thousand truths, like a speck of dirt sitting on the pupil of the eye that prevents a viewer from seeing the universe and everything in it.

Of these people the Lord says in Isaiah:

Doom to those who are wise in their own eyes and discerning in their own sight! (Isaiah 5:21)

In the same author:

Your wisdom and your knowledge turned you away, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one else besides me.” But evil whose origin you do not know will come upon you; and a catastrophe that you will not be able to atone for will fall upon you; and a devastation that you do not know will come upon you speedily. (Isaiah 47:10, 11)

In Jeremiah:

All people have been made stupid by their knowledge, all metalsmiths have been put to shame by their sculpture, because their carvings are a lie and have no breath in them. (Jeremiah 51:17)

A sculpture stands for the falsity we adopt as our own, and carvings for the evil we adopt as our own.

216

And they sewed together the leaf of the fig tree and made loincloths for themselves.

To sew leaves together is to make excuses. The fig tree is earthly good. To make loincloths for themselves is to feel shame. That is how the people of the earliest church spoke in describing this generation of the church. They were saying that members of this generation had earthly good in place of the earlier innocence, that it hid their evil, and that since they had a merely earthly goodness they felt shame.

217

The symbolism in the Word of a grapevine as spiritual-level good and of a fig tree as earthly-level good is completely unknown today because the inner meaning of the Word has been lost. Wherever these words come up, however, that is what they symbolize or refer to. What the Lord said in various parables about vineyards and fig trees had the same meaning. So did his words in Matthew:

Jesus, seeing a fig tree along the way, came to it but found nothing on it except leaves alone. So he said to it, “May fruit not come from you from now to eternity!” Accordingly the fig tree instantly withered. (Matthew 21:19)

These words meant that no good was to be found on the earth, not even good on the earthly plane. The grapevine and fig tree have a similar meaning in Jeremiah:

“Were they ashamed that they did an abominable thing? They felt no shame at all, and they did not know how to blush. So I will utterly destroy them,” says Jehovah. “There are no grapes on the grapevine, no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf has fallen off.” (Jeremiah 8:12, 13)

This means that all good—both spiritual and earthly—had died out, because people were such that they could not even feel shame. They were like those today who have evil in them but are so far from feeling shame that they brag about it. In Hosea:

Israel was like grapes in the wilderness when I discovered him. Your ancestors were like first fruit on a young fig tree when I saw them. (Hosea 9:10)

And in Joel:

Do not be afraid, animals of my field; because the tree will bear its fruit, the fig tree and the grapevine will yield their strength. (Joel 2:22)

A grapevine stands for spiritual good, a fig tree for earthly good.

218

Genesis 3:8. And they heard the voice of Jehovah God, going alone in the garden at the breeze of the day. And the human hid himself, as did his wife, from Jehovah God’s face, in the middle of the tree of the garden.

The voice of Jehovah God, going alone in the garden, means an inner dictate, which [the people of this generation] dreaded. The inner call was the trace of perception they kept. The breeze of the day symbolizes the era when the church still retained a trace of perception. Hiding themselves from Jehovah God’s face means fearing the inner dictate, as those who are conscious of their evil do. The middle of the tree of the garden, in which they hid themselves, symbolizes earthly good. The word middle refers to the deepest core. A tree is perception, as noted before [§102]; but since they had little perception, the word is used in the singular, as if only one tree were left.

219

The meaning of the voice of Jehovah God, going alone in the garden, as an inner dictate that [the people of this generation] dreaded can be established from the symbolism of voice in the Word. The voice of Jehovah there is taken to mean the Word itself, teachings about faith, conscience (or an alertness to what is inside us), and every reproof of conscience. As a result, thunderbolts are called the voices of Jehovah. An instance appears in John:

The angel then shouted with a loud voice, like a lion roaring, and when he shouted, the seven thunders uttered their voices. (Revelation 10:3, 4)

This stands for the fact that an outer and an inner voice were heard at that time. In the same author:

In the days of the seventh angel’s voice, the mystery of God is to come to an end. (Revelation 10:7)

The meaning here is similar. In David:

Sing to God, make music to the Lord, who is riding on the ancient heavens of heavens. Watch: he will lift his voice, a voice of strength. (Psalms 68:32, 33)

The ancient heavens of heavens stand for the wisdom of the earliest church; the voice, for revelation and for an inner call as well. In the same author:

Jehovah’s voice is upon the waters; Jehovah’s voice has power; Jehovah’s voice is in its glory. Jehovah’s voice is shattering cedars; Jehovah’s voice is cutting down fiery flames. Jehovah’s voice makes the wilderness tremble; Jehovah’s voice sends the does into labor and strips the forests bare. (Psalms 29:3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9)

In Isaiah:

Jehovah will make the perfection of his voice heard, since at Jehovah’s voice Assyria will panic. (Isaiah 30:30, 31)

220

The voice going alone means that little perception was left, as if it were all by itself and unheard, so to speak. This is evident from the next verse as well, where it says that Jehovah called or shouted to the person. Similarly in Isaiah:

The voice of one shouting in the wilderness; the voice said, “Shout!” (Isaiah 40:3, 6)

The wilderness stands for a church that has no faith. The voice of one shouting stands for a proclamation of the Lord’s Coming; and in general for every time his coming is proclaimed, as for instance in the case of regenerate people, who hear an inner call.

221

The symbolism of the breeze of the day as an era when the church still retained a trace of perception can be seen from the symbolism of day and night. The earliest people compared the phases of the church to the times of day and night, the day times being a comparison for phases in which the church still enjoyed light. So the breeze of the day is being used as the comparison for a stage at which the church kept some residual perception, allowing them to recognize that they had slipped.

The Lord also uses day as the term for a state of faith and night as the term for a state lacking in faith. An example in John:

I have to do the work of him who sent me while it is still day. The night, in which no one can work, is coming. (John 9:4)

The stages of a person’s regeneration are therefore called days in the first chapter.

222

Hiding themselves from Jehovah’s face means fearing the inner dictate, as those who are conscious of their evil do. This meaning can be ascertained from their answer in verse 10: “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked.”

The face of Jehovah, or the Lord, is mercy, peace, and everything good, as is clear from the benediction

Jehovah make his face shine on you and have mercy on you. Jehovah lift his face on you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:25, 26)

And in David:

May God have mercy on us and bless us; may he make his face shine on us. (Psalms 67:1)

And in another place:

Many people are saying, “Who will cause us to see good? Lift the light of your face on us, Jehovah.” (Psalms 4:6, 7)

This is why the Lord’s mercy is called “the angel of his face” in Isaiah:

I will mention Jehovah’s mercies. He repaid [the house of Israel] according to his mercies and according to the abundance of his mercies, and he became a savior to them. In all their anguish he was not an anguish, and the angel of his face saved them. On account of his love and on account of his compassion he redeemed them. (Isaiah 63:7, 8, 9)

223

Since the Lord’s face is mercy, peace, and everything good, it is clear that he never looks at anyone except with mercy and never turns his face from anyone. It is we, when we are wrapped up in evil, who turn our faces away. As the Lord said through Isaiah:

Your offenses are what cause a separation between you and your God; and your sins hide his face from you. (Isaiah 59:2)

Likewise it says here that they hid themselves from Jehovah’s face because they were naked.

224

Mercy, peace, and all that is good—Jehovah’s face—are what give rise to the inner call in the case of those who have perception (and those who have conscience, too, but in a different way). These qualities always operate in a compassionate manner, but the way we receive them depends on our state.

The state of the human in this chapter, or of this generation of the earliest church, was one of earthly good. Those who live in earthly good are such that they hide themselves in fear and shame over their nakedness. Those who lack earthly good, however, do not even hide, because they are shameless. They are spoken of in Jeremiah 8:12 and 13 (see §217 above).

225

The middle of the tree of the garden symbolizes earthly good that brings with it a certain amount of perception, the latter being called the tree here. This symbolism can also be seen from [the meaning of] the garden that the heavenly person inhabited, because anything that is good or true is called a garden. The connotations vary, depending on the person who cultivates it.

Good is not good unless it has at its core something heavenly that supplies perception, or that allows the Lord to supply it. This core is called the middle and the Word uses the term the same way.

226

Genesis 3:9, 10. And Jehovah God called to the human and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

The meaning of calling and of the voice in the garden and the reason they were afraid at being naked and hid themselves has already been explained [§§219–220, 222–224].

It is a common occurrence in the Word for people first to be asked where they are or what is happening, although the Lord already knows everything. The purpose of the inquiry is to give the person an opportunity for acknowledgment and confession.

227

The source of perception, inner dictates, and conscience needs to be understood. Because no one these days knows anything about it, let me say a little.

It is entirely true that the Lord governs us through spirits and angels. When evil spirits start to take control, angels put their effort into deflecting evils and falsities, and conflict results. This conflict is what we sense by means of perception, an inner dictate, or conscience.

From these three sensations, and from the trials we are going through, we would see clearly that spirits and angels are present with us if our focus were not thoroughly physical. Such a focus prevents us from believing anything we hear about spirits and angels. Body-centered people could experience those conflicts a hundred times over and still claim that an overactive imagination or some kind of mental illness lay at the root of them.

I myself have had the opportunity to experience conflict and its vivid sensation thousands upon thousands of times—almost continually now for several years. I have been able to learn what spirits were involved, what they were like, just where they were, at what moment they approached, and what time they left, and I have been allowed to speak to them.

228

It is impossible to describe how keenly angels perceive whether or not the thoughts that enter our minds violate religious truth or a loving goodness. Angels are a thousand times more sensitive to the nature of our thoughts and the timing of their introduction than we are, since we know almost nothing about it.

The smallest piece of our thoughts is more apparent to the angels than the largest is [to us]—which is unbelievable, but absolutely true.

229

Genesis 3:11, 12, 13. And he said, “Who pointed out to you that you were naked? You ate from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat, didn’t you?” And the human said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.” And Jehovah God said to the woman, “Why have you done this?” And the woman said, “The snake deceived me and I ate.”

The symbolism in all of this is established by previous explanations [§§99, 128–129, 196]: our rational capacity allows itself to be deceived by our sense of autonomy—which we love tenderly—or in other words, by self-love, so that we give no credit to anything we cannot see or feel.

Anyone can see that Jehovah God did not talk to a snake and that in fact there was no snake. Nor did he talk to the sensory part of the mind, symbolized by the snake. Rather, other things are involved. Specifically, people perceived that they had been deceived by their senses, and because they loved themselves, they were eager to know whether the things they heard about the Lord and about faith in him were true. Only then would they be willing to believe.

230

The reigning evil of this generation was self-love. Love of the material world did not form as large a part of the reigning evil as it does now. This was because people lived among their households and clans and did not strive after riches.

231

A single evil afflicted not only the earliest church, before the Flood, but also the ancient church, after the Flood, and the Jewish church, and then the new church or the church among non-Jews that came after the Lord’s arrival into the world, just as it afflicts the modern church. It is the evil of not believing the Lord or the Word but trusting oneself and one’s senses. The result is an absence of faith, and when faith is absent, so is love for others—a situation that leads to all falsity and evil.

232

Conditions are much worse today than they once were. People can now employ knowledge unavailable to our ancestors in justifying the skepticism bred by their senses. In doing so, they produce so great a darkness that it could never be described. If people knew how great a darkness results, they would be astounded.

233

Examining religious mysteries by the use of factual knowledge is as impossible as it would be for a camel to go through the eye of a needle [Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25]. It is as impossible as it would be for a rib to regulate the purest filaments of the chest and of the heart within it. So coarse—and much coarser—is the dimension of the senses and of technical knowledge in relation to spiritual and heavenly qualities.

Those who limit their investigations to the secrets of nature have difficulty enough laying bare even a single one among that uncountable quantity. Think how much greater their failure would be if they tried to find out the secrets of spiritual and heavenly life, of which there are myriads for each and every hidden facet of nature. And this is to say nothing of the fact that their researches plunge them into error, as everyone knows.

[2] Let just this one example serve for illustration.

On our own, we cannot help doing evil and turning away from the Lord. Yet it is not we who act this way but the evil spirits present with us. And it is not the evil spirits but the wickedness itself adopted by them as their own. In spite of this, we do evil and turn away from the Lord, and we are to blame. Still, we cannot live except from the Lord.

On the other hand, we have no ability at all to do good or turn toward the Lord on our own; it is the angels who give us the power. Yet the angels themselves cannot do so. Only the Lord can. Still, we can do good and turn toward the Lord as if we were acting under our own power.

This reality could never be grasped by our senses, by the academic disciplines, or by philosophy. Consult these and they absolutely refute it, even though it is all true in and of itself. The same holds for all other heavenly secrets.

[3] From this we can conclude that people who make sensory evidence and factual knowledge the standard for belief tumble headlong not simply into doubt but even into denial—in other words, into darkness. And since they thrust themselves into darkness, they also subject themselves to every kind of craving. When we believe in something false, we also act on falsity; and when we believe anything spiritual or heavenly to be impossible, we believe that only what belongs to the flesh and the world exists. So we love whatever promotes our self-interest or worldly advantage, and our false premise leads to evil cravings and outright wickedness.

Text of Genesis Chapter 3:14–19

14. And Jehovah God said to the snake, “Because you have done this, a curse on you, above every beast and above every wild animal of the field! You will travel on your belly and eat dirt all the days of your life.

15. And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will trample you on the head and you will wound him on the heel.”

16. And to the woman he said, “I will vastly multiply your pain in conception. In pain you will bear children, and your obedience will be to your husband; and he will rule over you.”

17. And to the human he said, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree concerning which I commanded you, saying, ‘You will not eat from it,’ a curse on the ground because of you! In great pain you will eat from it all the days of your life.

18. And it will produce thorn and thistle for you, and you will eat the grass of the field.

19. You will eat bread in the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, because from it you were taken. For you are dirt, and to dirt you will return.”

Summary

234

This passage portrays the subsequent state of religion, up to the time of the Flood. Because the church completely destroyed itself at that time, these verses also predict that the Lord would come into the world and save the human race.

235

People no longer wanted to believe anything they could not grasp through their senses, and that is why their sensory capacity, which is the snake, brought a curse on itself and became hellish (verse 14).

236

Therefore, to prevent humanity from plunging into hell with the whole of its being, the Lord promised he would come into the world (verse 15).

237

The woman provides a further picture of the church, whose people loved themselves, or their autonomy, so much that they were no longer able to comprehend anything true. This was so even though they had been given the ability to reason—the mental capacity that was to rule in them (verse 16).

238

The nature of this rational capacity is described too. It is said to have consented and in this way to have brought a curse on itself as well and become hellish, so that no rationality remained but only a skewed logic (verse 17).

239

The curse and ruination are depicted, as is the animalistic nature of these people (verse 18).

240

Their aversion for everything having to do with faith and love is described next, and how this changed them from being human to being nonhuman (verse 19).

Inner Meaning

241

The earliest people, who were heavenly, did actually see everything they looked at on earth and in the world around them, but their thoughts were devoted to the heavenly or divine attribute it symbolized or represented. Vision was just a means. So their manner of speaking reflected the same trait.

We can all see what that trait was like from our own experience. When we pay close attention to the meaning of a speaker’s words, we hear the words, but it is as if we do not. We seem to catch only the meaning. One who thinks more profoundly does not even notice the meaning of the words but something more universal within.

Ensuing generations of the earliest church, however—the ones discussed in the present verses—were not like their forebears. They loved the worldly and earthly realm, so when they looked at it, their minds clung to it. Their thoughts about this realm were the starting point for their thoughts about the things of heaven and of God. In this way the sensory experience came to be the primary force, not the mere tool it was for their predecessors. And when the worldly and earthly realm becomes the primary force, people base their reasoning about heavenly matters on it and blind themselves.

Our own experience can again show us what this method was like. When we fail to pay attention to the meaning of a speaker’s words but concentrate on the words themselves, we gather little of the meaning and still less of any universal significance within the meaning. Sometimes from a single word, or even from a single point of grammar, we leap to judgment about the whole of a speaker’s message.

242

Genesis 3:14. And Jehovah God said to the snake, “Because you have done this, a curse on you, above every beast and above every wild animal of the field! You will travel on your belly and eat dirt all the days of your life.”

Jehovah God said to the snake means that they perceived their reliance on their senses to be at fault. The curse on the snake above every beast and above every wild animal of the field symbolizes the fact that the sensory level of their mind turned away from what was heavenly toward what was bodily, bringing a curse on itself. Here as before the beast and the wild animal of the field symbolize feelings [§46]. The serpent’s traveling on its belly means that the sensory level could no longer look up toward heavenly values but had to look down toward bodily and earthly ones. Eating dirt all the days of its life means that the sensory plane became incapable of living on anything but what was bodily and earthly, so that it turned hellish.

243

In the earliest, heavenly sort of people, the sensory capacities of the body served the inner self obediently, and beyond that they had no interest in those capacities. After they began to love themselves, though, they put sense experience ahead of the inner self. As a result their senses were separated [from anything higher], turned to serving the body, and so were condemned to hell.

244

It has already been shown [§229] that Jehovah God said to the snake means that they perceived their reliance on their senses to be at fault, so I will not dwell on the matter.

245

The inner sense of the Word establishes fairly clearly the symbolism of he said to the snake, “A curse on you, above every beast and above every wild animal of the field!” The meaning is that the sensory level of their mind turned away from what was heavenly toward what was bodily, damning itself, or bringing a curse on itself. Jehovah God—the Lord—never curses anyone, is never angry at anyone, never leads anyone into crisis. He does not even punish us, let alone curse us. It is the Devil’s crew that does such things. Nothing of the sort could ever come from the fountain of mercy, peace, and goodness.

This passage and many others in the Word describe Jehovah God as not only turning his face away, being angry, punishing, and testing, but even killing—and, yes, cursing. This was in order to foster the belief that the Lord controls and arranges every last detail in the universe, including evil itself, punishments, and times of trial. After accepting this very general idea, people would learn just how he controls and arranges things. They would see that he transforms the evil involved in punishment and in our ordeals into good.

All scriptural teaching and learning begins with the most general things; for this reason the literal meaning abounds in broad ideas.

246

The meaning of the beast and the wild animal of the field as feelings is established by the things said about beasts and wild animals above at §§45, 46. Let me add to those statements these verses in David:

Rain you stir up with a will, God. You are the one who strengthens your struggling inheritance. Your wild animal will live in it. (Psalms 68:9, 10)

Here even a wild animal stands for a positive feeling, since this is what will live in God’s inheritance.

The reason Genesis 3:14, like Genesis 2:19, 20, speaks of the beasts and wild animals of the field while Genesis 1:24, 25 speaks of those of the earth is that this verse describes the church, or in other words, a person who has been reborn. The first chapter, on the other hand, dealt with the absence of religion, or in other words, a person in need of regeneration. The word field applies to the church or the regenerate individual.

247

The serpent’s traveling on its belly means that the sensory level could no longer look up toward heavenly values as it had before, but only down toward bodily and earthly ones. This can be seen from the fact that in ancient times people used belly to symbolize the things that are closest to the earth, chest to mean things higher than the earth, and head to mean the highest things of all. So here it says that the sensory plane, which by its nature is the lowest plane of the human mind, would travel on its belly because it turned toward earthly things. In the Jewish religion too a tendency toward lower things was symbolized by pressing one’s belly down to the ground and by sprinkling dirt on one’s head. David puts it this way:

Why do you hide your face, why forget our misery and our oppression? For our soul has bowed down to the dirt and our belly clings to the earth. Rise up as a helper to us and ransom us for the sake of your mercy. (Psalms 44:24, 25, 26)

Here again we can see that when we turn away from Jehovah’s face, our stomach begins to cling to the dirt and the earth.

The belly of the big fish that Jonah was cast into symbolizes the underground realm, as a prophecy in the Book of Jonah shows:

From the belly of hell I shouted; you heard my voice. (Jonah 2:2)

In this verse, hell stands for the underground realm.

248

When people fixed their sight on heavenly aims, then, they were said to go upright and to look up or, what is the same, forward. But when they looked toward bodily and earthly goals, they were said to bow to the ground and to look down or backward. Leviticus has an example:

I, Jehovah, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to keep you from being slaves to them, and who broke the restraints of your yoke and made you go upright. (Leviticus 26:13)

In Micah:

You will not remove your necks from [the evil planned for you], nor will you go upright. (Micah 2:3)

In Jeremiah:

Jerusalem sinned a sin. For that reason they despised her, because they saw her nakedness. Yes, she groaned and turned backward. “From up high he shot fire into my bones and made me go back. He rendered me desolate.” (Lamentations 1:8, 13)

In Isaiah:

Jehovah your redeemer is turning the wise around backward, and he changes their knowledge into foolishness. (Isaiah 44:24, 25)

249

Eating dirt all the days of its life means that the sensory plane became incapable of living on anything but what was bodily and earthly, so that it turned hellish. This can likewise be seen from the symbolism of dirt or dust in the Word. In Micah, for instance:

Pasture your people as in the days of old. The nations will see and will be ashamed of all their power. They will lick dust like the snake, and like the slitherers of the earth they will be rattled out of their enclosures. (Micah 7:14, 16, 17)

The days of old stand for the earliest church. The nations stand for those who trust in their own abilities, of whom it says that they lick dust like snakes. In David:

Before God the barbarians will bow down, and his enemies will lick dust. (Psalms 72:9)

Barbarians and enemies stand for those who focus only on earthly and worldly considerations. In Isaiah:

Snakes—dirt will be their bread. (Isaiah 65:25)

Since dirt symbolized those who did not have their eye turned in a spiritual and heavenly direction but in a bodily and earthly one, the Lord ordered his disciples to shake off the dust of their feet if a town or a household was unworthy (Matthew 10:14).

For dirt as a symbol of what is damned and hellish, see more at verse 19 [§278].

250

Genesis 3:15. “And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will trample you on the head and you will wound him on the heel.”

It escapes no one today that this is the first prophecy of the Lord’s coming into the world. The words themselves make it clear. From this prediction and from the prophets, even the Jews know that a messiah will come. No one yet, however, knows the specific meaning of each part—the snake, the woman, the snake’s seed, the woman’s seed, the snake’s head that he will trample, and the heel that the snake will wound. An explanation, then, is due.

The snake refers in general to all evil and particularly to self-love. The woman refers to the church. The snake’s seed refers to all unbelief. The woman’s seed refers to faith in the Lord. He refers to the Lord himself. The snake’s head refers to the tyranny of evil in general and of self-love in particular. Trampling refers to pushing it down until it travels on its belly and eats dirt. The heel refers to what is bottommost on the earthly level, such as an orientation toward the body; this is what the snake is going to wound.

251

The meaning of the snake as all evil in general and self-love in particular is due to evil’s point of origin. All evil rises out of a fixation on the senses and on facts, which is what the snake first symbolizes. As a consequence, the snake now symbolizes evil itself in any form, and specifically self-love, or hatred directed at others and at the Lord, which is the same as self-love.

Because the evil of hatred is multifaceted, and divides into many general categories and an even larger number of specific forms, the Word distinguishes its forms by speaking of different kinds of snakes. There are generic snakes, cockatrices, asps, bloodletting snakes, and “presters,” or fire snakes; there are flying snakes and creeping ones; and there are vipers. The determining factor is differences in their venom, and the venom is hatred. [2] In Isaiah, for instance:

Do not rejoice through and through, Philistia, that the rod striking you has been broken, because from the root of a snake a cockatrice will come out, and its fruit will be a flying fire snake. (Isaiah 14:29)

The root of a snake is a reliance on the senses and on factual knowledge. A cockatrice is evil from the resulting falsity. A flying fire snake is the kind of desire felt by self-love. The same prophet deals with the same animals in another way using these words:

They will hatch the eggs of a cockatrice and weave the webs of a spider. Whoever eats of their eggs dies, and when one is crushed, a viper is hatched. (Isaiah 59:5)

In Revelation 12:3, 9 and 20:2, this snake is called a big red dragon and the ancient snake; it is also called a devil and satan and the one who leads the whole inhabited world astray. (In this place and others, “devil” never means an individual devil who is the ruler of the others but the total horde of evil spirits—and evil itself.)

252

The meaning of the woman as the church can be seen from the heavenly marriage described above in §155. The heavenly marriage is a relationship in which heaven (and so the church) is united to the Lord through its sense of self. In fact heaven and the church are to be found in the feeling of independent existence, because without it there could never be union. When the Lord in his mercy infuses our selfhood with innocence, peace, and goodness, it still seems to be our own, but it becomes heavenly and full of the greatest blessings, as you may see above at §164.

I cannot yet say, though, what a heavenly, angelic identity received from the Lord is like, nor a hellish, diabolical identity generated by ourselves. The difference between them is like the difference between heaven and hell.

253

Because of the heavenly, angelic sense of self, the Word calls the church a woman, a wife, and a bride, young woman, and daughter. It is called a woman in the Book of Revelation:

. . . a woman enveloped in the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and the dragon persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male. (Revelation 12:1, 4, 5, 13)

Here the woman means the church, the sun means love, the moon means faith, and the stars mean religious truth, as stated before [§§30, 32]. These things the evil spirits hate and persecute with all possible energy. The church is called both a woman and a wife in Isaiah:

. . . because your husband, your maker—Jehovah Sabaoth is his name; and your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, is called God of the whole earth. For Jehovah has called you as a woman abandoned and afflicted in spirit and as the wife of his youthful days. (Isaiah 54:5, 6)

Here plural forms are used [in the original] for the husband/maker, because human selfhood is involved too. A woman abandoned and the wife of his youthful days stand specifically for the ancient church and the earliest church. Likewise in Malachi:

Jehovah has stood as witness between you and the wife of your youthful days. (Malachi 2:14)

The church is called a wife and bride in the Book of Revelation:

I saw the holy city Jerusalem coming down from God out of the sky, prepared as a bride dressed up for her husband. “Come, I’ll show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” (Revelation 21:2, 9)

As for identifying the church as a young woman and a daughter, the prophets do this often.

254

The meaning of the snake’s seed as all unbelief is established by the symbolism of the snake as all evil. Seed is what yields a harvest and is also the harvest yielded; in other words, seed is what breeds and is bred. Since the subject here is the church, what is bred is unbelief. Isaiah uses the terms seed of the evil, seed of an adulterer, and seed of a lie in talking about the Jewish church after it was corrupted:

Doom to a sinful nation, to a people weighed down with wickedness, to the seed of the evil, to ruinous children! They leave Jehovah behind, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel, they have backed away, far away. (Isaiah 1:4)

In another place:

Come up here, you witch’s children, seed of an adulterer. Are you not the offspring of transgression, the seed of a lie? (Isaiah 57:3, 4)

In addition:

You were thrown out of your grave like a despicable offshoot, because you ruined your land, you killed your people. The name of the seed of the evil will go unmentioned forever. (Isaiah 14:19, 20)

These verses are speaking of the snake, or dragon, called Lucifer here.

255

The meaning of the woman’s seed as faith in the Lord is established by the symbolism of a woman as the church. Her seed is nothing else but faith. Its faith in the Lord is what causes the church to be a church and to be called one.

Faith is called God’s seed in Malachi:

Jehovah has stood as witness between you and the wife of your youthful days. And did he not make [them] one? And is there no spirit in what remains? And why does the one seek God’s seed? But keep watch in your spirit, to keep [anyone] from betraying the wife of your youthful days. (Malachi 2:14, 15)

The wife of one’s youthful days is the ancient church and the earliest church. Its seed, or faith, is what is being discussed. In Isaiah:

I will pour water out on thirsty land, and streams on dry ground; I will pour my spirit out on your seed and my blessing on those descended from you. (Isaiah 44:3)

This is also about the church. In Revelation:

The dragon was enraged against the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her seed—those who were keeping God’s commands and who possess Jesus Christ’s testimony. (Revelation 12:17)

And in David:

I struck a pact with my chosen one; I swore to David my servant, “I will establish your seed forever, and I will make his seed everlasting and his throne like the days of the heavens. His seed will exist forever, and his throne like the sun before me.” (Psalms 89:3, 4, 29, 36)

Here David means the Lord; the throne, his kingdom; the sun, love; and the seed, faith.

256

Not only faith is called “the seed of a woman”; the Lord himself is so called as well. This is partly because he alone gives us faith, so that he alone is faith. It is also because he chose to be born and in fact to be born into a religion that had sunk all the way down into a hellish, diabolical kind of selfhood, through self-love and materialism. He was born in order to unite his divinely heavenlike selfhood to a human one, in the context of his human nature, by the use of his divine power, so that they could become one inside him. Had he not united them, the world would have ended in total destruction.

Because the woman’s seed is the Lord, then, the text refers to it as “he,” not “it.”

257

The fact that the snake’s head means the tyranny of evil in general and of self-love in particular can be seen in the nature of self-love. Its character is such that it seeks power, and not just power but power over everything on earth. Not stopping there, it strives for control over everything in heaven. Even then it does not rest but aims for power over the Lord. And in fact it still would not rest at that point. This tendency lies hidden in every single glimmer of self-love. Just indulge that love and ease the restraints on it and you will find that it instantly rushes out and swells to those dimensions.

You can therefore see how the snake—the evil of self-love—wishes to dominate, and how it hates anyone it cannot dominate. That is the snake’s head, which lifts itself up, and which the Lord tramples down to the ground, so that the snake travels on its belly and eats dirt, as the previous verse says.

This is how Isaiah describes the snake or dragon called Lucifer:

Lucifer, you said in your heart, “I will scale the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mountain of assembly, on the flanks of the north. I will climb onto the loftiest parts of the cloud; I will become equal to the Highest One.” Nevertheless, you will be thrown down to hell, to the sides of the pit. (Isaiah 14:13, 14, 15)

The snake or dragon is also described in the Book of Revelation:

There was a big red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were many crowns; but it was thrown onto the earth. (Revelation 12:3, 9)

These verses describe how high it lifts its head. In David:

Jehovah said to my Lord, “Sit at my right, till I have placed your enemies as a stool for your feet. Jehovah will send the scepter of your strength out from Zion.” He will judge the nations. He has filled them with corpses; he has crushed [one who was] head over much land. From the river along the way he will drink; therefore he will lift up his head. (Psalms 110:1, 2, 6, 7)

258

Trampling or crushing [the snake] means pushing it down until it travels on its belly and eats dirt, as has now been demonstrated in this verse and the last. Isaiah has something similar:

Jehovah has thrown down those who live up high. The exalted city he will humble; he will humble it all the way to the earth; he will level it all the way to the dust; his foot will tread on it. (Isaiah 26:5, 6)

Another:

He will throw them down to the earth with his hand. With his feet the crown of haughtiness will be trampled. (Isaiah 28:2, 3)

259

The meaning of the heel as what is bottommost on the earthly level, or the bodily dimension, cannot be known without information on the way the earliest people viewed the various levels inside us. They connected heavenly and spiritual qualities in us with the head and face. They connected the effects of those qualities—charity and mercy, for instance—with the chest. Things on the earthly level they connected with the lower leg. Those that rank fairly low they associated with the foot, and the very lowest earthly and bodily concerns, with the heel. In addition, not only did they connect such attributes with those body parts, they even called them by those names.

The heel also means the bottommost things in the rational mind, which are the facts we know. They are involved in Jacob’s prophecy concerning Dan:

Dan will be a snake on the path, an asp on the track, biting the horse’s heels, and its rider falls off behind. (Genesis 49:17)

They are also meant in David:

The wickedness at my heels has surrounded me. (Psalms 49:5)

Genesis 25:26 says that when Jacob came out of the womb, he was grasping Esau’s heel (which is why he was called Jacob) and the meaning here is the same. The name Jacob comes from [the Hebrew word for] “heel” because the Jewish church, symbolized by Jacob, was to wound the heel.

[2] Snakes are able to hurt only the lowest things on the earthly plane. Unless they are a species of viper, they cannot harm the more interior things we have on the earthly plane, still less those on the spiritual plane, least of all those on the heavenly plane. All these things the Lord protects, and he stores them away without our awareness. (What the Lord stores away is called “a remnant” [or “survivors”] in the Word.)

The pages to come, though, by the Lord’s divine mercy, will reveal how the snake destroyed those lowest things in pre-Flood people through a focus on the senses and through self-love. They will show how the snake destroyed them among Jews through a concern with sensory experiences, tradition, and trivialities, and through self-love and materialism. Then they will show how the snake has destroyed and is destroying people at the present day through sensory, scientific, and philosophical matters, and once more through self-love and materialism.

260

The foregoing discussion shows that the church of those days learned through revelation that the Lord would come into the world to save them.

261

Genesis 3:16. And to the woman he said, “I will vastly multiply your pain in conception. In pain you will bear children, and your obedience will be to your husband; and he will rule over you.”

The woman now symbolizes the church, on account of the self-dependence the church loved. To multiply pain vastly symbolizes conflict, and anxiety stemming from conflict. Conception symbolizes all thinking. The children she would bear in pain symbolize the truth the church would produce in this state. The husband, or man, here as before symbolizes the rational capacity [§§207, 229, 238], which the church is to obey and which will rule.

262

The symbolism of the woman as the church has already been mentioned [§§252–253]. Here she symbolizes the church corrupted by the self-dependence that she symbolized earlier—the subject under discussion being the generation that inherited the earliest church, which had become corrupt.

263

When the sensory level of the mind turns away and brings a curse on itself, the consequence is that evil spirits start to fight hard and the angels present with us start to work hard. So vastly multiplying pain in conception and in the bearing of children depicts this conflict in our thinking and in the development of true ideas.

264

Conception and the bearing of children in the Word are taken only in the spiritual sense—conception as the thought and imagination of the heart, and the children born as true ideas. This may be seen in the following words from Hosea:

Ephraim—like a bird will their glory fly away, abandoning birth and the womb and conception. Even if they bring up their children, I will still bereave them, so that not one person is left. Indeed, doom to them, since I will have departed from them. (Hosea 9:11, 12)

Here Ephraim symbolizes the intelligent, or an intelligent understanding of truth, and the children symbolize the true ideas themselves. Hosea has more of the same to say about Ephraim, or the intelligent person who has lost all sense:

The pains of a woman in labor came on him. He is an unwise child, because at the time when children break open the womb, he will not present himself. (Hosea 13:13)

In Isaiah:

Blush, Sidon, because the sea, the stronghold of the sea spoke, saying, “I was not in labor, did not give birth, and did not bring up young men or raise young women.” As when Egypt receives the news, they will go into labor over the news from Tyre. (Isaiah 23:4, 5)

Here Sidon stands for people who had religious knowledge but destroyed it by turning it into mere facts so that it became sterile. [2] In the same prophet:

“Before she goes into labor she gives birth, and before pain came on her she delivered a male. Who has heard a thing like this? Who has seen things like those? Does the earth labor for one day and I cause it to give birth?” Jehovah has said. “Am I, the bringer of birth, going to close up [the womb]?” your God has said. (Isaiah 66:7, 8, 9)

This deals with regeneration, and the children again symbolize the true ideas belonging to faith. Things that are good and true, because they are the things conceived and born of the heavenly marriage, are also called children by the Lord in Matthew:

The one who sows good seed is the Son of Humankind; the field is the world; but the seeds are the children of the kingdom. (Matthew 13:37, 38)

In John 8:39 the Lord calls the goodness and truth that belong to a saving faith the “children of Abraham.” Seed, after all (as stated in §255), is faith, and therefore children, who come from seed, are the good deeds and true ideas of faith. As a consequence, because the Lord is himself the seed, he called himself the Son of Humankind, meaning the church’s faith.

265

The symbolism of the husband or man as the rational capacity can be seen from verse 6 of this chapter, which says that the woman gave to her husband, who was with her, and he ate, which symbolized his consent. The symbolism can also be seen from what was shown about a man in §158, where it means a wise and understanding person. Here, though, because the eating from the tree of knowledge had destroyed wisdom and understanding, the man means the ability to reason, since nothing else was left. The rational capacity imitates, or seems to resemble, an intelligent understanding.

266

Every law and commandment has something heavenly and spiritual as its source and true origin. So this law for marriage stating that a wife should be under the influence of her husband’s good sense also has a heavenly, spiritual origin, since she acts on desire, which is self-centered, and not so much from reason as a man does.

267

Genesis 3:17. And to the human he said, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree concerning which I commanded you, saying, ‘You will not eat from it,’ a curse on the ground because of you! In great pain you will eat from it all the days of your life.”

The human, in listening to the voice of his wife, symbolizes a man, that is, the rational faculty, and the fact that it consented. Because the rational mind consented, it also turned away or brought a curse on itself. On this account, the whole outer self did the same, which is what is symbolized by a curse on the ground because of you. His eating from it in great pain, which means the unhappy condition of life to come, was to last right to the end of that church—all the days of his life.

268

The symbolism of the ground as our outer self can be seen in what was said earlier [§90] about the land, the ground, and the field.

People who have been regenerated are no longer called land but ground, because they have been planted with heavenly seed. The Word in many places also compares them to ground or calls them such. It is our outer self, or the feelings and memory of our outer self, that the seeds of goodness and truth are planted in. They are not sown in our inner self because the inner self lacks anything of our own; things of our own exist in the outer self.

Our inner being holds good qualities and true thoughts. When they seem to have departed, we are then shallow, body-oriented people. Still, the Lord stores those things up in our inner self without our knowing. They do not come out of hiding until our outer self dies, so to speak, as frequently happens in times of trial, misfortune, grave illness, or imminent death.

The ability to reason also belongs to the outer self (§118). In its true character, that capacity is a kind of bridge between the inner self and the outer, because the inner self directs the outer, body-centered self by means of it. But when the rational mind consents [to self-dependence], it separates the outer self from the inner, so that we no longer know the inner self exists. As a result, we also fail to see what understanding and wisdom are, belonging as they do to the inner realm.

269

The things demonstrated above in §245 make it clear that Jehovah God—the Lord—did not curse the ground, which is the outer self. The outer self, rather, turned away or separated from the inner self and brought a curse on itself by doing so.

270

The symbolism of eating from the ground in great pain as life in an unhappy condition stands out clearly from the verses that come before and after. In addition, the deeper sense of eating is living. Furthermore, an unhappy life is the kind that follows when evil spirits start to attack and the angels with us begin to struggle. Life becomes even more unhappy later when the evil spirits start to take command. Those spirits then control our outer self and angels control our inner self, of which so little is left that the angels can hardly cull anything from it to defend us with. The consequence is misery and distress.

People who are spiritually dead rarely feel that kind of misery and distress because they are no longer human, even though they consider themselves more human than others. They have no greater ability to recognize what spiritual and heavenly qualities are or what eternal life is than a brute animal. Like an animal they face down toward the things of earth, or they turn their attention outward to worldly affairs. They foster their own interests exclusively and indulge their tastes and their senses. To all this their rational mind wholly consents. As they are dead, they would be unable to hold up under any onslaught or trial. If trouble came on them, it would weigh them down too much to allow continued life. In this way they would bring still greater curses on themselves and rush headlong into a damnation even more profoundly hellish. For this reason they are spared until they cross over into the other life, where trials and unhappiness retain no power to kill them. Then they undergo severe troubles. This likewise is what is symbolized by the words a curse on the ground and in great pain will you eat from it.

271

The symbolism of the days of his life as the end of the church’s days can be recognized when one considers that this is not talking about an individual but about religion and its stage of development. The end of this church’s days came at the time of the Flood.

272

Genesis 3:18. “And it will produce thorn and thistle for you, and you will eat the grass of the field.”

Thorn and thistle mean the curse and ruination. The fact that he would eat the grass of the field means that they would live like animals.

We live like animals when our inner being is so radically separated from our outer being that the inner being cannot direct it except in the most general way. Our identity as human beings we receive from the Lord through our inner selves, but our identity as animals we receive from our outer selves. The outer self separated from the inner is in itself merely an animal; its nature, its desires, its appetites, its delusions, and its sensations are like an animal’s, and its physiology is similar as well. Despite the similarities, our outer self has the ability to engage in reasoning—with keen penetration, as it seems to us—and this ability is ours by virtue of the spiritual substance through which the Lord’s life can flow into us. But when that self is disconnected from our inner self, the Lord’s life is perverted in us and becomes an evil life, which is death, and this is why we are then called dead.

273

The symbolism of thorn and thistle as the curse and ruination is established by the fact that field crops and fruit trees symbolize just the opposite—blessings and fertility.

This symbolism of thorn, thistle, brier, bramble, and nettle can be seen in the Word, as in Hosea:

Look! They have left on account of the ruination. Egypt will gather them; Moph will bury them, [will bury] what is desirable of their silver. The nettle will inherit them, the bramble will be in their tents. (Hosea 9:6)

Here Egypt and Moph stand for those who wish to gain wisdom about divine things from their own minds and the facts that they know. In the same prophet:

The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. Thorn and thistle will climb over their altars. (Hosea 10:8)

The high places of Aven stand for self-love; thorn and thistle on the altars, for profanation. In Isaiah:

They are beating their breasts because of the desirable fields, because of the fruitful grapevine. On my people’s soil the brier’s thorn will come up. (Isaiah 32:12, 13)

And in Ezekiel:

No longer will there be for the house of Israel a stinging brier or a painful thorn from all their surroundings. (Ezekiel 28:24)

274

The fact that eating the grass of the field, or fodder found in the wild, is living like an animal can be seen from Nebuchadnezzar’s story in Daniel:

They will drive you away from humanity, and your dwelling place will be with the beast of the field. They will make you eat grass like cattle, and seven seasons will pass over you. (Daniel 4:32)

In Isaiah:

Have you not heard? From far away I did this, from the days of old, and I formed it. Now I have caused it to come, and it will be for tearing down bulwarks, fortified cities, into heaps. And their residents, their hand shortened, have felt panic and shame. They have become field grass, and green grass, the grain plant on the roofs, and a plowed field burnt out in front of the standing crop. (Isaiah 37:26, 27)

This explains what field grass and what green grass, the grain plant on the roofs, and a plowed field burnt out mean. It is referring to the time before the Flood, as implied by the words far off and days of old.

275

Genesis 3:19. “In the sweat of your face will you eat bread, until you return to the ground, because from it you were taken. For you are dirt, and to dirt you will return.”

Eating bread in the sweat of his face means rejecting what is heavenly. Returning to the ground from which he was taken means returning to the external person as it was before regeneration. Being dirt and returning to dirt means being damned and resembling hell.

276

The symbolism of eating bread in the sweat of his face as rejecting what is heavenly can be established by the symbolism of bread. Bread means everything of a spiritual or heavenly character, which is food for the angels. If they were deprived of it, they could not live, any more than a person deprived of bread or food can. The heavenly and spiritual things existing in heaven also correspond to the bread on earth. Moreover they are represented by bread, as can be seen in many passages.

The Lord is bread because everything heavenly or spiritual comes from him, as he teaches in John:

This is the bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. (John 6:58)

In consequence, bread and wine are symbols in the Holy Supper. This heavenly aspect was represented by the manna as well [Exodus 16:4–31]. The fact that heavenly and spiritual things are angels’ food is also clear from the Lord’s words:

Humankind shall not live on bread alone but on every word coming out of God’s mouth. (Matthew 4:4)

That is, humankind is to live on the Lord’s life, the source of every heavenly and spiritual quality.

[2] The final generation of the earliest church—which directly preceded the Flood and is the subject of these verses—was so degenerate and so immersed in what belonged to their senses and their body that they refused to hear about religious truth or about the Lord’s nature. Nor did they want to know that he was going to come and save them. At the simple mention of those things they turned their backs. Such rejection is depicted by the eating of bread in the sweat of one’s face.

It was similar with the Jews, whose nature was such that they would not acknowledge heavenly things and did not want any other Messiah than a worldly one. For that reason, they could not help rejecting the manna (which represented the Lord) and calling it worthless bread. This is why snakes were sent among them (Numbers 21:5, 6).

What is more, the heavenly things that they benefited from in their distress, in their misery, and in their tears they called the bread of distress, the bread of misery, and the bread of tears [Isaiah 30:20; Deuteronomy 16:3; 1 Kings 22:27; Psalms 80:5]. The things they benefited from even while rejecting them are here called the bread of their face’s sweat.

277

This is the inner meaning. No one who stresses the literal sense gains any more from it than the fact that humanity would wrest their food from the ground by hard work, or the sweat of their brow. The human being here, though, means not an individual but the earliest church. The ground does not mean ground, the bread bread, or the garden a garden, but things that are heavenly or spiritual, as has been sufficiently illustrated already.

278

Returning to the ground from which he was taken symbolizes the church’s return to the external person as it was before regeneration, and this is established by the symbolism of the ground as the outer self, which was stated earlier [§268].

The symbolism of the dirt as that which is damned and resembles hell can be seen from the things said about the snake [§249], where the prediction occurs that it would eat dirt because of its accursedness. In addition to the passages there showing the symbolism of dirt or dust, let me add the following from David:

All those descending to the dust will bow down before Jehovah, and anyone whose soul he did not revive. (Psalms 22:29)

In another place:

You hide your face; people are troubled. You gather their spirit; they pass away and return to their dust. (Psalms 104:29)

In other words, when they turn away from the Lord’s face, they pass away or die and so return to the dust, that is, come to be damned and to resemble hell.

279

The idea involved, then, when all these verses are taken in sequence, is this: The sensory capacity turned away from the heavenly side (verse 14). The Lord was to come into the world to reunite the sensory and the heavenly (verse 15). Because the outer self turned away, conflict arose (verse 16), resulting in misery (verse 17), damnation (verse 18), and, in the end, hell (verse 19). These consequences followed one another in that church from the time of the fourth generation through to the Flood.

Text of Genesis Chapter 3:20–24

20. And the human called the name of his wife Eve, because “She will be the mother of every living thing.”

21. And Jehovah God made leather tunics for the human and his wife and clothed them.

22. And Jehovah God said, “Here, the human has been like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now perhaps people will put out their hand and take from the tree of lives as well, and eat, and live forever.”

23. And Jehovah God sent them away from the Garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which they were taken.

24. And he threw the humans out. And he caused guardian beings to live on the east of the Garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword turning itself, to guard the way to the tree of lives.

Summary

280

This passage as a whole deals with the very earliest church and those in it who fell away. As a result it also deals with that church’s descendants through to the time of the Flood, when it passed away. [They were as follows:]

281

The true church of earliest times, which had a heavenly nature. Because they lived a life of faith in the Lord, this church was called Eve and “the mother of every living thing” (verse 20).

282

The first generation of descendants, who had a spiritual kind of heavenly good; and the second and third generations, who had good on the earthly level, symbolized by the leather tunic that Jehovah God made for the human and his wife (verse 21).

283

The fourth generation, among whom earthly good began to disappear. Had they been created anew or been taught the heavenly ideas involved in faith, they would have perished. This is the force of the words, “Perhaps people will put out their hand and take from the tree of lives as well, and live forever” (verse 22).

284

The fifth generation. They were completely deprived of goodness and truth and regressed to the condition they had been in before regeneration. This is being sent away from the Garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which they were taken (verse 23).

285

The sixth and seventh generations. They were withheld from the knowledge of anything good or true and were left to their own filthy loves and delusions. This provision kept them from profaning the sacred beliefs of faith. These things are symbolized by the fact that they were thrown out and that guardian beings were caused to live there, together with the flame of a sword, to guard the way to the tree of lives (verse 24).

Inner Meaning

286

Up to this point the text has been dealing with the very earliest people and their regeneration. First it spoke of those who lived like animals and finally became spiritual people. Next it spoke of those who became heavenly people—the ones who made up that earliest church. Then it turned to those who fell away, and their heirs, tracing them in order: the first generation to inherit, the second, the third, and lastly those that followed, right up to the Flood.

These verses at the end of the chapter contain a review extending from the people of the earliest church up to the time of the Flood, which brings closure to all that came before.

287

Genesis 3:20. And the human called the name of his wife Eve, because “She will be the mother of every living thing.”

The human here means the individual of the earliest church, or the heavenly person. His wife and the mother of every living thing mean the church. The word mother is used because this was the first church, while the word living is used because this church believed in the Lord, who is life itself.

288

The meaning of the human as the individual of the earliest church, or the heavenly person, has already been demonstrated [§277]. In fact, it was shown that the Lord alone is human [§49] and that heavenly people acquire their humanity from him, because they are his likeness [§§50–51]. This is how all who belonged to the church came to be called human, no matter who they were or what they were like. In the end, all that was required was that they appear physically human, so that they could be distinguished from animals.

289

The meaning of a wife as the church and in a comprehensive sense as the Lord’s kingdom in heaven and on earth has also been demonstrated before. It follows, then, that a mother has the same meaning.

The Word frequently uses mother for the church. Take Isaiah:

Where is your mother’s document of divorce? (Isaiah 50:1)

In Jeremiah:

Your mother has been acutely shamed; she who gave birth to you has blushed with embarrassment. (Jeremiah 50:12)

In Ezekiel:

[You are] your mother’s daughter, showing disgust for her husband and her children. Your mother is a Hittite and your father an Amorite. (Ezekiel 16:45)

The husband stands for the Lord and every heavenly quality, the children for religious truth. A Hittite stands for falsity and an Amorite for evil. In the same author:

Your mother was like a grapevine that resembled you, planted next to the water; fruitful, leafy was she, because of the many waters. (Ezekiel 19:10)

The mother stands for the ancient church.

The earliest church is the main one to be called a mother, because it was the first and was also the only heavenly one, so that the Lord loved it above all others.

290

The fact that the church was called the mother of every living thing by reason of its faith in the Lord, who is life itself, can also be seen from earlier evidence: In no way is it possible for more than a single life force to exist from which all other beings receive life [§2]. Any life that is truly to be life must come by way of faith in the Lord, who is life [§30:2]. And any faith that is to have life within it must come from him and therefore must have him within it [§41].

For this reason, the Word describes the Lord as the only living being. It uses the names Jehovah who lives (Jeremiah 5:2; 12:16; 16:14, 15; 23:7; Ezekiel 5:11); the one who lives forever (Daniel 4:34; Revelation 4:10; 5:14; 10:6); the wellspring of life in David (Psalms 36:9); and the fountain of living water in Jeremiah (17:13). It calls heaven, which lives from him, the land of the living (Isaiah 38:11; 53:8; Ezekiel 26:20; 32:23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 32; Psalms 27:13; 52:5; 142:5). People who believe in the Lord are called the living, as in David: “. . . who places our soul among the living” (Psalms 66:9). Of those who believe, it also says that they are in the book of life (Psalms 69:28; Revelation 13:8; 17:8; 20:15). By the same token, those who accept a faith in the Lord are said to be brought back to life (Hosea 6:2; Psalms 85:6). Those who do not believe, on the other hand, are by extension called dead, as in Isaiah:

The dead will not live; the Rephaim will not rise again, because you inflicted punishment on them and obliterated them. (Isaiah 26:14)

The dead here stand for people inflated with self-love, and rising again symbolizes entering into life. They are also referred to as victims of stabbing (Ezekiel 32:23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31). Hell is called “death” (Isaiah 25:8; 28:15). The Lord as well refers to them as dead (Matthew 4:16; John 5:24; 8:21, 24, 51, 52).

291

This verse [Genesis 3:20] describes the first era, when the church was in the flower of its youth and represented the heavenly marriage. As a result the passage depicts that church as a marriage and gives it the name Eve from [the Hebrew word for] life.

292

Genesis 3:21. And Jehovah God made leather tunics for the human and his wife and clothed them.

These words symbolize the fact that the Lord taught them about spiritual and earthly goodness. The verbs make and clothe express the idea of his instruction and a leather tunic embodies the idea of spiritual and earthly goodness.

293

None of this symbolism could ever be detected in the literal meaning, although the fact that the words involve something deeper is readily apparent; anyone can see that Jehovah God did not make leather tunics for them.

294

The symbolism of the leather tunic as spiritual and earthly goodness likewise escapes people unless it is revealed to them by an unveiling of the inner meaning and then by other places in the Word that use similar terms.

The verse uses the general word leather, which implies goat, sheep, and ram skins. In the Word, these symbolize good emotions, charity, and the effects of charity. The sheep used in sacrifices had a similar meaning.

Anyone with a supply of charitable goodness—that is, of spiritual and earthly goodness—is called a sheep. So the Lord is called the shepherd, and people who possess charity are termed sheep, as everyone knows.

295

The reason it says they were dressed in a leather tunic is this: The earliest people were described as naked on account of their innocence. Later, when innocence died, they observed that they were caught up in evil, and that too is described as nudity. But now, in order for all the details to come together as a story, as required by the ancients’ manner of speech, they are said to be clothed, so as not to be naked, or involved in evil.

They did possess spiritual and earthly goodness, as is clear from statements and evidence regarding them offered at verses 1 to 13 of the present chapter [§§193, 216–217, 224–225] and from the assertion here that Jehovah God made clothes for them. This verse, you see, concerns not only the first generation in the church but more particularly the second and third generations, who were granted that kind of good.

296

Kid, sheep, goat, badger, and ram skins symbolize spiritual and earthly kinds of good. This can be seen in the inner meaning of the Word where it deals with Jacob and with the ark.

In respect to Jacob: He was dressed in Esau’s clothes and (where his hands and neck lay bare) in the skins of goats’ kids [Genesis 27:15–16]. When Isaac smelled them, he said, “My son’s smell is like the smell of the field” (Genesis 27:22, 27). The symbolism of these skins as spiritual and earthly forms of good will be seen at that location [§3540], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

In respect to the ark: The tabernacle covering was made of rams’ skins and badgers’ skins (Exodus 26:14; 36:19). Whenever Aaron and his sons set out on a journey, they would cover the ark with a blanket of badgers’ skin. They did the same with the table [for the bread] and its utensils, the lampstand and its utensils, the golden altar [of incense], and the utensils for ministry and for the altar [of burnt offerings] (Numbers 4:6, 8, 10, 11, 12, [14]). The symbolism of these skins as spiritual and earthly good will be seen at that location as well, with the Lord’s divine mercy. Whatever went into the making of the ark, dwelling place, or tent, and even what Aaron wore when dressed in the holy garments, symbolized something heavenly and at the same time spiritual. Not the smallest item existed that did not have its own representation.

297

Heavenly goodness is unclothed goodness, because it is the deepest good and is innocent. Heavenly good that is spiritual is the first level of good to be clothed, and earthly good is the next, because these two kinds are more external. They are also compared to clothes and are even called clothes. An example occurs in Ezekiel, where the subject is the ancient church:

I clothed you with embroidery, gave you shoes of badger, swathed you in fine linen, and covered you in silk. (Ezekiel 16:10)

In Isaiah:

Put on your finest clothes, Jerusalem, you holy city. (Isaiah 52:1)

In the Book of Revelation:

. . . who have not defiled their clothing and will walk with me in white because they are worthy. (Revelation 3:4, 5)

The same book also mentions the twenty-four elders wearing white garments (Revelation 4:4).

So the more external kinds of goodness, which are heavenly-spiritual and earthly good, are clothing, and this is why people endowed with the goodness that accompanies charity appear wearing dazzling clothes in heaven. In the current verse, however, because they are still in the body, they wear a leather tunic.

298

Genesis 3:22. And Jehovah God said, “Here, the human has been like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now perhaps people will put out their hand and take from the tree of lives as well, and eat, and live forever.”

The reason Jehovah God speaks at first in the singular and then in the plural is that Jehovah God means the Lord and at the same time heaven with its angels. The fact that the human knew good and evil means that people became heavenly and so became wise and understanding. The implied desire that they not put out their hand and take from the tree of lives is a refusal to let them be taught the mysteries of faith. If they were taught, they would never be saved to all eternity, which is living forever.

299

Here lie two hidden pieces of wisdom. One is that Jehovah God symbolizes the Lord and at the same time heaven. The other is that if those people had learned the mysteries of faith, they would have been destroyed forever.

300

To take up the first: Jehovah God means the Lord and at the same time heaven. It needs to be observed that the Word uses different names for the Lord, always for a hidden reason. At one time he is called simply Jehovah, at another Jehovah God, at another first Jehovah and then God, at another the Lord Jehovih, at another the God of Israel, and at another simply God. In Genesis 1, for instance, the only name used is God, and he speaks in the plural there as well—“let us make a human in our image.” Not until the next chapter, which treats of heavenly people, is he called Jehovah God.

He is called Jehovah because he alone is, he alone lives; the name comes from his beingness. He is called God because he is able to do anything; the name comes from his powerful ability. Evidence for this appears in the Word, in places where the two names are distinguished: Isaiah 49:4, 5; 55:7; Psalms 18:2, 28, 30, 31; 38:15.

For this reason, each angel or spirit who spoke to people on earth they called a god, if they considered that angel or spirit to be capable of accomplishing something. This can be seen in David:

God stood in the assembly of God; in the midst of the gods he will pass judgment. (Psalms 82:1)

In another place:

Who in the heights of the sky will compare with Jehovah, will be like Jehovah, among the children of gods? (Psalms 89:6)

Again:

Acclaim the God of the gods, acclaim the Lord of the lords! (Psalms 136:2, 3)

Human beings are also called gods by virtue of their power, as in Psalms 82:6; John 10:34, 35. Moses was called a “God to Pharaoh” (Exodus 7:1). For the same reason, the [Hebrew] word for God, Elohim, is plural.

Angels have no power at all on their own, however (as they themselves confess), but only receive it from the Lord. Because of this, and since there is only one God, Jehovah God in the Word means the Lord alone. But when anything occurs through the ministry of angels, as in Genesis 1[:26], then the plural is used. Here it also says, “The human has been like one of us, knowing good and evil,” that is, has been wise and intelligent. This is because people of heavenly character, being human, could not be compared to the Lord but only to angels.

301

The other secret is that if they had learned the mysteries of faith, they would have been destroyed forever. Such is the meaning of the words now perhaps people will put out their hand and take from the tree of lives as well, and eat, and live forever. The situation is this:

People can reach a point where the structure of their life is turned upside down; they have no interest in receiving life or wisdom from any other source than themselves and their own powers. Under these circumstances, when they hear anything about faith, no matter what it is, they debate in their minds whether it is true or not. Because they make themselves—their sense impressions and the facts they have learned—their authority, they cannot help denying; and when they deny, they blaspheme and profane. They end up with no concern about whether they are intermingling profane and holy things.

If this is what we become, we are so utterly damned when we enter the other life that no hope of salvation remains; and this is because things that are mingled together through profanation cling to each other in their mixed condition. As soon as an image of something holy comes to our minds, the attached image of something profane appears, preventing us from keeping company with any but the damned. (People in the next life—even the spirits in the world of spirits, and more so the angelic spirits—keenly perceive what is present in, and linked with, the ideas that make up our thinking. Their perception is so keen that from a single thought they can tell what we are like.)

Profane things attached in this way to holy things cannot be wrenched apart from them without the tortures of hell—tortures so intense that if we knew about them, we would stay as far away from profanation as we would from hell itself.

302

That is why the mysteries of faith were never revealed to the Jews, who were like this. So little was revealed to them that they were not even told plainly that they would live on after death or that the Lord was going to come into the world to save them. They were (as they continue to be) kept so deeply ignorant and oblivious that they had no idea (nor do they yet) that we have an inner being or that an inner plane even exists. If they had known it (and if they knew it now), to the point of acknowledging its truth, they are such that they would have profaned it, removing forever any hope of salvation in the next life.

These are the things the Lord meant when he said in John:

He has blinded their eyes and closed off their heart to prevent them from seeing with their eyes and understanding at heart and turning and being healed by me. (John 12:40)

The Lord also spoke to them in parables without explaining a single one to them “so that seeing, they would not see, and hearing, they would not hear and understand,” as he himself says in Matthew 13:13.

For the same reason, all religious mysteries were hidden away from them and veiled in the representative acts and objects of their religion. For the same reason again, that is what the Word’s prophetic mode is like, too.

But it is one thing to know and another to acknowledge. When we know but do not acknowledge, it is as if we do not know. If we do acknowledge and then we blaspheme and profane, we are the people the Lord refers to.

303

We build a life through all the things whose truth we persuade ourselves of, that is, the things we acknowledge and believe. What we are not persuaded of—what we do not acknowledge and believe—has no effect on our mind. As a result, we cannot profane holy things unless we are persuaded to the point of acknowledgment and yet deny them.

Those who do not acknowledge are capable of knowing, but it is as if they do not know. They are like people who know things but whose knowledge amounts to nothing. This describes the Jews at the time of the Lord’s Coming. Since that is their nature, the Word depicts them as spiritually devastated, or no longer possessing faith. At that point, there is no harm in opening the inner depths of the Word to them because they then resemble sighted people who do not see, hearing people who do not hear, whose hearts are coarsened. The Lord spoke of them through Isaiah:

Go, and you are to tell this people, “Listen—listen!—but you are not to understand, and see—see!—but you are not to know.” Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and smear over their eyes, to prevent them from seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears and understanding in their heart and turning to be healed. (Isaiah 6:9, 10)

[2] Religious mysteries are not opened up to them before they fall into this condition, in which they are devastated or stripped of any continuing ability to believe. The delay until then, as I said, is to make it impossible for them to commit profanation. This too the Lord clearly states in the very next verses in Isaiah:

I said, “How long, Lord?” and he said, “Until the cities are ruined (so that there is not a resident) and the houses (so that there is not a [single] person) and the ground is desolated with ruination; and Jehovah will take humankind away.” (Isaiah 6:11, 12)

A person or humankind refers to those who are wise, or who acknowledge and believe.

These scenes describe the Jews at the time of the Lord’s Coming, as I said; and for the same reasons as then, their cravings (especially their greed) continue to chain them to a condition of desolation. The emptiness is so complete that even if they hear a thousand times about the Lord, about the objects and practices among them that represent the church, and how these symbolize the Lord in every detail, they still acknowledge and believe none of it.

This, then, is the reason that the people who brought on the Flood were thrown out of the Garden of Eden and suffered devastation, to the point where they were unable to acknowledge anything true.

304

All this evidence indicates that such is the meaning of these words—to keep people from putting out their hand and taking from the tree of lives as well, and eating, and living forever. Taking from the tree of lives and eating is learning all about love and faith, to the point of acknowledging it. The plural lives is love and faith; eating here as before [§125] symbolizes knowing; and living forever is not living in the body forever but living on after death in eternal damnation. People who are dead are so called not because they will die after the life of the body but because they will live a life of death, since death is damnation and hell. Living has a similar meaning in Ezekiel:

You hunt the souls that belong to my people, and the souls that are yours you keep alive. And you profaned me among my people, to kill souls that must not die and to keep souls alive that must not live. (Ezekiel 13:18, 19)

305

Genesis 3:23. And Jehovah God sent them away from the Garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which they were taken.

Being thrown out of the Garden of Eden means being deprived of all understanding and wisdom. Cultivating the ground from which they were taken means becoming body-centered, as they were before regeneration.

The fact that being thrown out of the Garden of Eden means being deprived of all understanding and wisdom is established by the symbolism of a garden and of Eden, dealt with above [§§98–100, 107–109]. A garden symbolizes understanding or the comprehension of truth. Eden, because it symbolizes love, symbolizes wisdom, or the will to do good.

The fact that cultivating the ground from which they were taken means becoming body-centered, as they were before regeneration, was shown earlier at verse 19 [§278], where similar words occur.

306

Genesis 3:24. And he threw the humans out. And he caused guardian beings to live on the east of the Garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword turning itself, to guard the way to the tree of lives.

Throwing the humans out is completely depriving us of all the will to do good and all comprehension of truth—so completely that those faculties are withheld from us and we cease to be human. Causing guardian beings to live on the east is making sure that we cannot enter into any of the hidden wisdom of faith; the east of the Garden of Eden is a heavenly quality from which an intelligent understanding comes. The guardian beings symbolize the Lord’s providence making sure that if we are like this we do not pry into the ideas that compose faith. The flame of a sword turning itself symbolizes self-love with its mad desires and the delusions that grow out of them. These desires and delusions are such that although we want to enter there, we are carried in the opposite direction, toward bodily and earthly preoccupations. This is done to guard the way to the tree of lives, or in other words, to prevent us from profaning holy things.

307

This deals with the sixth and seventh generations, which met their end in the Flood. They were thrown completely out of the Garden of Eden—that is, separated from any comprehension of truth—and became almost nonhuman; and they were left to their insane desires and delusions.

308

The symbolism of the east and the Garden of Eden has already been demonstrated [§§98–101, 107–109], so there is no need to dwell on them. Several passages in the Word mentioning the guardian beings, though, show that they symbolize the Lord’s providence making sure we do not incur death by profaning the mysteries of faith, through an insane exploration of them that relies on our own powers, empiricism, or mere facts.

The Jews were such that had they clearly recognized certain realities, they would have profaned the knowledge and been destroyed forever. Those realities were that the Lord would come, that the representative or prefigurative forms in the church symbolized the Lord, that life continues after death, that we have an inner self, and that the Word has an inner meaning. The danger of their profanation was represented by the guardian beings on the appeasement cover atop the ark, on the curtains for the dwelling place, and on the veil, and by the same figures in the Temple (Exodus 25:18, 19, 20, 21; 26:1, 31; 1 Kings 6:23–29, 32, 35). They symbolized the fact that the Lord was on guard.

The ark holding the testimony symbolized the same thing as the tree of lives here—the Lord and the things that belong to heaven, which are exclusively the Lord’s. This is why the Lord many times is called the God of Israel seated upon the guardian beings and why he talked with Aaron and Moses from between them (Exodus 25:22; Numbers 7:89).

[2] A clear picture of this appears in Ezekiel in the following words:

The glory of Israel’s God lifted up off the guardian being on which it had been and moved to the threshold of the House. He called to the man wearing linen clothes and said to him, “Cross through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and make a mark on the foreheads of the men who are groaning and sighing over all the abominations done in the middle of it.” And to the men themselves he said, “Cross through the city behind him and strike! Do not let your eye spare any and do not exercise compassion. Old person, young man, and young woman, and toddler, and women—kill them to annihilation. Defile the House and fill the courtyards with those who have been stabbed.” (Ezekiel 9:3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Further on:

He told the man wearing linen clothes, “Go in, between the wheels, under the guardian being, and fill your palms with embers of fire from between the guardian beings and scatter them over the city.” The being stretched its hand out from among the [other] beings to the fire that was among the beings, picked it up, and put it into the palms of the man wearing linen clothes. And he took it and went out. (Ezekiel 10:1–7)

These verses show that the guardian beings symbolize the Lord’s providence working to prevent people from prying into religious mysteries. They also show that for this reason people were left to their mad desires, symbolized here by the fire that was to be sprinkled over the city and by the fact that no one was to be spared.

309

The flame of a sword turning itself symbolizes self-love with its mad desires and delusions, which are such that although we want to enter there, we are carried in the opposite direction, toward bodily and earthly preoccupations. So many quotations from the Word are available to prove this symbolism that they would fill pages. Let me offer only these words from Ezekiel:

Prophesy, and you are to say, “This is what Jehovah has said: ‘Say, “A sword! A sword sharpened and even polished for committing slaughter, sharpened to have a flash of lightning to it!” Let the sword be used again a third time, the sword of its victims, the sword of much stabbing, penetrating to them in their private rooms, so that their heart will dissolve; and it will multiply the stumbling blocks in all their gates. I have put a terror of a sword there; oh, it has turned into lightning!’” (Ezekiel 21:9, 10, 14, 15)

The sword stands for our desolation—desolation to the point where we see not a bit of goodness or truth but only the false things that stand in the way; this is the multiplying of stumbling blocks. Let me add these words in Nahum:

A horse rider rushing up, and the flame of a sword, and the lightning flash of a spear, and a throng of those stabbed. (Nahum 3:3)

This describes people who wish to pry into the secrets of faith.

310

Each word of this verse [Genesis 3:24] holds such deep secrets that they could never be uncovered. They relate to the inborn character of the people who were destroyed in the Flood, a character completely different from that of the people living after the Flood.

Let me say just a little about it. The most distant ancestors of this generation, who formed the earliest church, had a heavenly character and so were sown with heavenly seed. Their descendants consequently had in them seed from a heavenly source. Because of its heavenly source, the nature of this seed is to cause love to reign throughout the whole mind and unify it.

The human mind has two parts: will and intellect. The will holds love or goodness, the intellect holds faith or truth. From love (goodness) the people of that time perceived what belonged to faith (to truth), so that their minds were unified. The offspring of such people keep the same seed inside them, which is perilous if they turn away from truth and goodness, because they then corrupt their whole mind to such an extent that it can hardly be restored in the other life.

[2] The situation is different for people who do not have heavenly but instead spiritual seed inside them—those living after the Flood, for example, and those who live in modern times. Such people have no love and therefore no will to do good. Faith is still possible, though; in other words, they are able to comprehend truth. Faith or an understanding of truth can lead them to a kind of charity, although they arrive at it by another way. Their way lies through conscience, which is instilled in them by the Lord and is formed out of a knowledge of truth and of the good that results from it. So their circumstances are radically different from those of the people who predated the Flood. Those circumstances will be described later [§398], the Lord in his divine mercy willing.

These are secrets wholly unknown to people today. No one today has any idea what a heavenly person is or even what a spiritual one is, let alone what the implications are for the nature of the human mind and mortal life or for the resulting conditions after death.

311

The otherworld condition of those who died in the Flood is such that they can never live in the world of spirits or coexist with other spirits. They live in a hell separated from other spirits’ hells and seemingly placed at the foot of a certain mountain, which appears to be a barrier formed out of their dreadful fantasies and self-deceptions. These dreams and notions of theirs are of a kind that puts other spirits in such a stupor that they cannot tell whether they are alive or dead, since it robs them of all their ability to discern what is true and leaves them without perception.

The people who died in the Flood had held fast to the same delusions when they were alive, and they were destined in the next life to be incapable of ever living among other spirits without bringing a sort of death to them. In consequence, all people of this type became extinct, and the Lord in his divine mercy created new states for the people coming after the Flood.

312

The current verse thoroughly describes the condition of these pre-Flood people in saying, for instance, that they were thrown out—separated from heavenly goodness—and that guardian beings were made to live on the east of the Garden of Eden. It is owing to their character that the verse [literally] says they lived “from” the east “to” the Garden of Eden, in words that can apply only to them. These words cannot be said of the people who lived later; they have to be described as stretching from the Garden of Eden to the east. The verse also mentions “the flame of a sword turning itself”; for modern people it would have spoken of “a sword of flame.” Nor would it have mentioned a “tree of lives” but a “tree of life.” There is still more in the series that can never be explained but can only be understood by angels, to whom the Lord reveals the meaning. Each state holds in it an unlimited number of secrets, and not one of them is known to the human race.

313

From the statements now made about the first human it can be seen that this person did not pass an evil heredity on to everyone alive today and that popular belief is wrong in saying we have no inherited evil except what sprang from that source. It is the primeval church that is the subject here and that is being called “the human.” When the name Adam is used, it symbolizes the idea that humankind was taken from the ground, or that from being nonhuman, people were made human, in being regenerated by the Lord. This is the origin and this is the meaning of the name.

The truth about inherited evil is that any of us who have actually committed a sin have imposed on ourselves a nature rising out of that sin. The evil is then implanted in our children and becomes hereditary. So it comes from every parent, from every grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so on back in order. In this way it multiplies and grows in each succeeding generation and remains with every one of us—and our own sinful deeds add to it. It does not weaken to the point of harmlessness except in those whom the Lord regenerates.

Anyone who pays attention can see this by considering that the bad tendencies of parents remain visible in their children, so that one family can be distinguished from another, and in fact one generation from another.

Our Entry into Eternal Life (Continued)

314

After our revived selves—our souls—have been restored to the light, so that we can look around us, the spiritual angels mentioned before [§182] perform every service for us that we can possibly desire in our new state. They teach us about the things that exist in the other life, but only so far as we can comprehend. To anyone who had been a believer and has an interest they also show the grand and amazing sights of heaven.

315

But if the revived person or soul is not the kind who wants to learn, he or she then wants to leave the angels’ company. The angels are quick to perceive this because in the next life all the ideas involved in our thinking are shared generally. When we are eager to part with the angels, they do not leave us but we disconnect from them. Angels love everyone and want nothing more than to be helpful to us, teach us, and take us up into heaven. That is their highest pleasure.

316

When we as souls break off with them in this way, we are next welcomed by good spirits, and in their company every possible service is again performed for us. However, if our life in the world was such that we cannot stay among the good, once more we want to get away from them. The process repeats continuously until we come into contact with the type of people whose life in the world was in total agreement with ours. Among them we seem to find our own life. Then, surprising to say, we live the same kind of life with them as we had lived in the body.

As we sink back into that life, we experience a new beginning. Some of us move on from there toward hell after a fairly long time and some after a fairly short time. Those of us who had believed in the Lord, however, from the time of that new beginning are gradually led to heaven.

317

Some reach heaven more slowly and some more quickly. I have even seen some taken up into heaven immediately after death. Allow me to mention just two examples.

318

A man came and spoke to me who, as certain signs indicated, had recently departed from life. At first he did not realize where he was, supposing himself to be in the world.

I then informed him that he was in the next life and that he no longer had any possessions—house, money, and so on—but was in another realm, where he lacked everything he had owned in the world. Filled with anxiety over this, he did not know what direction to go or where he would live; but I told him that the Lord alone looks out for him and for everyone. Afterward I left him alone to think as he had thought in the world. He started to wonder (everyone’s thoughts can be perceived clearly in the other life) what he should do now, being destitute of everything that had allowed him to stay alive.

Still laboring under this anxiety, he was transferred to the company of spirits with a heavenly nature. They were in the vicinity of the heart and everything he wanted, whatever it was, they helped him with. This done, he was again left alone and, under the inspiration of charity, began to consider how he could repay such great kindness. All this showed that in the life of the body he had possessed the charity that belongs to faith. As a result he was lifted up into heaven instantly.

319

I also watched another person transferred right into heaven by the angels and saw him received by the Lord and shown heaven’s glory.

Besides all this, I know from much other experience that it takes time for some people to reach heaven.

Genesis Chapter 4

What the Life of the Soul or Spirit Is Like

320

What is life generally like for souls or recently departed spirits after death? Wide experience has shown me that when people come into the next life they do not realize they are there. They think they are still in the world and in fact in their bodies. They are so convinced of this that if you tell them they are spirits, they are amazed and dumbfounded, for two reasons. One is that they seem completely human in respect to their senses, desires, and thoughts. The other is their previous disbelief, when they lived in the world, that they were spirits or (in some cases) that spirits could even be like this.

321

A second thing is that spirits’ powers of sensation are much more highly developed than when they lived in the body, as is their gift for thinking and speaking. These abilities are so much greater that they can hardly even be compared. Still, spirits are unaware of the change until the Lord leads them to reflect on it.

322

Avoid succumbing to the false opinion that spirits lack the power of sensation, and sensation much keener than they had while living in the body. I know the opposite to be true from thousands and thousands of experiences. If you do not want to believe, because of assumptions you make about the spirit, keep it to yourself when you enter the other life. There actual experience will make a believer out of you.

Spirits have eyesight, since they live in light, and good spirits, angelic spirits, and angels live in such bright light that the world’s noonday light can hardly be compared to it. (More will be said later on [§§1521–1534], with the Lord’s divine mercy, about the light that they live in and see by.)

Not only that, they also have hearing, and such sensitive hearing that their [former,] physical hearing cannot be measured against it. They have talked with me almost continually for several years now (but more about their speech will also be told later on [§§1634–1650, 1757–1764], with the Lord’s divine mercy).

They have a sense of smell (also dealt with later [§1516], with the Lord’s divine mercy).

They have an extremely sensitive sense of touch, from which come the excruciating pangs of hell. All the senses relate to touch, since they are simply different varieties of it.

[2] They have desires and feelings to which, again, the ones they had during physical existence cannot be compared. (These too will be expanded on below [§994:3], with the Lord’s divine mercy.)

They think much more clearly and precisely than they did during the life of the body, packing more into a single mental image than they did into a thousand when they engaged in thought during bodily life.

They talk to each other with such great acumen, subtlety, wisdom, and clarity that if we perceived only part of what they said we would be astounded.

In short, they have lost absolutely nothing they need in order to be human—and more perfectly human at that—except flesh and bones, and the accompanying imperfections.

They acknowledge and perceive that during bodily life the spirit was what actually sensed things. Although sensation seemed to take place in their bodies it was not, in fact, physical. Consequently when the body has been laid aside, sensation lives on with much greater acuity and perfection. Life consists in sensation because without it there is no life, and the quality of sensation determines the quality of life, as anyone can recognize.

323

Below, at the end of the chapter, are some examples of people who thought otherwise in the life of the body [§§443–448].

Genesis 4

1. And the human knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and delivered Cain. And she said, “I have acquired a man: Jehovah.”

2. And she went on to deliver his brother Abel; and Abel was a shepherd of the flock, and Cain was one who cultivated the ground.

3. And it happened at the end of some days that Cain brought forward some of the fruit of the ground as an offering to Jehovah.

4. And Abel, too, brought forward some of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And Jehovah looked on Abel and on his offering.

5. But Cain and his offering he ignored. And anger kindled strongly in Cain, and his face fell.

6. And Jehovah said to Cain, “Why has anger kindled in you? And why has your face fallen?

7. If you do well, will it not raise you up? And if you do not do well, sin lies at your door. And [Abel] longs for you, but you rule him.”

8. And Cain said to Abel his brother . . . And it happened when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

9. And Jehovah said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s guardian?”

10. And he said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.

11. And now, a curse on you from the ground, which opened its mouth, receiving your brother’s blood from your hand!

12. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. A wanderer and fugitive you will be on the earth.”

13. And Cain said to Jehovah, “My wickedness is too great to be taken away.

14. Look, you have thrown me out today, off the face of the ground. And I will be hidden from your face and will be a wanderer and fugitive on the earth. And it will come about that anyone who finds me will kill me.”

15. And Jehovah said to him, “Therefore anyone who kills Cain will suffer sevenfold vengeance.” And Jehovah put a mark on Cain, that no one who found him should strike him.

16. And Cain went out from before Jehovah; and he lived in the land of Nod, to the east of Eden.

17. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and delivered Enoch. And [Cain] was building a city, and he named the city after his son, Enoch.

18. And Irad was born to Enoch. And Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech.

19. And Lamech took two wives to himself, the name of one being Adah and the name of the other Zillah.

20. And Adah delivered Jabal; he was the father of the tent dweller, and of livestock.

21. And the name of his brother was Jubal; he was the father of everyone playing the harp and the organ.

22. And Zillah in turn delivered Tubal-cain, who trained every artisan in bronze and iron. And Tubal-cain’s sister was Naamah.

23. And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, “Listen to my voice, wives of Lamech, and with your ears perceive what I say, because I killed a man for my wound and a little child for my bruise.

24. For Cain will be avenged seven times, and Lamech seventy-seven times.”

25. And the human knew his wife again, and she delivered a son and called his name Seth, “Because God has restored other seed for me in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”

26. And to Seth in turn a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah.

Summary

324

The subject here is religious positions developed independently of the church, or in other words, heresies. A new church raised up later, called Enosh, is also treated of.

325

Because the earliest church loved the Lord, it believed in Him, but some people came along who divided faith from love. The teaching that faith was separate from love was named Cain. Charity, which is love for others, was called Abel (verses 1, 2).

326

The way each group worshiped is described. Cain’s offering depicts worship motivated by a detached faith while Abel’s offering depicts worship motivated by charity (verses 3, 4). Worship based on charity was pleasing, while worship based on a detached faith was not (verses 4, 5).

327

Cain’s burning anger and fallen face portrayed a change for the worse in the condition of those who latched on to a separated faith (verses 5, 6).

328

Charity allows us to recognize the quality of faith. In addition, charity wants to exist alongside faith, if faith does not become the chief thing and is not lifted up above charity (verse 7).

329

Charity was blotted out among those who detached faith from it and made faith more important, as illustrated by Cain in his murder of his brother Abel (verses 8, 9).

330

Charity that has been extinguished is called the voice of blood (verse 10), corrupt theology is called a curse from the ground (verse 11), and falsity and evil from that theology are the wanderer and fugitive on the earth (verse 12). Since those people turned away from the Lord, they were in danger of eternal death (verses 13, 14), but faith was the means by which charity would be implanted from then on, so a sacred ban was placed on the violation of it. This is the mark put on Cain (verse 15). The removal of faith from the seat it used to occupy is Cain’s residence to the east of Eden (verse 16).

331

The heresy in a later, expanded form is called Enoch (verse 17).

332

Other heresies rising out of it are also given names, in the last of which—called Lamech—no more faith remained (verse 18).

333

Adah and Zillah mean a new church that now came into being and was portrayed in these women’s sons—Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain. The heavenly aspects of the church were represented by Jabal, the spiritual aspects by Jubal, and the earthly aspects by Tubal-cain (verses 19, 20, 21, 22).

334

That church arose when every shred of faith and of charity had been destroyed and the most sacred ban had been violated (verses 23, 24).

335

At the end of the story, after the obliteration of charity by a detached faith (Cain), the Lord granted a new kind of faith—one through which charity would be introduced. That faith is Seth (verse 25).

336

Charity introduced by means of faith is called Enosh, or “another person,” which is the name of that church (verse 26).

Inner Meaning

337

The subject here is the deterioration of the earliest church, or the falsification of religious teachings. Heresies and sects are described under the names of Cain and his descendants. In connection with this, we need to understand that we can have no idea how the religion was falsified or what that church’s heresies and sects were like unless we are thoroughly acquainted with the nature of the true church. With such acquaintance we can recognize how things stood.

The earliest church has already been discussed quite amply. I showed that it was in the form of a heavenly person [§§162:1, 200] and that its adherents did not acknowledge any other faith than one of love for the Lord and for other people [§§32:2, 202, 281]. Through that love they received faith from the Lord, or in other words, a perception of all that belongs to faith [§§104, 125]. They did not even want to use the word faith for fear it would be separated from love, as shown earlier (§§200–203).

[2] That is what a person of heavenly character is like, and David, in speaking of the Lord as monarch and of a heavenly person as royal offspring, uses the following images to represent that nature:

Give your judgments to the monarch, and your justice to the royal offspring. The mountains will bring peace to the people, as will the hills, in justice. Generation after generation will fear you in the lasting of the sun and before the face of the moon. In their days the upright individual will flourish, as will great peace, until there is no moon. (Psalms 72:1, 3, 5, 7)

The sun symbolizes love and the moon faith. The mountains and hills symbolize the earliest church. Generation after generation symbolizes the religions that came after the Flood. It says until there is no moon because faith will be love. See also what is said in Isaiah 30:26.

[3] This shows the nature of the earliest church and of its religious thought. Modern times, in which faith comes first, are completely different; but through faith the Lord endows us with charity, and then charity takes highest importance. It follows that religious teachings were falsified in earliest times when people declared their faith and in the process separated faith from love. Those who falsified the religion in this way, dividing faith from love (that is, championing faith alone), were at that time called Cain. To do as they did was scandalous to the earliest people.

338

Genesis 4:1. And the human knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and delivered Cain; and she said, “I have acquired a man: Jehovah.”

The human and his wife, Eve, symbolize the earliest church, as is known. His firstborn or first offspring is faith, which is called Cain here. She said, “I have acquired the man Jehovah,” means that faith among those called Cain was recognized and acknowledged as a thing in itself.

339

In the three previous chapters I have offered proof enough that the human and his wife symbolize the earliest church, so that there can be no doubt of it [§§252–253, 277, 288–289]. Since the human and his wife are the earliest church, it makes sense that what was conceived and given birth to by them could not be anything else [than what was conceived and born in the church].

The earliest people were very familiar with assigning names that had symbolic meaning and in this way creating a genealogy. After all, the church’s attributes bear the same relationship to each other: one thing is conceived and born from another and relates to it like a new generation. Consequently it is common for the Word to refer to the church’s attributes as times of conception and birth, as offspring, babies, children, daughters, sons, youths, and so on. The prophetic parts are full of such references.

340

The opening summary of this chapter [§337] establishes the meaning of she said, “I have acquired the man Jehovah,” as the fact that faith among those called Cain was recognized and acknowledged as a thing in itself.

Before this it was as if people were unaware of what faith was, because they had a perception of everything involved in faith. When they started to create a distinct doctrine concerning faith, however, they drew out principles they had learned through perception, reduced them into a systematic theology, and named them “I have acquired the man Jehovah,” as if they had stumbled onto some new thing. In this way they turned what had been written on their hearts into a set of facts.

In ancient times people gave a name to every new phenomenon and explained the significance of the names in just this way. They explained, for example, that Ishmael meant that Jehovah had heard Hagar’s unhappiness (Genesis 16:11); that Reuben meant “Jehovah has seen my unhappiness” (Genesis 29:32); that Simeon meant that Jehovah had heard Leah was not as well loved (Genesis 29:33); and that Judah meant “This time I will acclaim Jehovah” (Genesis 29:35). The altar built by Moses was called “Jehovah my banner” (Exodus 17:15). Here the actual doctrine concerning faith was called “I have acquired the man Jehovah,” that is to say, Cain.

341

Genesis 4:2. And she went on to deliver his brother Abel. And Abel was a shepherd of the flock; and Cain was one who cultivated the ground.

The church’s second-born is charity, symbolized by Abel and brother. A shepherd of the flock is people who do the good that charity inspires. One who cultivated the ground is people who lack charity, however attached they may be to a faith separated from love, which is no kind of faith.

342

The fact that the church’s second-born is charity can be seen from the things that the church conceives and gives birth to: nothing but faith and charity. The first children Leah bore to Jacob have the same symbolism: Reuben symbolizes faith; Simeon, faith in action; and Levi, charity (Genesis 29:32, 33, 34). This is also why the tribe of Levi became the priests and represented a shepherd of the flock.

As charity is the church’s second-born, it is called a brother and is named Abel.

343

Everyone can see that a shepherd of a flock is one who does the good that charity inspires, because the image is common in the Old and New Testaments of the Word. One who leads and teaches is called a shepherd, or pastor, while those who are led and taught are termed the flock. No one who fails to lead people to do the good involved in charity or who fails to teach about that good is a true shepherd; no one who fails to follow the path to goodness or to learn about it is part of the flock.

Of course, it is unnecessary to demonstrate this symbolism of shepherd (or pastor) and flock by passages from the Word, but let me mention these anyway. In Isaiah:

The Lord will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread from the produce of the ground. He will pasture your livestock on that day, in a broad meadow. (Isaiah 30:23)

Bread from the produce of the ground is charity. In the same author:

The Lord Jehovih will pasture his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs into his arm and carry them on his chest. He will lead their new mothers gently. (Isaiah 40:11)

In David:

Shepherd of Israel, listen intently, as you lead Joseph like a flock. As you sit upon the guardian beings, shine out! (Psalms 80:1)

In Jeremiah:

I have compared the daughter of Zion to an attractive and delicate woman. Shepherds will come to her, and their flocks will pitch their tents near her all around. They will each graze their space. (Jeremiah 6:2, 3)

In Ezekiel:

The Lord Jehovih said, “I will multiply them like a flock of people, like a holy flock, like the flock of Jerusalem at its set [feast] times; in this way the deserted cities will be filled with a flock of people.” (Ezekiel 36:37, 38)

In Isaiah:

Every flock of Arabia will be gathered to you; the rams of Nebaioth will wait on you. (Isaiah 60:7)

Those who lead the flock toward neighborly kindness are those who gather the flock; those who do not lead toward neighborly kindness are those who scatter the flock. All togetherness and unity are the result of charity, while all dispersal and disjunction come from a lack of charity.

344

What purpose is there to faith, or to the facts, insights, and teachings of faith, except that we may become what faith teaches us to be? And the primary thing it teaches is charity, as stated in Mark 12:28–34 and Matthew 22:35–40. That is the goal toward which faith looks in all it does. If we do not gain charity, what is knowledge, or doctrine, but a nothing?

345

One who cultivated the ground is people who lack charity, however attached they may be to a faith separated from love, which is no kind of faith. This can be seen from what follows—that Jehovah ignored Cain’s offering and that Cain killed his brother or, in other words, destroyed the charity that Abel symbolized.

People whose sights were set on bodily and earthly interests were said to cultivate the ground. This can be seen from remarks made at Genesis 3:19, 23 [§§276, 305], where it says that the humans were sent away from the Garden of Eden to cultivate the ground.

346

Genesis 4:3. And it happened at the end of some days that Cain brought forward some of the fruit of the ground as an offering to Jehovah.

The end of some days means the passage of time. Fruit of the ground means doing what faith requires without loving others. An offering to Jehovah means the worship rising out of those deeds.

347

Anyone can see that the end of some days means the passage of time. The doctrine called Cain, in its beginning, when it still had a simple quality, did not appear to have been as displeasing as later, which can be seen from the fact that they called the child acquired “the man Jehovah.” Neither was faith as completely divided from love in the beginning as it was “at the end of some days” or with the passage of time. This is what happens with all genuine religious teachings.

348

The fact that the fruit of the ground means doing what faith requires without loving others is also evident from what follows. Deeds of faith that lack charity are deeds devoid of faith. In themselves they are dead, since they belong exclusively to the outer self. Jeremiah speaks of them this way:

Why is the path of the godless successful? You planted them; they also took root. They grew; they also produce fruit. You are nearby in their mouth but far from their kidneys. How long will the land mourn and the grass of all the fields wither? (Jeremiah 12:1, 2, 4)

“Nearby in their mouth but far from their kidneys” refers to those who advocate a faith detached from charity. It says of them that the land mourns. The same book calls [acts of faith devoid of charity] “the fruit of their deeds”:

The heart is more a usurper than anything else is and is beyond hope. Who really knows the heart? I, Jehovah, am examining the heart, testing the kidneys, and [my purpose is] to give them each as their ways deserve, as the fruit of their deeds deserves. (Jeremiah 17:9, 10)

In Micah:

The land will become a desolate place because of its residents, in return for the fruit of their deeds. (Micah 7:13)

But Amos says this kind of fruit is nonfruit—that is, it is the work of dead people—and both the fruit and the root are destroyed:

Before their faces I have destroyed the Amorites, whose height was like the height of cedars. And they were strong, like an oak, yet I destroyed their fruit upward and their roots downward. (Amos 2:9)

And in David:

Their fruit you will destroy from the earth and their seed from among the children of humankind. (Psalms 21:10)

But deeds inspired by charity are alive. They are said to send roots below and yield fruit above, as in Isaiah:

The remaining refugees of Judah’s house will put new root downward and produce fruit upward. (Isaiah 37:31)

To produce fruit upward is to act with charity as motivation. The fruit is called excellent in the same author:

On that day Jehovah’s offshoot will become the beauty and glory—and the earth’s fruit will become the excellence and adornment—of Israel’s rescuees. (Isaiah 4:2)

It is also the fruit of salvation, as the same author terms it:

Drizzle, you heavens, from above, and let the heights of the sky flow with justice. Let the earth open, and let them bear the fruit of salvation, and let justice sprout together with it. I, Jehovah, will create this. (Isaiah 45:8)

349

The meaning of an offering as worship can be established by the representative practices of the Jewish religion. All its sacrifices, the presentation of the first fruits of the land and of all its produce, and the giving over of the firstborn—these are called offerings and constituted that religion’s worship. Since all these offerings represented heavenly things and had to do with the Lord, they symbolized true worship. Anyone can recognize this. What is a representative act without the thing it represents? What is the outer shell without inner contents but some dead, idolatrous thing? It is the inner contents, or the Lord working through the inner contents, that give the outer shell life. Clearly, then, all such offerings in a representative religion symbolize worship of the Lord. The symbolism of the individual types will, with the Lord’s divine mercy, be given later.

[2] The general meaning of offerings as worship can be seen in many places in the prophets. In Malachi, for instance:

Who can endure the day of his coming? He will sit smelting and purging silver and will purify the children of Levi and refine them like gold and like silver; and they will be bringing an offering to Jehovah in justice. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be sweet to Jehovah, as in the days of old and as in the ancient years. (Malachi 3:2, 3, 4)

An offering made in justice is the inner content that the children of Levi (meaning devout worshipers) will bring. The days of old are the very earliest church, and the ancient years are the ancient church. In Ezekiel:

On my holy mountain, on the mountain of Israel’s high ground, all the house of Israel—that whole land—will worship me. There I will be appeased by them, and there I will seek your oblations and the first fruits of your offerings in all your consecrations. (Ezekiel 20:40)

The oblations and the first fruits of their offerings in their consecrations are again good deeds that charity from the Lord has consecrated. In Zephaniah:

From the ford of the rivers of Ethiopia, those who adore me will bring my offering. (Zephaniah 3:10)

Ethiopia stands for those who possess heavenly attributes: love, charity, and deeds inspired by charity.

350

Genesis 4:4. And Abel, too, brought forward some of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And Jehovah looked on Abel and on his offering.

Abel here symbolizes charity, as he did earlier [§§325–326, 341–342]. The firstborn of the flock symbolize holiness, which is exclusively the Lord’s. The fat symbolizes the actual quality of heaven, which is also the Lord’s. Jehovah looked on Abel and on his offering means that everything connected with charity was pleasing to the Lord, as was all worship springing from charity.

351

Abel has already been shown to symbolize charity [§§342–343]. Charity means love for our neighbor. It means mercy too, since if we love our neighbors as we do ourselves we have mercy on them when they are suffering, as we would on ourselves.

352

The symbolism of the firstborn of the flock as holiness, which is exclusively the Lord’s, can be seen from the place of firstborns in the representative church. They were all holy because they prefigured the Lord, who is the only firstborn.

Love and love-based faith is the firstborn. All love is the Lord’s and no particle of love is ours, which is why the Lord is the only firstborn. In the early churches, this fact was represented by the consecration of firstborns and of firstborn animals to Jehovah (Exodus 13:2, 12, 15). It was also represented by the fact that the tribe of Levi was taken in place of all the firstborn and became the priestly order (Numbers 3:40–46; 8:14–20), even though Levi, who on an inner level symbolizes love, was born after Reuben and Simeon, who on an inner level symbolize faith.

The following words in David say that the Lord in respect to his human nature was the firstborn of all:

The name he will give me is: “You are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.” Indeed, I will make him the firstborn, high above the monarchs of the earth. (Psalms 89:26, 27)

And in John:

Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the dead and chief of the earth’s monarchs. (Revelation 1:5)

Take note that the firstborn animals used in worship symbolize the Lord while the firstborn things of the church symbolize faith.

353

Let me address the symbolism of the fat as the actual quality of heaven, which also belongs to the Lord. Heaven’s quality is made up of everything that belongs to love. Faith too is heavenly when it comes from love. Charity is a heavenly thing. All the good inspired by charity is heavenly. These things are all represented by the fat of the sacrifices, each separate aspect being represented by the fat over the liver (called the omentum), the fat over the kidneys, the fat sheathing the intestines, and the fat over the intestines. These fat deposits were holy and were burned on the altar (Exodus 29:13, 22; Leviticus 3:3, 4, 14; 4:8, 9, 19, 26, 31, 35; 8:16, 25). So they are called the bread of the fire offering for Jehovah’s repose (Leviticus 3:5, 16), and this is why the Jewish people were forbidden to eat any of the fat from the animals; these rules were called an “eternal statute throughout their generations” (Leviticus 3:17; 7:23, 25). The statute was given because that church was such that it would not acknowledge anything internal, much less anything heavenly.

[2] The symbolism of fat as the heavenly aspects of charity and the goodness that it inspires can be seen in the prophets, as in Isaiah:

Why do you weigh out silver for what is not bread and your labor for what does not satisfy? Pay wholehearted attention to me and eat what is good, so that your soul may revel in the fat. (Isaiah 55:2)

In Jeremiah:

I will fill the soul of the priests with fat, and my people will receive fully of my goodness. (Jeremiah 31:14)

It is obvious that this does not mean fat but a heavenly-spiritual kind of goodness. In David:

They are filled with the fat of your house, and you slake their thirst with a river of your pleasures, because yours is the wellspring of life. In your light we see light. (Psalms 36:8, 9)

The fat and the wellspring of life stand for the heavenly quality that belongs to love. The river of pleasures and the light stand for the spiritual quality that belongs to a faith rising out of love. In the same author:

My soul will be filled with grease and fat, and my mouth will give praise with lips of song. (Psalms 63:5)

Here the fat again stands for a heavenly quality, lips of song for a spiritual one. Clearly something heavenly is meant, since the soul will be filled with it. First fruits themselves—the firstborn produce of the earth—are therefore called fat (Numbers 18:12).

[3] Because heavenly things come in an uncountable number of major categories and an even more uncountable number of specific types, the song Moses recited before the people depicts them generally:

. . . butter from the cow and the milk of the flock, together with the fat of lambs and of rams—the sons of Bashan—and of goats, together with the fat of the kidneys of wheat; and the blood of the grape you will drink as unmixed wine. (Deuteronomy 32:14)

No one could ever see what these things mean except in light of their inner meaning. Without the inner meaning, no one could see what butter from the cow is, or the milk of the flock, the fat of lambs, the fat of rams and of goats, the sons of Bashan, the fat of the kidneys of wheat, or the blood of the grape. Without an inner meaning, they would be words and nothing more, when in reality as a whole and individually they symbolize general and specific kinds of heavenly qualities.

354

The meaning of Jehovah looked on Abel and on his offering as the fact that everything connected with charity and all worship springing from charity were pleasing to the Lord has been explained previously [§350]. Both what Abel and what an offering symbolize were covered [§§342–343, 349].

355

Genesis 4:5. But Cain and his offering he ignored. And anger kindled strongly in Cain, and his face fell.

Cain, as I said [§§325–327, 337:3, 338, 340–341], symbolizes faith detached from love, or at least the kind of doctrinal view that allows faith to be detached. His offering and the fact that Jehovah ignored it has the same symbolism as before [§345]: that his worship was not acceptable. The anger kindled in Cain and the falling of his face symbolize a change on the deeper levels; the anger means that charity took its leave, and his face symbolizes the deeper levels, which, when they change, are said to fall.

356

I have already shown that Cain symbolizes faith detached from love, or at least the kind of doctrinal view that allows faith to be detached [§340], and that the offering which Jehovah ignored means that Cain’s worship was not acceptable.

357

The symbolism of the anger kindled in Cain as the departure of charity is evident from the sequel—that he killed his brother Abel, who symbolizes charity.

Anger is a generalized emotion—our reaction to everything that stands in the way of self-love and the desires that go along with it. This can be clearly perceived in the realm of evil spirits, where anger directed at the Lord is pervasive, because the inhabitants have no charity but only hatred. Whatever does not favor self-love and materialism arouses opposition, which displays itself in anger.

The Word many times attributes anger, wrath, and even fury to Jehovah. But these emotions are ours and are blamed on Jehovah merely because they seem to be his, for the reason just mentioned. So David says:

He sent against them the anger of his nostril, and wrath, and fury, and anguish, and a delegation of wicked angels. He leveled out a path for anger; he did not withhold their soul from death. (Psalms 78:49, 50)

It is not that Jehovah ever sends anger against anyone but that people bring it into themselves. Neither is it he that sends wicked angels, as it says, but we that invite them to come. Consequently it adds that he levels out the path of anger and does not withhold their soul from death. Isaiah accordingly says:

They will come to Jehovah, and all who blazed up against him will be shamed. (Isaiah 45:24)

This shows that anger symbolizes evil or, what is the same thing, a departure from charity.

358

The meaning of his face fell as a change at the deeper levels can be established by the symbolism of the face and of falling. Among the ancients the face symbolized the inner depths, because those depths shine out through the face. People’s nature in earliest times was such that the face was in complete harmony with what was inside, so that everyone could see in another’s face what that other’s temperament or mind was like. They considered it heinous to show one thing on the face while thinking another. In those days pretense and fraud were abhorrent. As a result, the face symbolized inner things. When charity shone out from the face, the face was said to be lifted, but when the opposite was true, the face was said to fall. This is also why the Lord is said to lift his face on us (as in the blessing from Numbers 6:26 and Psalms 4:6), meaning that the Lord gives us the capacity to love others.

What the falling of the face is can be seen in Jeremiah:

“I will not make my face fall toward you, because I am merciful,” says Jehovah. (Jeremiah 3:12)

Jehovah’s face is mercy. When he lifts his face on anyone, the meaning is that in his mercy he gives that person the gift of charity. The opposite occurs when he makes his face fall—that is, when a person’s own face falls.

359

Genesis 4:6. And Jehovah said to Cain, “Why has anger kindled in you and why has your face fallen?”

Jehovah said to Cain means that conscience spoke. The kindled anger and the fallen face mean, as they did just above, that charity withdrew and the inner depths changed.

360

There is no need to prove that Jehovah said to Cain means that conscience spoke. A similar phrase has already been explained [§219].

361

Genesis 4:7. “If you do well, will it not raise you up? And if you do not do well, sin lies at your door. And [Abel] longs for you, but you rule him.”

If you do well, will it not raise you up? means if you wish well, charity resides in you. If you do not do well, sin lies at your door, means if you do not wish well, there is no charity but only evil. He longs for you, but you rule him, means that charity wants to reside in you but cannot because you want to rule over it.

362

This verse presents a picture of the teachings concerning faith that are called Cain, which, because they divided faith from love, also divided faith from charity, the offspring of love.

Wherever a church exists, heresies crop up, because when we think about a single article of faith, we make it the chief one. It is a characteristic of human thought that when we turn our attention to one consideration, we make it more important than another, especially if our fantasies claim it as our own personal discovery. When love for ourselves and for worldly advantages inflates our pride, no circumstance fails to add its consent and support, until we are almost ready to swear that it is true, even if it is false. So those referred to as Cain made faith more essential than love; and since they lived without love, they were helped along in their cause by both self-love and the fantasies that accompany it.

363

The nature of the doctrine of faith that was called Cain can be found in this verse’s description of him. The later parts of the verse indicate that charity could have been joined onto faith but only in such a way that charity would rule, not faith. So it says first, if you do well, it will raise you up, meaning if you wish well, charity can be present. In the inner sense, doing well means willing well, because good deeds flow from goodwill. Action and will formed a single entity in ancient times. The action allowed people to see the will, because pretense was wholly absent.

What was said earlier [§358] about the face shows that a raising [or lifting] symbolizes the presence of charity, since to lift one’s face is to display charity and the falling of one’s face is the opposite.

364

The second phrase was if you do not do well, sin lies at your door, meaning if you do not wish well, there is no charity, but only evil. Anyone can see that when sin lies at the door it is an evil near at hand and eager to get in. When charity is missing, after all, ruthlessness and hatred and therefore every kind of evil are present.

The general term sin is taken to mean the Devil, and the Devil—or rather the Devil’s crew—is nearby when we lack charity. The only thing that chases them from the door is love for the Lord and for our neighbor.

365

The third thing it says is he longs for you, but you rule him, meaning that charity wants to coexist with faith but cannot because faith wants to rule over it, which goes against proper order. As long as faith wants to be in charge, it is not faith. But when charity is in charge, faith is faith. This is because the main concern of faith is charity, as shown before [§344].

Charity can be compared to a flame, which is essential for heat and light, since they come from it. Faith when separated can be compared to light, which without the warmth of the flame is still light, but a wintry light—and there is nothing that does not languish and die in winter’s light.

366

Genesis 4:8. And Cain said to Abel his brother . . . And it happened when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

Cain said to Abel means a length of time. Cain, as I said [§337:3], symbolizes faith separated from love. Abel symbolizes charity, the brother of faith, which is why he is called brother twice here. The field symbolizes every point of doctrine. Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him means that a detached faith extinguished charity.

367

These things do not need to be proved by similar passages from the Word beyond the identification of charity as the brother of faith and the symbolism of a field as every point of doctrine.

From the nature or essential character of faith, anyone can see that charity is the brother of faith. The brotherhood of these was also represented by Esau and Jacob—another relationship that gave rise to controversy over the birthright and the dominance it entailed. The same brotherhood was represented by Perez and Zerah, Tamar’s sons by Judah (Genesis 38:28, 29, 30), a story that also dealt with birthrights. And it was represented by Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48:13, 14), likewise a tale about birthrights and the implied dominance. The same thing was represented by others, too.

Both faith and charity, after all, are the church’s offspring. Faith is called a man, as Cain was in the first verse of this chapter, and charity a brother, as in Isaiah 19:2; Jeremiah 13:14; and elsewhere. The union of faith and charity is called a brothers’ pact in Amos 1:9.

[2] Something like the relationship symbolized by Cain and Abel was represented by Jacob and Esau, as I said, in that Jacob wanted to supplant Esau. This can be seen in Hosea too:

. . . to bring on Jacob the consequences of his ways; according to his deeds will [Jehovah] repay him. In the womb he supplanted his brother. (Hosea 12:2, 3)

But Esau, or the charity that Esau represented, was still dominant, as can be seen in the enigmatic prediction of his father Isaac:

By your sword you will live, and your brother you will serve. And it will happen when you gain the dominance that you will force his yoke off your neck. (Genesis 27:40)

In other words, Esau represented a church among non-Jews, or a new church, while Jacob represented the Jewish church. This is why it says so many times that they should acknowledge non-Jewish nations as their brothers and sisters.

In the church of the non-Jews, or the early [Christian] church, they all called each other “sister” or “brother,” because of the charity among them. “Sisters and brothers” was also used by the Lord of those who hear the Word and act on it (Luke 8:21); the “hearers” are those who have faith, the “doers” those who have charity. However, those who hear (or say they have faith) and do not act on it (have no charity) are not “sisters and brothers,” and the Lord compares them to fools (Matthew 7:24, 26).

368

The symbolism of a field as doctrine and therefore as every point of doctrine that deals with faith or charity is clear from the Word. In Jeremiah:

Mountain of mine in the field, your resources, all your treasures I will turn into plunder. (Jeremiah 17:3)

The field stands for doctrine, while resources and treasures stand for the spiritual riches of faith, that is, for teachings of faith’s doctrine. In the same author:

Will the snow of Lebanon desert the rock of my field? (Jeremiah 18:14)

Jeremiah 26:18 and Micah 3:12 predict that Zion will be plowed like a field when the doctrine concerning faith disappears. In Ezekiel:

He took some of the seed of the land and put it in a field suitable for sowing. (Ezekiel 17:5)

This speaks of the church and its faith. Doctrine is being called a field on account of the seed in it. In the same author:

And let all the trees of the field know that I, Jehovah, will bring down the tall tree. (Ezekiel 17:24)

In Joel:

The field was devastated, the ground mourned, because the grain was devastated, the new wine dried up, the oil weakened. The farmers were put to shame; the harvest of the field was destroyed. All the trees of the field withered. (Joel 1:10, 11, 12)

A field here stands for doctrine, trees for knowledge, and farmers for worshipers. In David:

The field and all that is in it will rejoice. Then all the trees of the forest will sing. (Psalms 96:12)

A field cannot rejoice and trees in the forest cannot sing; only something in us can do so, and that something is religious knowledge. In Jeremiah:

How long will the land mourn and the grass of all the fields wither? (Jeremiah 12:4)

Again, neither the earth nor the grass of the fields can mourn but only some quality in us that has been ravaged. Likewise in Isaiah:

The mountains and hills will ring before you with song, and all the trees of the field will clap the palms of their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)

The Lord too, in making predictions about the end of the era, refers to the doctrine concerning faith as a field:

Two will be in the field; one will be taken, the other left. (Matthew 24:40; Luke 17:36)

Here the field means both false and true teachings concerning faith, as in the current verse. As the field is doctrine, whoever receives any seed of faith is also called a field, whether it is an individual, the church, or the whole world.

369

From all this we can now deduce what it means that when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. The meaning is that while both faith and charity grew out of the doctrine concerning faith, faith detached from love could not help completely devaluing charity and in this way extinguishing it. People do the same thing today when they claim that faith alone will save them even if they never perform a single act of neighborly love. So their theory itself annihilates charity, even though they recognize and pay lip service to the idea that faith does not save unless there is love.

370

Genesis 4:9. And Jehovah said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s guardian?”

Jehovah said to Cain means a certain perception from deep down that spoke of charity, which is Abel, your brother. He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s guardian?” means that he considered charity worthless, not wanting to act as its servant. So it means that he totally rejected anything having to do with charity. This is what their doctrine had become.

371

When the earliest people described Jehovah as speaking, they meant perception, because they realized that the Lord made it possible for them to perceive. This capacity for perception lasted only as long as love had primary importance. When love for the Lord came to an end, and love for others consequently did the same, perception died out. To the extent that love remained, perception remained.

This perceptiveness was distinctive to the earliest church. After faith had been separated from love, as it was in those who lived after the Flood, and charity was being acquired by way of faith, conscience took over. Conscience, too, speaks from within, but not in the same way. More on this will, by the Lord’s divine mercy, appear later. When conscience dictates, the Word describes it the same way—that is, as speech by Jehovah. Our conscience is formed from the revelations and knowledge of Scripture, and when the Word speaks or supplies an inner dictate, it is the Lord who is speaking. No expression is more common, even today, than “the Lord says” when we refer to a matter of conscience or of faith.

372

Being a guardian means serving, like the doorkeepers and gatekeepers in the Jewish religion [2 Kings 7:10–11; 22:4; 23:4; 25:18; Jeremiah 52:24]. Faith is called the guardian of charity here because it must serve charity. But the principles of that doctrine required instead that faith be dominant, as noted at verse 7 [§§362, 365].

373

Genesis 4:10. And he said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!”

The voice of his brother’s blood symbolizes violence inflicted on charity. The fact that the blood cries out symbolizes guilt. The ground symbolizes a schism or heresy.

374

The symbolism of the voice of blood as violence inflicted on charity can be seen from many places in the Word, where a voice is taken to mean everything that accuses and blood to mean every kind of sin, especially hatred. Those who hate their sister or brother kill her or him in their hearts, as the Lord teaches:

You have heard that among the people of old it was said, “You shall not kill; but whoever kills will be subject to judgment.” I say to you, though, that any who are angry at their sister or brother without cause will be subject to judgment. Once again, any who say “Raca!” to their sister or brother will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But any who say, “Stupid!” will be subject to fiery Gehenna. (Matthew 5:21, 22)

These words refer to different degrees of hatred. Hatred opposes charity, and if it does not kill with its hand, it still does so in its mind or heart, in every way it can. External deterrents alone prevent it from killing with its hand. So every form of hatred is blood, as in Jeremiah:

Why do you amend your ways so as to seek love? Yes, on your hems is found the blood of innocent paupers’ souls. (Jeremiah 2:33, 34)

[2] Since hatred is blood, so is all wickedness, because the source of all wickedness is hatred, as in Hosea:

False swearing and lying and killing and stealing and the committing of adultery; they rob, and blood has followed on blood. Therefore the earth will mourn and everyone living in it will waste away. (Hosea 4:2, 3)

In Ezekiel:

Will you judge the blood-soaked city and let it know all its abominations? The city is shedding blood in its midst. By your blood that you shed you have become guilty. (Ezekiel 22:2, 3, 4, 6, 9)

This is about lack of mercy. In the same author:

The earth is full of judgment on [crimes of] blood, and the city is full of violence. (Ezekiel 7:23)

In Jeremiah:

On account of the sins of Jerusalem’s prophets, the transgressions of its priests, who shed the blood of the just in its midst, [those same prophets and priests] wander blind in the streets; they are defiled with blood. (Lamentations 4:13, 14)

In Isaiah:

. . . when the Lord washes away the dirt of Zion’s daughters, and has cleansed the blood of Jerusalem from its midst, with a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. (Isaiah 4:4)

In the same author:

Your palms have been defiled with blood, and your fingers with wickedness. (Isaiah 59:3)

In Ezekiel:

I passed right by you and saw you trampled in your blood, and I told you, “Live in your blood!” And I told you, “Live in your blood!” (Ezekiel 16:6, 22)

This is about Jerusalem’s abominations, which are referred to as blood. [3] The ruthlessness and hatred of the final days are also pictured as blood in Revelation 16:3, 4.

Blood is used in the plural here [in the original language] because everything wicked and abhorrent wells up out of hatred, just as everything good and holy wells up out of love. Those who hate their neighbor would kill him or her if possible, in every way they are capable of, which is to inflict violence on their neighbor; and violence is what the voice of bloods properly symbolizes here.

375

A voice crying out and the voice of outcry are common phrases in the Word. They are used for every situation in which there is any noise, crowd, or hostility, and also where there is elation, as in Exodus 32:17, 18; Zephaniah 1:9, 10; Isaiah 65:19; Jeremiah 48:3. Here the voice makes an accusation.

376

The symbolism of his blood cries out as guilt follows in turn, because those who use violence have guilt, as in David:

Evil will kill the ungodly person, and those who hate the just individual will incur guilt. (Psalms 34:21)

In Ezekiel:

City, by the blood that you shed you have become guilty. (Ezekiel 22:4)

377

The symbolism of the ground here as a schism or heresy can be established by the symbolism of a field. Since a field symbolizes doctrine, the ground containing the field is a schism.

We ourselves are also the ground, and a field too, because doctrine and heresy have been sown in us. Our character comes from the seeds we are sown with. Good, true seed makes us good and true, and evil, false seed makes us evil and false. Those who attach themselves to a particular doctrine are named for that doctrine; those who participate in a schism or heresy are named for that. So the ground here stands for the schism or heresy that is in a person.

378

Genesis 4:11. “And now, a curse on you from the ground, which opened its mouth, receiving your brother’s blood from your hand!”

A curse on you from the ground means that the schism made [Cain] turn away. Which opened its mouth symbolizes what the schism taught. Receiving your brother’s blood from your hand is the fact that it inflicted violence on charity and extinguished it.

379

These symbolisms can be seen from the preceding sections [§§373–377]. The symbolism of a curse as something turned away was also shown before, in §245. Wicked and loathsome acts—that is, acts of hatred—are what turn us away and make us look downward only, toward bodily and earthly concerns, or in other words toward the things of hell. This happens when we send charity into exile and extinguish it, which shatters the bond between the Lord and us. Only charity, which is love and mercy, maintains the bond. Faith without charity is incapable of doing so, since it is no faith but mere knowledge, of a kind that even the Devil’s horde can acquire; they are further able to use it for deliberately deceiving the upright and impersonating angels of light. The worst preachers sometimes do the same, with a zeal that seems to spring from piety, although nothing is farther from their minds than what they utter with their lips.

Can there be a person with judgment so unsound as to believe that a memorized faith can have any effect by itself? Or that mere thought based on that faith can have any effect? On the contrary, we all know from our own experience that no one can tell the real value of another’s statements and assertions if they do not arise from the will or from genuine intent. It is the will and intention that please us and connect us to one another. Our real identity is whatever we will, not what we think or say without willing it. Our will is what determines our nature and character, because it is the will that has an effect.

If on the other hand our thoughts are good, then the essence of faith, which is charity, lies inside the thought, because goodwill is present. But if we say our thoughts are good, while we live an evil life, we can never desire anything but evil, in which case faith is out of the question.

380

Genesis 4:12. “When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. A wanderer and fugitive you will be on the earth.”

Cultivating the ground symbolizes developing this schism or heresy. No longer yielding its strength to you means that it is sterile. Being a wanderer and fugitive on the earth means not knowing what is true or good.

381

The meaning of cultivating the ground as developing this schism or heresy is established by the symbolism of the ground, dealt with just above [§377]. It is evident from this, and from the words themselves, that no longer yielding its strength means being sterile. The same thing is also evident from the fact that those who profess faith without charity are professing no faith, as noted [§379].

382

The symbolism of being a wanderer and fugitive on the earth as not knowing what is true or good can be seen from the symbolism of wandering and fleeing in the Word, as in Jeremiah:

The prophets and priests wander blind in the streets; they are defiled with blood. Things that they themselves cannot touch, they touch with their clothes. (Lamentations 4:13, 14)

The prophets stand for those who teach, the priests for those who live according to what is taught. Wandering blind in the streets is not knowing what is good or true. [2] In Amos:

One plot has received rain and a plot on which it has not rained is drying up. As a result, two or three cities will wander to one city to drink water and will not get enough. (Amos 4:7, 8)

The plot that was rained on is teachings about faith that come from charity. The plot or piece of turf on which it did not rain is teachings about faith that are devoid of charity. Likewise, wandering somewhere to drink water is trying to find out what is true. [3] In Hosea:

Ephraim has been struck; their root has dried up; they will not produce fruit. My God will reject them because they did not heed him, and they will be wanderers among the nations. (Hosea 9:16, 17)

Ephraim stands for an intelligent understanding of truth, or faith, because he was Joseph’s firstborn. The root that dried up stands for a charity that cannot produce fruit. Wanderers among the nations means that they do not know what is true or good. [4] In Jeremiah:

Go up against Arabia and lay waste to the children of the east. Flee, wander far and wide. Hazor’s inhabitants have gone down below to live. (Jeremiah 49:28, 30)

Arabia and the children of the east stand for the possession of heavenly riches, or of anything touched by love. When these things have been laid waste and can produce nothing good, they too are said to flee and wander, or to be fugitives and wanderers. Hazor’s inhabitants—those who possess the spiritual riches that come with faith—are said to go down below, that is, to perish. [5] In Isaiah:

All your leaders wander about together; on account of the bow they were put in chains. From far away they fled. (Isaiah 22:3)

This is about the Valley of Vision, or the delusion that faith is possible without charity. So verse 14 below says that anyone who professes a faith that does not rise out of charity is a wanderer and fugitive, that is, knows nothing about truth or goodness.

383

Genesis 4:13. And Cain said to Jehovah, “My wickedness is too great to be taken away.”

Cain said to Jehovah symbolizes a limited confession that he was in evil’s grip, the confession resulting from a kind of internal pain. Wickedness too great to be taken away symbolizes his consequent despair.

384

This shows that a modicum of good still remained in Cain. All the good linked to charity later died out, however, as seen in Lamech, the subject of verses 19, 23, and 24.

385

Genesis 4:14. “Look, you have thrown me out today, off the face of the ground. And I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a wanderer and fugitive on the earth. And it will come about that anyone who finds me will kill me.”

Being thrown off the face of the ground symbolizes being cut off from all the church’s truth. Being hidden from your face symbolizes being cut off from all the good inherent in a loving faith. Being a wanderer and fugitive on the earth is not knowing what is true or good. Anyone who finds me will kill me means that all evil and falsity would destroy him.

386

The symbolism of being thrown out, off the face of the ground as being cut off from all the church’s truth is established by the symbolism of the ground. In its genuine sense it is the church, or those people who make up the church, and so whatever belief the church proclaims, as noted earlier [§§90, 268, 278, 313, 377]. The nuance comes from the subject under discussion. So if a person wrongly adopts a belief (that is, a schism or heresy), that person too is called the ground. Being thrown off the face of the ground here, then, means no longer knowing the church’s truth.

387

The symbolism of being hidden from your face as being cut off from all the good inherent in a loving faith is established by the symbolism of Jehovah’s face. Jehovah’s face, as previously stated [§§222–223, 358], is mercy, the source of all the good taught by a loving faith. So the good that faith teaches is symbolized here by face.

388

Being a wanderer and fugitive on the earth is not knowing what is true or good, as above [§382].

389

In consequence, anyone who finds me will kill me means that all evil and falsity would destroy him.

The situation is this: When we deprive ourselves of charity, we cut ourselves off from the Lord. Charity—love for others and mercy—is the only thing that binds us to the Lord. Without charity, there is disconnection. When there is disconnection, we are left to ourselves, or to our own devices. Under those circumstances, every thought we think is false and every purpose we intend is evil. These are the things that kill a person, or cause a person to be lifeless.

390

Moses shows how those who succumb to falsity and evil fall prey to an unremitting fear of murder:

And your land will be a ruin and your cities a wasteland. Those of you who are left—I will make their heart soft in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as if fleeing a sword, and fall when no one pursues them. And they will each collide with their brother as if before a sword, though no one pursues them. (Leviticus 26:33, 36, 37)

In Isaiah:

Traitors betray and traitorously commit the treachery of traitors. And it will happen that one fleeing from a terrifying sound will fall into the pit, and one climbing out of the middle of the pit will be caught in the snare. Their transgression will weigh on them; therefore they will fall and not rise again. (Isaiah 24:16–20)

In Jeremiah:

Here, I am bringing a horror on you; from all your surroundings you will each be driven out before it, and there will be no one to gather the wanderers. (Jeremiah 49:5)

In Isaiah:

“On a horse we will flee,” and so you will flee. “And on a swift mount we will ride,” so your pursuers will grow swift. One thousand will flee at the reproach of one, and at the reproach of five you will flee. (Isaiah 30:16, 17)

This place and others in the Word depict those who are subject to falsity and evil—how they flee, and how they fear they will be killed. Everything causes them fear because no one is protecting them.

All who have evil and falsity inside hate their neighbor; therefore each of them is eager to kill the others.

391

The best evidence that those under the sway of falsity and evil are afraid of everyone is provided by evil spirits in the other life. The ones who have deprived themselves of all charity wander and flee. Everywhere they go, whatever communities they may happen upon perceive immediately, on their first approach, what kind of person each of them is. (That kind of perception is possible in the other life.) These communities not only drive such spirits off but also punish them severely and in fact would like to kill them, if they could.

The evil take enormous delight in punishing and torturing each other; in this their greatest joy consists. And to reveal a secret, falsity and evil themselves lie at the root, since what one person desires to do to another returns on that person’s own head. Falsity and evil carry with them their own punishment and so also the fear of punishment.

392

Genesis 4:15. And Jehovah said to him, “Therefore anyone who kills Cain will suffer sevenfold vengeance.” And Jehovah put a mark on Cain, that no one who found him should strike him.

Anyone who kills Cain will suffer sevenfold vengeance means that there was a sacred ban on violating the faith that was detached in this way. Jehovah put a mark on Cain, that no one should strike him, is the fact that the Lord singled out that faith in a special way in order to preserve it.

393

Before I explain the symbolism of these things on the inner plane, the nature of faith needs to be understood.

The people of the earliest church were such that they acknowledged no other faith than faith from love, so much so that they did not even want to say the word faith. Everything involved in faith they subsumed under the idea of love from the Lord. Heavenly angels (described above [§202]) are the same way.

It was foreseen, though, that the human race would not maintain this character but would split faith off from love for the Lord and make it into a doctrine of its own. So it was also provided that faith would indeed be split off but in such a way that through it, or through a knowledge of it, the Lord would give us a heart for charity. In this way, knowledge, or “hearing the message,” would come first. Then through that knowledge or hearing the Lord would give us the gift of charity—that is, love for our neighbor, and mercy. The charity acquired by this means not only would be inseparable from faith but also would constitute faith’s principal concern.

Afterward conscience took the place of the perception that the earliest church had enjoyed. Conscience, built up through the faith that is attached to charity, would speak from within, not explaining what was true but affirming that a particular thing was true, and this because the Lord had said so in the Word. For the most part, the churches that came after the Flood—including the early [Christian] church (the first church following the Lord’s Coming)—adopted this character.

The same criterion distinguishes spiritual angels from heavenly angels.

394

Now, as these things were foreseen and provided in order to prevent the human race from dying an eternal death, the present verse says that no one was to do violence to Cain, who symbolizes a detached faith. It also says that a mark was placed on him, that is, that the Lord singled faith out in a special way in order to preserve it.

This is hidden knowledge that has never before come to light. The Lord had the same thing in mind when he spoke of marriage and of eunuchs in Matthew:

There are eunuchs who were born so from their mother’s womb. And there are eunuchs who were made so by others. And there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of God’s kingdom. Those who can understand, let them understand. (Matthew 19:12)

“Eunuch” applies to those who enter into the heavenly marriage. The ones who are like heavenly angels are called “those born so from their mother’s womb.” The ones who are like spiritual angels are called “those made so by others.” The ones who are like angelic spirits, who participate in that marriage not so much from charity as from obedience, are called “those who made themselves so.”

395

Anyone who kills Cain will suffer sevenfold vengeance means there was a sacred ban on violating the faith detached in this way. This is established by the symbolism of Cain as a detached faith and of seven as a sacred ban.

The number seven was held sacred, as is known, because of the six days of creation and because of the seventh day—which is the heavenly kind of person—on which there is peace, repose, a Sabbath. This is why the rituals of the Jewish religion so often involve the number seven, and each time it is seen to stand for something sacred.

For this reason, different stretches of time, long and short, were divided in seven and called weeks. One instance is the long periods before the coming of the Messiah in Daniel 9:24, 25. Laban and Jacob call a period of seven years a week in Genesis 29:27, 28. So wherever the number seven occurs, it is considered as standing for something sacred, or else for a sacred ban, as in David:

Seven times in a day do I praise you. (Psalms 119:164)

In Isaiah:

The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times as strong, like the light of seven days. (Isaiah 30:26)

Here the sun is love and the moon is faith from love, which will be like love.

[2] Just as the stages of a person’s regeneration are divided into six, which precede the seventh, or the stage of being heavenly, so too are the stages of devastation, which continues until nothing heavenly remains. This was represented by the Jews’ many captivities, including the last, in Babylon—a captivity of seven “ages” or seventy years; and several times it is said that the land was to rest during its Sabbaths. Devastation was also represented by Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel:

His heart will change from [that of] a human, and the heart of an animal will be given to him, until seven seasons change upon him. (Daniel 4:16, 25, 32)

Concerning the devastation of the final days as described by John:

I saw another sign in the sky, great and awesome: seven angels having the seven final plagues. (Revelation 15:1, 6, 7)

Revelation 11:2 says that the holy city will be trampled for forty-two months, which is six times seven. In the same author:

I saw a book written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. (Revelation 5:1)

Accordingly, different severities and levels of punishment were expressed in sevens, as in Moses:

If after all this you do not obey me, I will castigate you seven times harder for your sins. (Leviticus 26:18, 21, 24, 28)

In David:

Return seven times as much into our neighbors’ lap. (Psalms 79:12)

Since a sanction was placed on the violation of faith, then, because faith could be of service (as has already been said [§372]), the present verse states that the person who kills Cain will suffer sevenfold vengeance.

396

The meaning of Jehovah put a mark on Cain, that no one should strike him, as the fact that the Lord singled faith out in a special way in order to preserve it is established by the symbolism of a mark and of putting a mark on anyone as singling something out. In Ezekiel, for example:

Jehovah said, “Pass through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and you are to make a mark [that is, make a designation] on the foreheads of the men who are groaning and sighing over all the abominations.” (Ezekiel 9:4)

Marking their foreheads does not mean setting a mark or line on their foreheads but distinguishing them from others. Likewise in John:

. . . that they should harm the people who did not have God’s mark on their foreheads. (Revelation 9:4)

Having a mark also stands for being singled out. [2] The same author uses [a different word] for a mark when he speaks of “putting a mark on their hand and on their foreheads” [Revelation 14:9]. The people of the Jewish religion represented the fact of this symbolism by the binding of the first and most important commandment onto their hand and forehead, as described in Moses:

Listen, Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. You shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your powers. And you shall bind these [words] as a sign on your hand; and let them be as brow pieces between your eyes. (Deuteronomy 6:4, 5, 8; 11:13, 18)

This represented the fact that they singled out the commandment concerning love above all the other commandments, which shows what the placement of marks on their hand and forehead symbolizes. [3] In Isaiah:

[The time] to gather all nations and tongues is coming, and they will come and see my glory; and I will put a mark on them. (Isaiah 66:18, 19)

And in David:

Turn to face me and have mercy on me; give your strength to your servant, and save the child of your serving maid. Make with me a mark of goodness, and let those who hate me see and be ashamed. (Psalms 86:16, 17)

All this now establishes what a mark is. No one should suppose that any mark was actually placed on an individual named Cain, because the inner meaning of the Word involves themes completely different from those on the literal plane.

397

Genesis 4:16. And Cain went out from before Jehovah; and he lived in the land of Nod, to the east of Eden.

Cain went out from before Jehovah means that he was cut off from the good inherent in a loving faith. His living in the land of Nod is living outside truth and goodness. Living to the east of Eden is living by the dictates of the intellectual part of the mind, where love had been before.

398

To see that going out from before Jehovah [or from Jehovah’s face] means being cut off from the good inherent in a loving faith, review the comments above at verse 14 [§387]. The meaning of his living in the land of Nod as living outside truth and goodness is established by the meaning of the [Hebrew] word nod: to be a wanderer and fugitive. And being a wanderer and fugitive means being deprived of truth and goodness, as you can also see above [§382].

Living to the east of Eden means living by the dictates of the intellectual part of the mind, where before love had reigned supreme; it is also living by the dictates of the rational mind, where before charity had reigned supreme. This is established by earlier statements [§§98, 101] concerning the symbolism of Eden’s east, in which the east is identified with the Lord, and Eden, with love.

Among the people of the earliest church, the mind, composed of will and intellect, was unified. The will part of the mind was everything, with the result that the intellect belonged to the will. This was because they made no distinction between love (in the will) and faith (in the intellect), since love was everything and faith belonged to love. After faith was detached from love, however, as it was by those referred to as “Cain,” the will no longer ruled in any form. But because in that kind of mind the intellect ruled in place of the will—that is, faith ruled in place of love—it says that Cain lived to the east of Eden. This was due to the singling out of faith (as just described) by the mark put on it to preserve it for the use of the human race.

399

Genesis 4:17. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and delivered Enoch. And [Cain] was building a city, and he named the city after his son, Enoch.

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and delivered Enoch, means that this schism or heresy spontaneously produced another called “Enoch.” The city that was built symbolizes every doctrinal or heretical teaching spawned by it. As the schism or heresy was called “Enoch,” it says that the city was named after his son, Enoch.

400

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and delivered Enoch, means that this schism or heresy spontaneously produced another. This is the obvious conclusion from all that precedes. It also makes sense in light of verse 1, which says that the human and his wife, Eve, gave birth to Cain; later developments are similar conceptions and births, whether it is the church or heresies that reproduce themselves. For these offshoots the people [of the earliest church] established a genealogy, because they resemble family trees: from a single heresy, once seized upon, many others are born.

401

The reason why the heresy, and each of its doctrinal or heretical teachings, is named Enoch can be found to some extent in the name itself, which means the instruction that was initiated or first undertaken at that time.

402

The symbolism of the city that was built as every doctrinal or heretical teaching spawned by the original schism can be established from places in the Word where the names of cities occur. None of them refers to an actual city but to some doctrinal or else heretical teaching.

The angels are completely unaware of what a city is and what the name of any city is; they never do and never can have any mental picture of a city, because all their ideas are spiritual or heavenly, as previously shown [§64]. They perceive only what the symbolic meanings are. The Holy City, for instance (for which another name is Jerusalem the Holy), brings nothing else to their minds than the Lord’s kingdom in general or, more particularly, in every individual in whom it exists. The same is true of the city or mountain of Zion; they take the mountain to be the heavenly aspect of faith, the city, to be the spiritual aspect.

[2] The quality itself of being heavenly or spiritual is also depicted by cities, palaces, houses, walls, foundations, fortifications, gates, and the bars on gates, and by the temple at the heart of these. Examples occur in Ezekiel 48; Revelation 21:15–end; 21:2, 10, where the name Jerusalem the Holy is used; and Jeremiah 31:38. David uses the name the city of God, the sanctuary of the dwelling places of the Highest One in Psalms 46:4. That city is called Jehovah is there in Ezekiel 48:35. Isaiah speaks of it this way:

The children of a foreigner will rebuild your walls. All those spurning you will bow down at the soles of your feet, and they will call you Jehovah’s city, Zion of the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 60:10, 14)

In Zechariah:

Jerusalem will be called the city of truth, and Mount Zion, the holy mountain. (Zechariah 8:3)

The city of truth, or Jerusalem, symbolizes the spiritual aspects of faith, and the holy mountain, Zion, symbolizes the heavenly aspects of faith.

[3] Just as a city represents the heavenly and spiritual qualities of faith, so the cities of Judah and Israel symbolize all doctrinal teachings as a whole. When the cities are named, each symbolizes some particular teaching. Which teaching a city symbolizes no one can know without the inner meaning.

Just as cities symbolize doctrinal views, they also symbolize heretical views, and when they are named, each again symbolizes some particular view. At present the following places will show only that city in general symbolizes a point of doctrine or of heresy. [4] In Isaiah:

On that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the tongue of Canaan and swearing to Jehovah Sabaoth. One will be called the city of Heres. (Isaiah 19:18)

The subject here is the systematic study of spiritual and heavenly matters that existed at the time of the Lord’s Coming. In the same author:

Full of riots is the turbulent city, the jubilant city. (Isaiah 22:1, 2)

This is about the Valley of Vision, or about delusion. In Jeremiah:

The cities of the south have been closed, and there is no one to open them. (Jeremiah 13:19)

This is about people who are in the south, that is, who have access to the light of truth and yet extinguish it. In the same author:

Jehovah has thought to destroy the wall of Zion’s daughter. He makes the bulwark and the wall mourn; together they have been weakened. Her gates have sunk into the earth; he has destroyed and smashed the bars locking them. (Lamentations 2:8, 9)

Anyone can see here that the wall, bulwark, gates, and bars mean nothing but doctrinal tenets. [5] Likewise in Isaiah:

This song will be sung in the land of Judah: A city strong for us. Salvation will place the walls and bulwark. Open the gates, so that an upright nation keeping faith may walk in. (Isaiah 26:1, 2)

In the same author:

I will exalt you, I will acclaim your name! You have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin. A palace for foreigners will never be built from the city to eternity. Therefore a strong people will honor you, a city of fearsome nations will be afraid of you. (Isaiah 25:1, 2, 3)

Neither is this passage talking about a city. In Balaam’s prophecy:

Edom will be an inheritance and will rule from Jacob and cause the destruction of the remainder from the city. (Numbers 24:18, 19)

Anyone can see that in this passage the city does not literally mean a city. In Isaiah:

The empty city has been broken; every house has been closed so that no one will be able to enter. A shouting over the wine in the streets! (Isaiah 24:10, 11)

The empty city stands for the empty claims of doctrine. Streets here and elsewhere mean things that are part of the city, whether false or true. In John:

When the seventh angel poured out his bowl, the big city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations fell. (Revelation 16:19)

The big city is a heretical point of view, and so are the cities of the nations, as anyone can see. Revelation 17:18 explains that the big city is the woman John saw, and I have already shown [§§252–253] that a woman is a church of the kind being described.

403

This establishes the symbolism of a city. But because all the details have been linked into a story, people who concentrate on the literal meaning view it as saying simply that Cain built a city and called it Enoch. They can see nothing more in it even though the literal meaning also requires them to believe that the land was well populated, despite the fact that Cain was Adam’s firstborn. This is the story line’s necessary implication. As noted earlier [§66], though, the custom of the earliest people was to express everything through representative images and weave them into a narrative. This custom gave them the greatest pleasure; it seemed to make everything come alive.

404

Genesis 4:18. And Irad was born to Enoch. And Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech.

All these names symbolize heresies stemming from the first one, called Cain. Since we know nothing about them but their names, there is no need to say anything.

The derivation of their names, however, yields a measure of information. Irad’s name, for instance, signifies that he descends from a city and so from the heresy called Enoch; and so on.

405

Genesis 4:19. And Lamech took two wives to himself, the name of one being Adah and the name of the other Zillah.

Lamech, the sixth descendant in order, beginning with Cain, symbolizes devastation—a condition in which there is no more faith. The two wives symbolize the origin of a new church; Adah stands as the mother of that church’s heavenly and spiritual attributes, Zillah as the mother of its earthly attributes.

406

The symbolism of Lamech as devastation, or the absence of faith, can be seen in verses 23 and 24 below: he killed a man for his wound and a little child for his bruise. A man there means faith and a little child charity.

407

The state of a church in general is such that over time it tends to ebb away from true faith and finally terminate without any faith. When faith is gone, the church is described as devastated or ruined. That is what happened in the earliest church among those called followers of Cain. It occurred also in the ancient church, which followed the Flood. It occurred also in the Jewish church, which was so utterly devastated at the time of the Lord’s Coming that they did not know anything about him or the fact that he was coming to save them; still less did they know anything about faith in him. It occurred also in the early [Christian] church—the first church following the Lord’s Coming—which today is in such complete ruins that no faith remains.

Even so, a nucleus of the church always remains in existence, unrecognized by those whose faith has been destroyed. A remnant of the earliest church, for example, survived until the Flood and continued on after it. That church remnant is called Noah.

408

When a church has been so thoroughly devastated that no more faith remains, it makes a new start; a new light shines out. In the Word, this is called “morning.” The reason why the new light or morning does not dawn before devastation is complete is that any manifestation of faith or charity is mingled with something profane, and as long as they are mingled, no light or charity can be introduced. Tares destroy all the good seed. When there is no faith, faith can no longer be profaned, because no one believes what is said anyway.

Those who do not acknowledge and believe something but only know it cannot profane it, as pointed out earlier [§§302–303].

Jews these days, for instance, because they live among Christians, necessarily realize that Christians acknowledge the Lord as the Messiah that they (the Jews) waited and are still waiting for. But they cannot profane the idea because they do not acknowledge or believe it. The same is true of Muslims and the people of unbaptized nations who have heard of the Lord. This was why the Lord came into the world at a time when the Jewish church no longer acknowledged or believed anything.

409

The situation was similar for the heresy named Cain, which over time suffered devastation. It is true that this heresy acknowledged love, but it put faith in first place, ahead of love. The further heresies that it bred gradually deviated from this, and Lamech, the sixth in line, absolutely denied faith. When this era arrived, a new light or dawn emerged and grew into a new church, here called Adah and Zillah, who are described as Lamech’s wives.

They are called the wives of Lamech (who was devoid of faith) just as the inner church and outer church of the Jews (who were also devoid of faith) are called wives in the Word. This was represented in Leah and Rachel, the two wives of Jacob; Leah stood for the outer church and Rachel for the inner. Although this pair of churches appears to be two churches, they are one church, because the external, representative church without the internal church is simply something idolatrous or dead. The internal together with the external, on the other hand, formed one and the same church, as Adah and Zillah do here.

Since “Jacob” or in other words his descendants were, like Lamech, lacking in faith, the church could not remain among them but was transferred to non-Jewish nations, who lived in ignorance rather than faithlessness. Rarely if ever does the church survive among possessors of the truth while they are undergoing devastation. Instead it is transferred to those who know absolutely nothing of the truth, because they embrace faith much more easily.

410

There are two kinds of devastation. The first takes place with people who know but do not want to know, or who see but do not want to see. This is what Jews were like and what Christians are like today. The second kind takes place with people who neither know nor see anything because they are untaught. This is what the nations outside the Judeo-Christian tradition were like and are like today as well.

When devastation reaches its final stage with those who know but do not want to know, or see but do not want to see, the church springs up anew. It does so not among that group of people but among people whom they call gentiles. This is what happened in the earliest church, which predated the Flood; it is what happened in the ancient church, which followed the Flood; it is what happened in the Jewish church.

The reason new light then shines for the first time is, as I said [§408], that people can no longer profane what is being revealed because they do not acknowledge or believe in its truth.

411

Many times in the prophets the Lord says that the final stage of devastation has to arrive before a new church can arise. In those places it is called either devastation, which relates to the heavenly aspects of faith, or desolation, which relates to its spiritual aspects. It is also referred to as a culmination and a cutting off. Examples are found in Isaiah 6:9, 11, 12; 24:1–end; 33:8 and following verses; 42:15–18; Jeremiah 25:1–end; Daniel 8:1–end; 9:24–end; Zephaniah 1:1–end; Deuteronomy 32:1–end; Revelation 15, 16, and following chapters.

412

Genesis 4:20. And Adah delivered Jabal; he was the father of the tent dweller, and of livestock.

Adah as before [§405] means the mother of the heavenly and spiritual aspects of faith. Jabal, the father of the tent dweller and of livestock, symbolizes teachings about holy love and the good actions that result from it, which are heavenly things.

413

The symbolism of Adah as the mother of faith’s heavenly aspects can be seen in her firstborn, Jabal. He is called the father of the tent dweller, and of livestock. These things are heavenly because they symbolize holy love and the good actions in which it results.

414

The fact that dwelling in a tent means holy love is established by the symbolism of tents in the Word, as, for instance, in David:

Jehovah, who will stay in your tent? Who will live on your holy mountain? Those walking unblemished and doing justice and speaking truth in their heart. (Psalms 15:1, 2)

This passage tells what it means to live in a tent or on a holy mountain, which it equates with the holy ways of love, that is, with walking unblemished and doing justice. In the same author:

Their line has gone out into all the earth and their discourse to the end of the world. He placed a tent for the sun among them. (Psalms 19:4)

The sun here stands for love. In the same author:

I will stay in your tent forever; I will feel safe in the hiding place of your wings. (Psalms 61:4)

The tent stands for something heavenly, the hiding place of the wings for something spiritual that grows out of it. In Isaiah:

The throne has been strengthened by mercy, and he sits on it in truth in David’s tent, judging and seeking judgment and hastening justice. (Isaiah 16:5)

Again the tent stands for holy love, exercised through the rendering of judgment and the hastening of justice. In the same author:

Look at Zion, the city of our appointed feast; may your eyes see Jerusalem, a tranquil dwelling, a tent that does not move. (Isaiah 33:20)

This speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem. [2] In Jeremiah:

This is what Jehovah has said: “Watch! I am bringing back Jacob’s captured tents, and I will have mercy on his dwellings. And the city will be built on its own [ruin] mound.” (Jeremiah 30:18)

The capture of the tents stands for being stripped of heavenly qualities, or holy love. In Amos:

On that day I will raise up David’s fallen pavilion, and wall up its breaches, and its ruins I will raise up, and I will rebuild it as in the days of old. (Amos 9:11)

The pavilion (or tabernacle) here likewise stands for heavenly attributes and their holiness. In Jeremiah:

The whole earth was devastated. Quickly were my tents devastated; in an instant, my tent curtains. (Jeremiah 4:20)

And in another place:

My tent was devastated and all my ropes were torn out; my children left me and were no more. I am no longer stretching out my tent or setting up my tent curtains. (Jeremiah 10:20)

The tent stands for heavenly qualities, the tent curtains and ropes for the spiritual qualities that come from them. In the same author:

[Others] will seize their tents and flocks; [others] will carry off for themselves their tent curtains and all their vessels and the camels. (Jeremiah 49:29)

This is about Arabia and the “children of the east,” representing people who possess holy, heavenly qualities. In the same author:

The Lord poured his wrath out into the tent of Zion’s daughter like fire. (Lamentations 2:4)

This stands for being stripped of everything sacred and heavenly about faith.

[3] The reason why a tent in the Word is taken to mean sacred, heavenly love is that the ancients carried out sacred worship in their tents. When they started to profane the tents with profane types of worship, the tabernacle and later the Temple were built. So tents have the same symbolism as the tabernacle and the subsequent Temple. A godly person is therefore called a tent, a tabernacle, and a temple to the Lord.

It is clear in David that a tent, a tabernacle, and a temple mean the same thing:

One thing have I asked of Jehovah; this I will seek: that I may remain in Jehovah’s house all the days of my life to watch Jehovah in sweet pleasure and to make early morning visits in his Temple. For he will hide me in his tabernacle on the day of evil. He will conceal me in the concealment of his tent; on a rock he will lift me up, and now my head will be lifted up against my enemies all around me and I will offer in his tent the sacrifices of shouting. (Psalms 27:4, 5, 6)

[4] In the highest sense, the Lord’s human quality is a tent, a tabernacle, and a temple. That is why these terms are applied to every heavenly person and to every sacred, heavenly quality too.

The Lord loved the earliest church more than the ones following it, and its people lived alone with each other—divided into their families, that is—holding sacred worship in their tents. For these two reasons their tents were considered more sacred than the Temple, which was eventually profaned. In remembrance of this, the Feast of Booths (or huts) was established. It took place while the people were gathering the land’s produce, and during it they lived in huts as the earliest people had (Leviticus 23:39–44; Deuteronomy 16:13; Hosea 12:9).

415

The symbolism of the father of livestock as the good actions resulting from holy love can be seen from what was shown above at verse 2 of this chapter [§§343–344]: that the shepherd of the flock symbolizes the good actions that charity inspires. The present verse, though, mentions a father rather than a shepherd, and livestock rather than a flock; and the expression of livestock (dependent on father) directly follows the word tent. This shows that the phrase means good actions coming from holy love. A home or fold for the livestock is the idea; in other words, it is referring to the father of those that lived in tents and livestock pens.

Their symbolism as the goodness produced by heavenly love can also be seen throughout the Word, as in Jeremiah, for instance:

I will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I dispersed them, and I will bring them back to their folds, so that they may breed and multiply. (Jeremiah 23:3)

In Ezekiel:

In a good pasture I will pasture them, and on the mountains of Israel’s height will be their fold. There will they lie in a good fold, and on rich pasture they will graze in Israel’s mountains. (Ezekiel 34:14)

The folds and pastures stand for the goodness that love brings about, described as “rich.” [2] In Isaiah:

He will give rain for the seed with which you will sow the ground; and the bread, the produce of the ground, will be rich with fat and oil. He will pasture your livestock on that day in a broad meadow. (Isaiah 30:23)

The bread symbolizes what is heavenly, and the richness on which the livestock will graze symbolizes the good actions that result from it. In Jeremiah:

Jehovah has ransomed Jacob; and they will come and sing on Zion’s height and stream together toward the goodness Jehovah has bestowed on wheat and on new wine and on oil and on the offspring of flock and herd, and their soul will be like a watered garden. (Jeremiah 31:11, 12)

This depicts Jehovah’s holiness as wheat and oil, the good actions coming from it as new wine and as offspring of flock and herd—livestock. In the same author:

Shepherds and the flocks of their livestock will come to the daughter of Zion. They will fix their tents near her all around. They will each graze their space. (Jeremiah 6:3)

The daughter of Zion stands for a heavenly type of church, which is associated with both tents and flocks of livestock.

416

More evidence that the intended meaning is holy love and the good actions that come out of it can be seen in the fact that Jabal actually was not the first of those that lived in tents and livestock pens. Abel—the human’s and Eve’s second son—is also called a shepherd of the flock, and Jabal is seventh in line from Cain.

417

Genesis 4:21. And the name of his brother was Jubal; he was the father of everyone playing the harp and the organ.

The name of his brother was Jubal symbolizes teachings about spiritual things in the same church. The father of everyone playing the harp and the organ symbolizes the true ideas and good deeds of faith.

418

The last verse dealt with heavenly things, which belong to love. The current verse deals with spiritual things, which have to do with faith. These are expressed by the harp and organ.

The symbolism of stringed instruments—harps and the like—as the spiritual qualities of faith is evident from many things.

It is exactly what the same kind of instruments represented in the worship of the representative church, and what vocal music represented as well, which is why there were so many singers and musicians. The underlying reason is that all heavenly joy makes the heart cheerful, and the cheer was attested to in song that had string instruments added to echo and enhance it. All the heart’s emotions carry with them the tendency to spill out in song and so in the accompaniment to a song. The feeling in the heart is heavenly in nature; the song it inspires is spiritual.

[2] The symbolism of songs and other kinds of music as something spiritual is clear to me from angel choirs, of which there are two kinds: heavenly and spiritual. The singing of the spiritual choirs has a sound reminiscent of [beating] wings that can be compared to the sound of stringed instruments, which makes it easy to distinguish them from heavenly choirs. (They will be described later, with the Lord’s divine mercy.)

The earliest people, moreover, assigned anything of a heavenly nature to the heart’s province and anything spiritual to the lungs’ province. In this way they associated spirituality with any use of the lungs, such as for vocal music and so on; as a result they associated it with the “voices” or sounds of wind instruments. The reason was not only that the heart and lungs represent a kind of marriage, as love and faith do, but also that heavenly angels belong to the province of the heart and spiritual angels belong to that of the lungs.

The presence of these meanings in the current verse can also be seen from the consideration that the Word is the Lord’s, but would be devoid of life if it were merely telling that Jubal was the father of those who play the harp and the organ. Nor would it be useful to anyone to know this.

419

Just as holy love and the good actions that it gives rise to are heavenly things, the true ideas of faith and the good actions that faith gives rise to are spiritual things. The function of faith, after all, is to understand not only what is true but also what is good; religious knowledge involves both. But to be the kind of person that faith teaches us to be is a heavenly thing.

As faith involves both truth and goodness, they are symbolized by the two instruments—harp and organ. A harp is a stringed instrument, as everyone knows, so it symbolizes spiritual truth. An organ, though, is midway between a stringed and a wind instrument, so it symbolizes spiritual good.

420

The Word mentions various instruments, each of which has its own symbolism. These will, by the Lord’s divine mercy, be explained in the appropriate places. For the moment let me restrict myself to the following in David:

I will offer in Jehovah’s tent the sacrifices of shouting; I will sing and make music to Jehovah. (Psalms 27:6)

The tent expresses the idea of something heavenly, and the shouting, singing, and music-making something spiritual that grows out of it. In the same author:

Sing [for joy] in Jehovah, you who show justice. For the upright, praise of him is beautiful. Give thanks to Jehovah on a harp; on a ten-string lute make music to him. Sing him a new song, make your strumming excel in its clamor, because Jehovah’s word is upright, and every work of his is done in truth. (Psalms 33:1, 2, 3, 4)

These stand for religious truth; everything said applies to that truth. [2] Spiritual things, which are the truth and goodness involved in faith, were celebrated by harp and lute, by song, and by similar music. The holy or heavenly aspects of faith were celebrated by wind instruments—horns and so on. This is why so many instruments were connected with the Temple and why it says so many times that certain instruments were used in celebrating this thing or that. So the instruments are taken to mean the very qualities themselves that the instruments were honoring, as those just discussed are. [3] In the same author:

I will give thanks to you on the lute; your truth, my God, I will play as music to you on the harp, Holy One of Israel. My lips will sing when I make music to you, as will my soul, which you redeemed. (Psalms 71:22, 23)

This too is about religious truth. In the same author:

Answer Jehovah with thanksgiving; make music to our God on a harp. (Psalms 147:7)

The giving of thanks here is about the heavenly aspects of faith, which is why the name Jehovah is used, and making music with a harp is about the spiritual aspects, which is why the name God is used. In the same author:

Let them praise Jehovah’s name in dance; on tambourine and harp let them make music to him. (Psalms 149:3)

The tambourine stands for good, and the harp, for truth, which the people are praising. [4] In the same author:

Praise God with the blare of a horn. Praise him on lute and harp. Praise him on tambourine and in dance. Praise him on strings and organ. Praise him with loud cymbals. Praise him with shouting cymbals. (Psalms 150:3, 4, 5)

These stand for religious goodness and truth, for which the people are offering praise. Do not imagine that so many instruments would be named if they did not each symbolize something. In the same author:

Send your light and your truth. Let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain and to your dwelling places. And I will go in to God’s altar, to the God of my happiness and joy, and I will give thanks to you with a harp, God, my God. (Psalms 43:3, 4)

These things stand for knowledge of goodness and truth. [5] In Isaiah:

Take a harp, circle the city, strum well, multiply your singing, in order to be remembered. (Isaiah 23:16)

These types of music stand for the attributes of faith and of religious knowledge. Still more clearly in John:

The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each of them having harps and golden bowls full of pieces of incense, which are the prayers of the godly. (Revelation 5:8)

Anyone can see that they did not have harps but rather that the harps symbolize religious truth, and the golden bowls full of incense symbolize religious good. In David, in Psalms 42:4 and 69:30, the music made by instruments is called praise and thanksgiving. Elsewhere in John:

I heard a sound from the sky like that of many waters. I heard the sound of harpists strumming on their harps; they were singing a new song. (Revelation 14:2, 3)

And in another place:

Men were standing next to the glassy sea, having God’s harps. (Revelation 15:2)

It is noteworthy that angels and spirits distinguish sounds on the basis of differences in goodness and truth. They do this with the sounds not only of singing and instruments but also of words, and they refuse to listen to any but those that harmonize. The result is concord between the sounds (and so the instruments) on one hand and the nature and essence of good and truth on the other.

421

Genesis 4:22. And Zillah in turn delivered Tubal-cain, who trained every artisan in bronze and iron. And Tubal-cain’s sister was Naamah.

Zillah, as noted [§§405, 409], means the mother of the earthly aspects of the new church. Tubal-cain, who trained every artisan in bronze and iron, symbolizes teachings about good and truth on the earthly level, bronze symbolizing earthly good and iron earthly truth. Tubal-cain’s sister Naamah symbolizes another similar church—or teachings about good and truth on the earthly level—outside the bounds of that church.

422

The way things stood in this new church can be seen from the Jewish church. It was composed of an inner church and an outer church. Heavenly and spiritual qualities made up the inner church, and earthly qualities, the outer. The inner church was represented by Rachel and the outer by Leah. Jacob, however, or rather his descendants (who are meant by the name Jacob in the Word), were such that they had no interest in anything but outward acts, that is, external worship. Jacob received Leah before Rachel, and Leah with her weak eyes represented the Jewish church, while Rachel represented a new church among non-Jewish nations. So the mention of Jacob in the prophets can be taken in both ways—one when the corrupt Jewish church is symbolized and the other when the true external church among other nations is symbolized. When the inner church is meant, it is called Israel. These things, with the Lord’s divine mercy, will be dealt with later.

423

Tubal-cain is described as one who trained every artisan rather than as a father, the way Jabal and Jubal were earlier. The heavenly and spiritual attributes, or deeper qualities, [of that new church] had not existed before, and since these first came into being at that time, Jabal and Jubal are called fathers. But the earthly attributes, or superficial ones, [of that church] had previously existed (although at this point they are connected with [those new] inner things), so he is called not the father but the trainer of an artisan.

424

An artisan in the Word symbolizes one who is wise, understanding, or knowledgeable; here, where it is an artisan in bronze or iron, it symbolizes those who know about earthly goodness and truth. In John, for example:

In an onslaught, Babylon, the big city, will be overthrown, and it will not be found any longer. And the sound of harpists and musicians and flutists and trumpeters will not be heard in it any longer. And no artisan of any art will be found in it any longer. (Revelation 18:21, 22)

Harpists stand for religious truth, as they did above, and trumpeters, for religious good. An artisan of any art stands for one who knows about truth and goodness or for the knowledge itself. In Isaiah:

The artisan casts a sculpture, and the metalsmith overlays it with gold and molds chains of silver. [An idolater] seeks out a wise artisan to prepare a sculpture, in hopes that it will not be toppled. (Isaiah 40:19, 20)

The artisan stands for those who concoct falsity—the sculpture—for themselves out of their illusions and teach it in a way that makes it seem true. In Jeremiah:

While they are becoming foolish, they grow stupid. Their education in worthless things is a piece of wood. Silver beaten thin is brought from Tarshish, gold from Uphaz, the work of the artisan and of the metalsmith’s hands, blue-violet fabric and clothing—all of them the work of the wise. (Jeremiah 10:3, 8, 9)

These things symbolize a person who teaches falsity and who collects scriptural passages to use in molding a fiction. This is why it is called an education in worthless things and the work of the wise. Such people were once represented by artisans who cast idols (falsities) that they embellish with gold (an imitation of good), silver (an imitation of truth), and blue-violet fabric and clothing (things on the earthly plane that seem to harmonize).

425

The world is still unaware that bronze symbolizes earthly good, and that every metal named in the Word is a symbol for something in the inner meaning. Gold, for instance, symbolizes heavenly good, silver symbolizes spiritual truth, bronze earthly good, iron earthly truth, and so on with all the rest. The same is true for stone and wood. The gold, silver, bronze, and wood used in the ark and in the tabernacle symbolize these things, as do those used in the Temple, all of which will be taken up later, with the Lord’s divine mercy.

These symbolic meanings shine out in the prophets. In Isaiah, for example:

You will suck the milk of the nations, and you will suck the nipple of monarchs. For bronze I will bring in gold; and for iron I will bring in silver; and for wood, bronze; and for stones, iron; and I will make peace your property, and justice your taskmaster. (Isaiah 60:16, 17)

This is about the Lord’s Coming, his kingdom, and the church whose character is heavenly. “For bronze, gold” means heavenly goodness in place of earthly goodness. “For iron, silver” means spiritual truth in place of earthly truth. “For wood, bronze” means goodness on the earthly level in place of goodness on the bodily level. “For stones, iron” means truth on the earthly level in place of truth gained through the senses. In Ezekiel:

Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your dealers in human souls; and vessels of bronze they sold as your trade goods. (Ezekiel 27:13)

The subject here is Tyre, which symbolizes those who have spiritual and heavenly riches; the vessels of bronze stand for earthly goodness. In Moses:

. . . a land whose stones are iron, and from its mountains you will mine bronze. (Deuteronomy 8:9)

Here too the stones stand for truth gained through the senses, iron stands for truth on the earthly plane, or truth in the rational mind, and bronze stands for good on the earthly plane. Ezekiel saw four living creatures (guardian beings) with feet gleaming “like the appearance of burnished bronze” (Ezekiel 1:7), where again bronze symbolizes good on the earthly level, because a person’s foot represents the earthly level. Daniel likewise saw:

A man clothed in linen, and his hips were circled with the gold of Uphaz, and his body was like tarshish, his arms and his feet were like the appearance of burnished bronze. (Daniel 10:5, 6)

The bronze snake mentioned in Numbers 21:9 represented goodness present in the Lord on the level of the senses and on the earthly plane. See the earlier discussion [§197].

426

The symbolism of iron as earthly truth is established not only by the places just cited but also by Ezekiel’s words concerning Tyre:

Tarshish was your dealer, on account of the vastness of all your affluence; for silver, iron, tin, and lead they sold your merchandise. Dan and Javan and Meuzal for your trade goods gave polished iron; cassia and calamus were in your market. (Ezekiel 27:12, 19)

From these verses and those before and after them in the same chapter it can be seen clearly that heavenly and spiritual riches are being symbolized and that each item named means some specific entity. So do the personal names. The Lord’s Word, after all, is spiritual, not mere words. [2] In Jeremiah:

Will anyone crush iron, iron from the north, and bronze? Your resources and treasures I will turn into plunder, [in exchange] not for a price but for all your sins. (Jeremiah 15:12, 13)

Iron and bronze stand for earthly truth and goodness. What comes from the north symbolizes the level of the senses and the earthly level, because the earthly level in respect to the spiritual and heavenly level is like northern darkness in relation to southern sunlight. Or it is like a shadow, which Zillah (Tubal-cain’s mother) also symbolizes here. Plainly the resources and treasures mean heavenly, spiritual riches. [3] In Ezekiel:

Take yourself an iron griddle and put it as an iron partition between yourself and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be for a siege, and tighten the siege against it. (Ezekiel 4:3)

Clearly iron symbolizes truth here. Truth is considered strong because nothing can resist it. So iron, which symbolizes truth, or the verities of faith, is said to crush and bruise, as in Daniel 2:33, 40. And in John it says:

To those who conquer I will give authority over the nations, to shepherd them with an iron rod, as if clay pots were being crushed. (Revelation 2:26, 27)

In the same author:

The woman delivered a male child, who is to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod. (Revelation 12:5)

[4] An iron rod is the truth in the Lord’s Word, as John himself explains:

I saw the sky opened, when look! A white horse. And the one sitting on it was called faithful and true, and he judges and fights in justice. He was dressed in a garment dyed with blood, and his name is called God’s Word. From his mouth issues a sharp saber, and with it he will strike the nations, and he will shepherd them with an iron rod. (Revelation 19:11, 13, 15)

427

Genesis 4:23. And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, “Listen to my voice, wives of Lamech, and with your ears perceive what I say, because I killed a man for my wound and a little child for my bruise.”

Lamech as before [§§405, 406] symbolizes devastation. He said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, that they should perceive with their ears what he said, is an admission of guilt, which is made only where the church exists, the church being symbolized by his wives, as mentioned [§409]. He killed a man for his wound means that he destroyed faith, a man symbolizing faith, as before [§§340, 367:1]. Killing a little child for his bruise is destroying charity. The wound and the bruise mean that nothing was sound any longer, the wound meaning that faith had been abandoned and the bruise meaning that charity had been wiped out.

428

The contents of this verse and the next show clearly that Lamech symbolizes devastation, since it says that he killed a man and a little child, and that Cain will be avenged seven times, and Lamech seventy-seven times.

429

The symbolism of a man as faith can be seen from the first verse of this chapter, in which Eve delivered Cain and said, “I have acquired the man Jehovah.” This meant the doctrine concerning faith, which was called “the man Jehovah” [§340]. It can also be seen from earlier remarks [§§158, 265] showing that a man symbolizes the intellect, since the intellect is connected with faith.

From this it is apparent that Lamech also destroyed charity, which is called a little child, because anyone who denies or murders faith also denies and murders the charity that is being born through faith.

430

In the Word a little child symbolizes innocence, and charity too, since true innocence is not possible without charity, nor true charity without innocence. There are three levels of innocence, and in the Word they are identified as babies, toddlers, and children. Because true innocence is impossible without true love and charity, three levels of love are symbolized by the same three age groups. Those levels are: a tender love like the kind babies have for their mother or wet nurse; a love like the kind toddlers have for their parents; and charity like the kind children have for their teachers. Isaiah contains an example:

The wolf will stay with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fattened animal [will live] together, and a little child will lead them. (Isaiah 11:6)

The lamb, kid, and calf stand for innocence and love in their three degrees. The wolf, leopard, and young lion stand for the opposite. A little child stands for charity. [2] In Jeremiah:

You do great evil against your own souls, cutting off from yourselves man and wife, toddler and baby in the middle of Judah, so as to prevent a remnant from remaining to you. (Jeremiah 44:7)

“Man and wife” stand for the intellectual properties of truth and the will-oriented properties of good. “Baby and infant” stand for the first levels of love. The identification of babies and children with innocence and charity stands out clearly in the Lord’s words in Luke:

They brought babies to Jesus to touch them; he said, “Allow the little ones to come to me and do not stop them, because these are the kind who make up God’s kingdom. Truly, I say to you: whoever does not accept God’s kingdom as a child does, will not enter it.” (Luke 18:15, 16, 17)

The Lord himself is called a little child in Isaiah 9:6 because he is innocence itself and love itself, and he is there said to be “miraculous, a Counselor, God, Hero, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

431

The wound and the bruise mean the fact that nothing was sound any longer, the wound specifically meaning that faith had been abandoned and the bruise meaning that charity had been wiped out. This can be seen from the fact that the man is associated with the wound and the child with the bruise. Isaiah uses the same words to depict the abandonment of faith and destruction of charity:

From the sole of the foot right to the head, there is no soundness in it; wound, bruise, and fresh blow, not pressed out and not bandaged and not softened with oil. (Isaiah 1:6)

The wound is used for faith abandoned, the bruise for charity wiped out, and the blow for both.

432

Genesis 4:24. “For Cain will be avenged seven times, and Lamech seventy-seven times.”

These words mean that they obliterated the faith meant by Cain, although there was a sacred ban on the violation of it, and at the same time they obliterated the charity that was to be born through faith. Charity being far more sacrosanct, the result was damnation, which is what being avenged seventy-seven times is.

433

For the meaning of Cain will be avenged seven times as the placement of a sacred ban on violating the detached faith meant by Cain, see what was shown at verse 15 [§§392–396]. The symbolism of seventy-seven times as being far more sacrosanct and resulting in damnation can be seen from the symbolism of seventy-seven times.

Seven is a holy number because the seventh day symbolizes the heavenly person, the heavenly church, the heavenly kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord himself. Therefore the number seven means something holy or sacrosanct wherever it occurs in the Word. The holiness or heinousness belongs to the qualities under discussion and is determined by them. Seventy is also holy because it covers seven “ages,” an “age” in the Word being ten years.

When anything extremely holy or positively sacrosanct was expressed, the words seventy times seven times were used. The Lord, for instance, said that we should not forgive our brother or sister up to seven times but up to seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21, 22). This means that we should forgive as often as our brother or sister sins, without limit, or to eternity, which is holy. And the fact here that vengeance would be taken seventy-seven times means damnation, because violation was absolutely forbidden.

434

Genesis 4:25. And the human knew his wife again, and she delivered a son and called his name Seth, “Because God has restored other seed for me in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”

The human and his wife mean the new church previously symbolized by Adah and Zillah. Their son, whose name she called Seth, symbolizes a new faith that will allow charity to take hold. God has restored other seed in place of Abel, since Cain killed him means that charity, which Cain separated and extinguished, has now been given to this church as a gift by the Lord.

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 and 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.

436

The symbolism of their son, whose name she called Seth, as a new faith that will allow charity to take hold can be seen from statements made earlier and from the verse saying that Cain had a mark placed on him to prevent his murder [§392].

The chain of events is this: Faith that had detached from love was symbolized by Cain, charity by Abel. This detached faith put an end to charity, as symbolized by Cain’s murder of Abel. Faith was preserved to enable the Lord to instill charity by means of it, as symbolized by Jehovah’s putting a mark on Cain to keep anyone from killing him. Afterward, it was by means of faith that the Lord endowed people with holy love and the goodness that comes from it, symbolized by Jabal, who was born to Adah. He also granted them the spiritual gift of faith, symbolized by Jabal’s brother Jubal. And through these he imparted earthly goodness and truth, symbolized by Tubal-cain, who was born to Zillah. These two verses bring the story to a close and so sum up the state of affairs, which is that the human and his wife symbolize the new church previously referred to as Adah and Zillah; Seth symbolizes faith, through which charity is implanted; and, in the next verse, Enosh symbolizes the charity implanted through faith.

437

The symbolism here of Seth as a new faith that will allow charity to take hold is explained by his name, in that he was so called because God restored other seed in place of Abel, since Cain killed him. God restored other seed means that the Lord gave people another kind of faith. Other seed is a faith that allows for the growth of charity. For the symbolism of seed as faith, see above at §255.

438

Genesis 4:26. And to Seth in turn a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah.

Seth symbolizes a faith that allows for the growth of charity, as noted. His son, whose name was Enosh, symbolizes a church that considered charity to be faith’s principal concern. Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah symbolizes worship from charity in that church.

439

The symbolism of Seth as a faith that allows for the growth of charity was shown at the previous verse. The symbolism of his son, whose name was Enosh, as a church that considered charity to be faith’s principal concern can also be seen from earlier statements. In addition this can be seen from the fact that the child is called Enosh, another name meaning person—not a heavenly person but an individual with a spiritual nature, who is Enosh here.

It can be seen from the very next words as well: then people began to call on the name of Jehovah.

440

The symbolism of then people began to call on the name of Jehovah as worship from charity in that church can be seen from the fact that invoking Jehovah’s name is a ritual common to all worship of the Lord. The fact that the worship is based on charity is established by the use here of the name Jehovah (the last verse spoke of God) and by the fact that the Lord cannot be worshiped except from charity. Faith that does not come from charity does not lead to worship, because it lives only on the lips, not in the heart.

The Word makes it clear that calling on Jehovah’s name is a common practice in all worship of the Lord. Take these words about Abram:

He built an altar to Jehovah and called on the name of Jehovah. (Genesis 12:8; 13:4)

He planted a grove in Beer-sheba and there called on the name of Jehovah, the God of eternity. (Genesis 21:33)

That it is an element of all worship is indicated in Isaiah:

Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, has said, “You have not called on me, Jacob, and you have wearied of me, Israel. You have not brought me the animal of your burnt offerings, and with sacrifices you have not honored me. I have not made you serve me with your minha nor wearied you with frankincense.” (Isaiah 43:22, 23)

This provides a summary of all representative worship.

441

This was not actually when people first started calling on Jehovah’s name, as is fairly clear from the information above concerning the earliest church, which more than other churches revered and worshiped the Lord. The fact that Abel brought an offering from the firstborn of his flock is further evidence. So calling on the name of Jehovah here means nothing else than the worship of the new church after the previous one had been destroyed by those called Cain and, later, Lamech.

442

From evidence given in this chapter it is clear that in the earliest era there were many theologies developed outside the church, and many heresies, each of which had its own name. The thinking behind these independent theologies and heresies was much more profound than in modern times because the people of the time were by nature deep thinkers.

Several Examples from Spirits of Opinions They Adopted during Their Physical Lives Concerning the Soul or Spirit

443

In the other life it is easy to tell what opinions others held during bodily life concerning the soul, the spirit, and life after death. When people are kept in a state like the one they had in the body, they think the same way they did then, and their thinking is communicated as clearly as if they were talking out loud.

In the case of one spirit who had departed this world not long before, I perceived—and he admitted—that although he believed he would live on as a spirit, he expected to live a vague kind of life. His thinking, since he located life in the body, was that if physical life were withdrawn, only a vague something-or-other would remain. So his picture of the spirit was like that of a ghost. The observation that brute animals too had life, almost as people do, had confirmed him in his opinion. But now he was amazed to see that spirits and angels live in the greatest possible light and in the greatest possible intelligence, wisdom, and happiness, with such keen perception that it can hardly be described. Far from living a dim kind of life, he discovered, they live a clear and intensely vivid life.

444

I talked with another individual who during life in the world had not believed the spirit had any extension in space. On this principle, he had refused to accept any word that involved dimension [to describe the spirit]. I asked him, “What do you think now, as a soul or spirit, about the fact that you possess sight, hearing, smell, sensitive touch, desires, and thoughts, so much so that you feel exactly as if you were still in your body?”

Restricted to the picture he had formed when thinking about the subject in the world, he said, “The spirit consists in thought.”

“You once were alive in the world,” I was allowed to reply. “Don’t you know that physical sight cannot occur without the visual organ—the eye? How can thought, which is inner sight, do so? Doesn’t it require an organic substance in order to operate?” He then acknowledged that during the life of the body he had labored under the delusion that spirit is simply thought, without any organic matter or dimension.

“If the soul or spirit was only thought,” I added, “we would have no need for a brain the size we have, since the brain is nothing but an organ for our interior senses. If that were not its function, the skull could be hollow and still provide a place for our thoughts to do the work of the spirit. This alone should have convinced you that the spirit is organic, or made of organic substance. And had you considered what impressive activities result when the soul operates on the muscles, it might also have convinced you.” He confessed his error and wondered how he could have been so foolish.

445

I said further that the erudite fully believe the soul that lives on after death—the spirit—is abstract thought. Obviously, then, they refuse to accept any term that involves dimension or anything implied by dimension. Thought has no extension apart from the person thinking, but the person thinking and the objects of thought do have extension. Moreover, if the objects of thought are not dimensional, people objectify them and make them three-dimensional in order to understand them. From this it is abundantly clear that intellectuals take the soul or spirit to be nothing but pure thought. The consequence is an unalterable belief that the soul will vanish when they die.

446

I spoke with some spirits about the attitude of people alive on earth today who reject belief in the spirit because they cannot see it with their eyes or grasp it scientifically. They deny not only that a spirit has dimension but also that it has substance, because they argue about what substance even is. And since they deny its dimensionality and argue about its substantiality, they also deny that it exists in a place or, consequently, in a human body. The most simple-thinking people, however, can understand that their soul or spirit has its own body.

When I said these things to the spirits, who happened to be among the more simple-thinking, they expressed their amazement that people today could be so stupid. When they heard the terminology that was being argued over (parts outside of parts, and so on), they called it jarring, absurd, and pretentious. They said that such things should never take up mental space because they block the path to true understanding.

447

One new spirit who was talking with me heard that I was speaking about the spirit, and he asked, “What is a spirit?” He thought that he was still living on earth.

“Everyone has a spirit inside,” I said. “The living part of us is a spirit, and the body only makes it possible for us to spend time on earth. The body—the flesh and bones—has never possessed life or engaged in thought.”

He looked doubtful, so I asked, “Have you ever heard of the soul?”

“What is the soul?” he said. “I don’t know what the soul is.”

“You yourself are now a soul or spirit,” I was allowed to say. “You can tell, because you’re above my head, not standing on the ground. Don’t you realize that?”

He fled in terror shouting, “I’m a spirit! I’m a spirit!”

A certain Jew was also under the firm impression that he was alive in the body. So solid was his belief that he could hardly be persuaded otherwise. When shown that he was a spirit, he continued to insist that he was a person on earth because he could see and hear. That is what people who were body-oriented in the world are like.

I could cite many other instances, but these should suffice to show that it is the spirit within us, not the body, that senses.

448

I have talked to many people I knew in their bodily life, and our conversations have continued a long time, over months and through a year. Our voices were as clear to each other as voices are among friends in this world, but they were heard internally. Sometimes we also engaged in discussions about the human condition after death. They were astounded that no one who is alive in the body knows or believes that she or he will live on after physical life ends, when the truth is that life continues, and continues in such a way that it passes from darkness into broad daylight. For those who believe in the Lord, life grows clearer and clearer.

These people wanted me to tell their friends [on earth] that they were alive and to send letters describing their current status. They themselves had heard much from me about how those friends were doing. [2] “But,” I said, “if I were to say or write the things you ask, your friends would not believe me. They would accuse me of hallucinating, laugh at me, and demand signs or miracles before believing. So I would be exposed to their ridicule. Few, perhaps, would believe that those things were true, because they deny at heart that spirits exist. Even those who do not deny are completely unwilling to hear that anyone could talk with spirits.”

Such beliefs about spirits never existed in ancient times, only in modern times, when people desire to investigate what the spirit is in a highly intellectual way that relies on skewed logic. With their definitions and theories they deprive spirits of all sensation, and the more erudite they claim to be, the more they do so.

Genesis Chapter 5

Heaven and Heavenly Joy

449

No one yet realizes what heaven and heavenly joy are. Those who have considered either subject have formed such a crude, generalized picture that it is hardly any picture at all.

Spirits who have only recently come into the next life from the world have allowed me to see with perfect clarity what idea of heaven and heavenly joy they had formed. When left to their own devices as if they were still in the world, you see, they think the same way they did there. Let me offer just a few examples.

450

Some, who in the world had seemed more enlightened concerning the Word than others, had latched onto such a false conception of heaven that they thought they could go to heaven just by going up. They imagined that from their height they would be able to govern everything below, so they thought they would be allowed to bask in self-glorification and in their superiority over others.

In order for them to see the error of their thinking, they were raised up on high—such being their fantasy—and were permitted some governance over things below. But they found to their shame that this heaven was an illusion. They discovered that heaven does not consist in altitude but exists wherever people have love and charity (or the Lord’s kingdom) inside them, and that it does not involve the desire to be superior to others. The wish to be greater than others is not heaven but hell.

451

One man who had been more influential than others during bodily life retained his desire for power in the other life. I told him that he was in another realm—an eternal one—and that the power he had exercised on earth was dead. “Here,” I said, “the only standard by which people are evaluated is the amount of goodness and truth and of the Lord’s mercy they possess.

“The situation in this realm,” I added, “is just like that on earth, where people acquire status only through wealth or through favor with the head of state. Wealth in this kingdom is goodness and truth, and the ruler’s good favor is the Lord’s mercy. If you want any other kind of influence, you’re a rebel, because you are in Another’s realm.” On hearing these things, the man burned with shame.

452

I spoke with some spirits who thought heaven and heavenly joy consisted in being greatest. But I told them that the greatest in heaven is the one who is least. Whoever wants to be least has the greatest happiness. Since the person with the greatest happiness is the person who is least, it follows that such a person is the greatest. What is being greatest if not being happiest? Happiness is what the powerful seek in power and what the rich seek in riches.

I added that heaven does not consist in the desire to be least for the purpose of being greatest, because then the hope and longing is to be greatest. Heaven is wishing better for others than for ourselves with all our heart and serving others for the sake of their own happiness, not for any selfish goal but for love.

453

Some have such a simplistic idea of heaven that they think it is just a matter of being let in. They even picture it as a room with a door. The door will open and the doorkeepers there will announce their arrival.

454

The opinion of some is that a life of leisure and being waited on by others constitutes heaven. To these I said that happiness never consists in seeking satisfaction directly from doing nothing. If it did, we would inevitably want to take others’ happiness for our own, and if everyone did, no one would be happy. Such a life would not be active but idle, resulting in sluggishness—when as anyone can see life holds no joy unless it is active.

Angelic life consists in usefulness and acts of neighborly kindness. Nothing makes angels happier than giving information to spirits newly arrived from the world and teaching them; serving people on earth, making sure that the evil spirits present with them do not go too far, and inspiring them with good; and reviving the dead as they enter eternal life, eventually taking them to heaven, if the condition of their souls allows it. Angels find more happiness in these activities than could ever be described. In performing them they become images of the Lord. In performing them they love their neighbor more than themselves. This makes heaven.

Usefulness (that is, the good that comes of love and charity) is accordingly the substance, the source, and the measure of the angels’ happiness.

When I had finished saying these things, the spirits who thought heavenly joy consisted in relaxing and idly breathing the air of eternal ecstasy were given the opportunity to perceive what such a life would be like. The idea was to embarrass them out of it. They saw that such a life was utterly depressing and that in short order, when inactivity had destroyed all their joy, they would grow sick and tired of it.

455

One of the people reputed most knowledgeable about the Word when he lived in the world had developed an idea of heavenly joy as consisting in a glorious ring of light like the circle of golden rays beaming from the sun. As in the previous example, this dream life of his involved inactivity. To awaken him to his misconception, he was granted this kind of light, and as he stood at its center he felt so much pleasure that, as he himself declared, it was like being in heaven. He could not linger there long, however, because little by little it grew tiresome for him and turned into no joy at all.

456

Some very well informed people claimed that heavenly joy lay in a life spent not in carrying out the good deeds prompted by charity but only in praising and celebrating the Lord. This life they called an active one. But I said that praising and celebrating the Lord is not an active life of the kind meant but a mere side effect of that life. The Lord has no need of praise but wants us to do the good things that charity calls on us to do. That is the activity that determines how happy the Lord can make us.

Those people, smart as they were, still could not find any promise of joy in the good deeds of charity, only the prospect of servitude. But to do such deeds is actually freeing and brings with it indescribable happiness, as the angels testified.

457

Almost all who come into the next life from the world think that hell is the same for everyone and heaven is the same for everyone, when in reality there are unlimited differences and variations in either case. Hell is never exactly the same for one person as for another, nor is heaven—just as there is never one person, spirit, or angel who is exactly the same as another.

When I merely entertained the thought that there could be two people precisely the same or identical, it aroused horror among those in the world of spirits and among the angels of heaven. “All unity is formed out of harmony among many,” they said. “The way that the many harmonize determines what kind of unity they have. No monolithic unity lasts, only the unity created by harmony. So every community in the heavens forms a single unit, as do all the communities—or the whole of heaven—taken together. The Lord alone makes this happen, and he does so through love.”

One angel calculated only the most general kinds of joy experienced by spirits (in other words, inhabitants of the first heaven) to be around 478. This indicated how countless the less general kinds must be, and how innumerable the specific kinds that make up each general kind. And considering how many kinds there are in that heaven, you can see how unlimited must be the kinds of happiness in the heaven of angelic spirits and how many more yet in the heaven of angels.

458

At times evil spirits have conjectured that some heaven other than the Lord’s could exist. They have received permission to look for it wherever they could. To their own chagrin, they have never been able to locate one.

Evil spirits rush headlong into all kinds of craziness, both because they hate the Lord and because hell is so painful, and these are the kinds of fantasies they seize on.

459

There are three heavens. The first is where good spirits are, the second where angelic spirits are, and the third where actual angels are.

Spirits, angelic spirits, and angels are each as a group divided up into heavenly and spiritual types. The heavenly ones are those whom love has led to receive faith from the Lord, as those who were part of the earliest church did; they have already been described [§§32:2, 34, 202]. The spiritual ones are those whom religious knowledge has led to receive a feeling of charity from the Lord and then to act on it.

More on this subject follows at the end of the chapter [§§537–546].

Genesis 5

1. This is the book of the births of the human, on the day on which God created the human; in God’s likeness he made the human.

2. Male and female he created them. And he blessed them. And he called their name Human Being on the day on which they were created.

3. And the human lived one hundred thirty years. And he fathered [a child] in his likeness, after his image. And he called his name Seth.

4. And after the human fathered Seth, his days were eight hundred years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

5. And all the days that the human lived were nine hundred thirty years. And he died.

6. And Seth lived one hundred five years and fathered Enosh.

7. And after Seth fathered Enosh he lived eight hundred seven years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

8. And all Seth’s days were nine hundred twelve years. And he died.

9. And Enosh lived ninety years and fathered Kenan.

10. And after Enosh fathered Kenan he lived eight hundred fifteen years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

11. And all Enosh’s days were nine hundred five years. And he died.

12. And Kenan lived seventy years and fathered Mahalalel.

13. And after Kenan fathered Mahalalel he lived eight hundred forty years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

14. And all Kenan’s days were nine hundred ten years. And he died.

15. And Mahalalel lived sixty-five years and fathered Jared.

16. And after Mahalalel fathered Jared he lived eight hundred thirty years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

17. And all Mahalalel’s days were eight hundred ninety-five years. And he died.

18. And Jared lived one hundred sixty-two years and fathered Enoch.

19. And after Jared fathered Enoch he lived eight hundred years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

20. And all Jared’s days were nine hundred sixty-two years. And he died.

21. And Enoch lived sixty-five years and fathered Methuselah.

22. And after Enoch fathered Methuselah he walked with God three hundred years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

23. And all Enoch’s days were three hundred sixty-five years.

24. And Enoch walked with God and was no more, because God took him.

25. And Methuselah lived one hundred eighty-seven years and fathered Lamech.

26. And after Methuselah fathered Lamech he lived seven hundred eighty-two years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

27. And all Methuselah’s days were nine hundred sixty-nine years. And he died.

28. And Lamech lived one hundred eighty-two years. And he fathered a son.

29. And he called his name Noah, saying, “He will console us for our work and for the distress of our hands from the ground, which Jehovah cursed.”

30. And after Lamech fathered Noah he lived five hundred ninety-five years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

31. And all Lamech’s days were seven hundred seventy-seven years. And he died.

32. And Noah was a son of five hundred years. And Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Summary

460

This chapter deals specifically with the propagation of the earliest church in later generations, almost up to the time of the Flood.

461

The earliest church in its original form, which was a heavenly church, is what is called the human and God’s likeness (verse 1).

462

The second church, which was not as heavenly as the earliest, is called Seth (verses 2, 3).

463

The third church is called Enosh (verse 6), the fourth Kenan (verse 9), the fifth Mahalalel (verse 12), the sixth Jared (verse 15), the seventh Enoch (verse 18), and the eighth Methuselah (verse 21).

464

The church called Enoch is described as developing doctrine out of the things revealed to and perceived by the earliest church. Although this doctrine was not of any use at that point, it was preserved for use by later generations. This is expressed in the words Enoch was no more, because God took him (verses 22, 23, 24).

465

The ninth church was called Lamech (verse 25).

466

The tenth, and the progenitor of three churches that followed the Flood, is Noah. This church must be called the ancient church (verses 28, 29).

467

Lamech is portrayed as not retaining the slightest trace of the earliest church’s perception, and Noah is portrayed as a new church (verse 29).

Inner Meaning

468

What was stated and demonstrated in the last chapter shows that names symbolize heresies and doctrines, and this in turn suggests that the names in the present chapter stand not for individuals but for some larger entity. Here they symbolize the doctrines—the churches—that were preserved (despite undergoing changes) from the time of the earliest church up to Noah.

A church tends to dwindle over time, however, until at last it remains with only a few. The few among whom it remained at the time of the Flood were called Noah.

[2] The waning of the true church until it remains with a few can be seen from other churches that likewise shrank. The remaining few are called “survivors” or “a remnant” in the Word, where they are described as being in the middle or heart of the land.

The situation is the same in general as it is in particular; in other words, what holds true for the church holds true for individual people. Unless the Lord preserved a remnant in each of us, we could only succumb to eternal death, because the remnant holds spiritual and heavenly life within it. Likewise at the general or universal level, unless there were always some with whom the church or true faith survived, the human race would come to an end. For the sake of a handful, we know, the city and in fact the whole nation is preserved.

This is mirrored in the human heart. As long as the heart is healthy, the surrounding organs thrive. When it ails, all the organs deteriorate and the person dies.

The last survivors, [or remnants,] are what Noah symbolizes, since aside from him the whole earth was corrupt, as Genesis 6:12 makes clear.

[3] Remaining traces in each individual and in the church are discussed by the prophets in many places, as in Isaiah:

The one left in Zion and the one remaining in Jerusalem will be called holy to him—everyone in Jerusalem assigned to life—when the Lord has cleansed the filth of Zion’s daughters and washed away the blood of Jerusalem from its midst. (Isaiah 4:3, 4)

What is left—symbolizing the survivors of the church and the remnant in the people of the church—is here described as being holy. After all, those left in Zion and Jerusalem could not have been holy just because they were left there. Likewise in the same author:

It will be in that day that the survivors of Israel and the refugees of Jacob’s house will no longer continue to lean on the one that strikes them; and it will lean on Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, in truthfulness. The survivors will return, the survivors of Jacob, to the mighty God. (Isaiah 10:20, 21, 22)

In Jeremiah:

In those days and at that time there will be a search for Israel’s wickedness, but it will not be there, and for Judah’s sins, and they will not be found, because I will pardon the one whom I make a remainder. (Jeremiah 50:20)

In Micah:

The survivors of Jacob in the midst of many peoples will be like dew from Jehovah, like showers on the grass. (Micah 5:7)

[4] The remainder or remnant in a person or in the church was also represented by tithes, or portions equaling one tenth, which were holy. As a result, the number ten was also holy, and this is why ten is associated with remnants, as it is in Isaiah:

Jehovah will take humankind away, but a great [portion] will be left in the middle of the land. And a tenth will remain there and return but is destined for expulsion, like an oak or a holm oak when its stump is cast out. Its stump is holy seed. (Isaiah 6:12, 13)

Here the remainder is called a holy stump. In Amos:

This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: “The city going out as a thousand will leave one hundred remaining, and the one going out as a hundred will leave ten remaining to the house of Israel.” (Amos 5:3)

These places and many others in their inner meaning symbolize and describe a remnant. The fact that a city is preserved for the sake of the church’s survivors can be seen from what Abraham said of Sodom:

Abraham said, “Perhaps ten may be found there.” And [Jehovah] said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.” (Genesis 18:32)

469

Genesis 5:1. This is the book of the births of the human, on the day on which God created the human; in God’s likeness he made the human.

The book of births is the enumeration of those who were part of the earliest church. On the day on which God created the human means that the human became spiritual. In God’s likeness he made the human means that the human became heavenly. So it is a depiction of the earliest church.

470

What follows establishes clearly enough that the book of births is the enumeration of those who were part of the earliest church. From here up to chapter 11, or to Eber, names never refer to individuals but to some development.

In the earliest era, the human race was divided up into households, clans, and nations. A household comprised a husband and wife and their children along with others of the same clan who served them. A clan comprised several households (the number could be small or large) living not far from each other but not in exactly the same place either. A nation comprised a small or large number of clans.

471

They lived this way, independently, divided only into households, clans, and nations, in order to preserve the church entire. The purpose was for all households and clans to evolve from one progenitor and so to persist in their love and their true worship.

In addition, each household had its own identity that distinguished it from the next. As everyone knows, children acquire their personality from their parents, as do future generations, and they also inherit characteristic traits of face, and so on, by which they can be recognized. Consequently it pleased the Lord to have them live this way in order to avoid the mingling of different natures and instead to maintain careful distinctions among them.

In this the church represented the Lord’s kingdom with great fidelity, because the Lord’s kingdom holds countless groups of people, each differing from the next in its love and faith.

This, as noted before [§139], is to live alone and, as also noted [§414], to live in tents. And this is what the Lord was pleased to have the Jewish church do too—live divided into households, clans, and tribes, marrying within the clan—and for the same reason. The subject will, by the Lord’s divine mercy, be explored further in what follows.

472

The meaning of on the day on which God created the human as a time when the human became spiritual can be seen from statements made and demonstrated above [§§49–52]. So can the meaning of in God’s likeness he made the human as a time when the human became heavenly [§§51–52]. Create applies to people specifically when they are being created anew or regenerated and make when they are being perfected. So the distinctions among creating, forming, and making (or doing) are carefully observed in the Word. Chapter 2 above contains an example, where in talking about the transformation of a spiritual person into a heavenly one it says, “God rested from all the work that he had done as God in creating it” [Genesis 2:3]. There are many other examples elsewhere. In these places create has to do with a person who is spiritual in nature and make (that is, perfect) with a person who is heavenly in nature. See §§16 and 88.

473

The fact that God’s likeness is a heavenly person, and God’s image, a spiritual one, has also been shown above [§§50–51]. An image is in the likeness of another thing but a likeness is an exact copy, because a heavenly person is completely under the Lord’s guidance, as a likeness of him.

474

Because the current topic, then, is the “births” or propagation of the earliest church, its transformation from spiritual to heavenly is the first thing described here. The other stages of propagation follow from it.

475

Genesis 5:2. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and called their name Human Being on the day on which they were created.

Male and female symbolizes the marriage between faith and love. Calling their name Human Being means they were a church, which especially deserves the name of Human.

476

The symbolism of male and female as the marriage between faith and love has been stated and demonstrated before [§§54–55]. The male or a man symbolizes the intellect and everything connected with it, so it symbolizes the qualities of faith. The female symbolizes the will or the properties of the will, so it symbolizes the qualities of love. This is also why the woman was named Eve from [the Hebrew word for] life, which belongs exclusively to love.

As a further result, a female also symbolizes the church, again as shown earlier, and a male symbolizes the individual of the church [§§253, 288].

The subject here is the state of the church when it was spiritual, although it soon became heavenly. This is why male comes first, just as it did in Genesis 1:26, 27. The word create also has to do with a spiritual person. Immediately afterward, however, when the marriage was complete or, in other words, the church had developed a heavenly character, they are called not male and female but Human Being, meaning both, because of the marriage. This is why the next words are and he called their name Human Being, which symbolizes the church.

477

The identification of the human being with the earliest church has been stated and demonstrated many times before [§§277, 288]. In the highest sense, the Lord himself is the only human being [§49]. The heavenly type of church acquires its name as human from this, because it is a likeness of the Lord [§§50–51]. The spiritual type of church does too, because it is an image of him. But in common usage, a human being is defined as anyone who has a human intellect, [on the supposition that] the intellect makes us human, and [that] having more of it makes one person more human than another; although distinctions among us would [better] be based on the degree of our loving belief in the Lord.

[2] What is mainly called the human is the earliest church and every true religion, and consequently the people in such a religion, or people characterized by love for and faith in the Lord. The Word makes this clear, as in Ezekiel:

I will multiply humankind—the whole, entire house of Israel—upon you, [mountains of Israel]. I will multiply human and animal upon you so that they may multiply and reproduce. And I will cause you to live as in your ancient times, and I will do good to you beyond that at your beginnings. And I will cause humankind—my people Israel—to walk upon you. (Ezekiel 36:10, 11, 12)

The ancient times here symbolize the earliest church, the beginnings symbolize the ancient churches, and the house of Israel and the people Israel symbolize the early [Christian] church, or the church among non-Jews. All these churches are being referred to as human beings. [3] In Moses:

Remember the days of old, understand the years of generation after generation, when the Highest One gave an inheritance to the nations; when he divided the children of humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. (Deuteronomy 32:7, 8)

The days of old mean the earliest church, while “generation after generation” means the ancient churches. The ones being called children of humankind are those who believed in the Lord; their belief is “the number of the children of Israel.” A regenerate individual is called a human being in Jeremiah:

I looked at the earth and there—void and emptiness; and to the heavens, and these had no light! I looked, and there—not a human! And every bird of the heavens had flown away. (Jeremiah 4:23, 25)

The earth stands for the outer self and heaven for the inner, the human stands for love of goodness, and the bird of the heavens stands for comprehension of truth. [4] In the same author:

Look! The days are coming when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of human and the seed of animal. (Jeremiah 31:27)

The human stands for the inner self and the animal for the outer. In Isaiah:

Keep your distance from humans, whose breath is in their nose, for how much are they worth? (Isaiah 2:22)

The person stands for someone in the church. In the same author:

Jehovah will send humankind far away, but a great [portion] will be left in the middle of the land. (Isaiah 6:12)

This is about the devastation of a person to the point where no good or truth remains. In the same author:

The residents of the land will be destroyed by fire, and the humanity left behind will be a pittance. (Isaiah 24:6)

Humanity here stands for those who possess faith. In the same author:

The paths have been abandoned; the traveler on the path has ceased. They have nullified the compact; they have despised the cities; they have thought nothing of humankind. The land mourns and droops. (Isaiah 33:8, 9)

This time “humankind” actually refers to humankind, or a human being, which in the Hebrew [here] is enosh. In the same author:

I will make humankind more precious than pure gold, and humanity [more precious] than Ophir’s gold. Therefore I will shake heaven, and the earth will quake out of its place. (Isaiah 13:12, 13)

Here humankind [in the Hebrew] is called enosh the first time, adam the second time.

478

The reason the term adam is used is that the Hebrew word means a human. The person is never called by the proper name Adam but is called the human. Clear evidence for this is the fact that here [in verse 2] and earlier the human is spoken of not in the singular but in the plural. What is more, the term refers to both the man and the woman; both together are called the human. Anyone can see that this is so from the words themselves, which are, “He called their name Human Being on the day on which they were created” [Genesis 5:2]. Likewise in chapter 1 it says, “Let us make a human in our image, and these will rule over the fish of the sea” (Genesis 1:26, 27, 28). The same words also show that the subject is not some first-created individual of the race but the whole of the earliest church.

479

In the Word, to call someone’s name such-and-such or call someone by a name symbolizes a knowledge of the person’s nature, as shown above [§§144–145]. Here it was the earliest church whose nature was recognized—and recognized as being that of a human taken from the ground, or in other words, regenerated by the Lord. (The word adam means “ground.”) Later, when the church came to have a heavenly nature, it was recognized as being more human than others because it loved, and so believed in, the Lord.

480

Genesis 1:26, 27 makes it clear that they were indeed called Human Being on the day on which they were created, that is, at the end of the sixth day. This corresponds to the eve of the Sabbath, or the moment when the Sabbath or seventh day started; and the seventh day or Sabbath is the person of heavenly character, as shown before [§§85–87].

481

Genesis 5:3. And the human lived one hundred thirty years, and he fathered [a child] in his likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.

One hundred thirty years symbolizes the interval before the new church came into being. Because this church was not very different from the earliest one, it says that it was born in his likeness and after his image; but a likeness now has regard to faith and an image to love. This church was referred to as Seth.

482

The inner meaning of the years and numbers of years that come up in this chapter is not as yet recognized by anyone. Those who concentrate on the literal meaning consider the years to be time-related, but none of the chapters from here to the twelfth contains any history that is literally accurate. Each and every detail instead has a different kind of content. As with the names [§470], so also with the numbers.

The number three occurs frequently throughout the Word, as does the number seven, and each time they occur they symbolize something whose circumstances are holy or sacrosanct. The periods of time and other features involved entail or represent those circumstances. The meaning is the same for short periods as it is for long periods; just as the parts make up the whole, so the smallest fractions make up the largest aggregates. There has to be uniformity across the different magnitudes for a whole to develop out of the parts or for an aggregate to emerge from the pieces in a compatible way. [2] In Isaiah, for example:

Now has Jehovah spoken, saying, “In three years (corresponding to a hired servant’s years) the glory of Moab will be abased.” (Isaiah 16:14)

In the same author:

The Lord said to me, “In one more year (corresponding to a hired servant’s years) all the glory of Kedar will be consumed.” (Isaiah 21:16)

This means both the shortest and the longest periods. In Habakkuk:

Jehovah, I have heard of your fame; I have been awed, Jehovah, by your work. In the middle of the years, bring it to life. In the middle of the years, please make it known. (Habakkuk 3:2)

The middle of the years stands for the Lord’s Coming. In regard to shorter periods, it stands for every instance in which the Lord comes—when we are being reborn, for example. In regard to somewhat longer periods, it stands for a time when the Lord’s church rises up anew. Isaiah also calls this the year of the redeemed:

The day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come. (Isaiah 63:4)

The thousand years in which Satan was to be fettered (Revelation 20:2, 3, 7) and the thousand years of the first resurrection (Revelation 20:4, 5, 6) likewise mean not a thousand years but the state of those people. Just as a day is taken to refer to a state, as shown before [§23], so are years; and the number of years describes the states in some way. This clarifies the fact that the intervals mentioned in this chapter also involve the prevailing states, since the state of perception in each church was different from that in another. The differences in their ability to perceive was a result of differences in character—both inherited character and character developed through living.

483

The names that follow—Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah—symbolize so many churches, of which the first and most important was the one called the human.

For these churches, the most important attribute was perception, so the main distinctions among them in that era were differences in perception.

Concerning perception, let me mention that throughout heaven the perception of goodness and truth alone holds sway. Its nature is such that it can never be described, and it comes in so many different varieties that not one community has the same kind as another. There are general categories and specific kinds of perception in heaven, and the number of general categories cannot be counted; likewise the specific kinds within each category. Both will be discussed later [§§1383–1400, 1504–1520], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

In the face of countless general categories, countless specific kinds within each category, and still more uncountable varieties within each kind, it is evident how little the world today knows about heavenly and spiritual matters. Its knowledge is so scant as to amount to almost nothing, since it does not even know what perception is and, if told, does not believe that such a thing exists. It is equally ignorant in other areas.

[2] The earliest church represented the Lord’s heavenly kingdom in respect to the various genera and species of perception. But in view of today’s thorough ignorance of what perception is, even in its broadest outlines, to recount the categories and types of perception in those churches would be to purvey nothing but the strange and unheard-of.

The people of those churches were divided into households, clans, and nations and contracted marriage within the household or clan for a reason. The reason was to preserve the different categories and types of perception and to transmit them exclusively by reproducing the character of the parents in their children. As a result, those who were part of the earliest church also live together in heaven.

484

The fact that the church called Seth shared a close similarity with the earliest church can be seen from the fact that it says the human fathered [a child] in his likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth. The likeness has to do with faith and the image with love. This church, you see, was not like the earliest church in loving, and therefore believing in, the Lord, as can be seen from the statement just above, “Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and called their name Human” [Genesis 5:2]. These words, as noted above [§476], symbolize the spiritual person of the sixth day, so that Seth’s likeness was to the spiritual person of the sixth day. In other words, love was not so much the primary concern in this church, yet faith was still bound up with love.

485

Seth means another church here than the one previously depicted by Seth, in Genesis 4:25 (see §435 there). Churches whose theologies are different can be called by the same name, as verses 17 and 18 of the last chapter show. Two churches mentioned there were called Enoch and Lamech, while two others in verses 21 and 30 of the present chapter are likewise named Enoch and Lamech.

486

Genesis 5:4. And after the human fathered Seth, his days were eight hundred years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

Days symbolize those times and states in general. Years symbolize those times and states in specific. Sons and daughters symbolize the truth and goodness they perceived.

487

The symbolism of days as those times and states in general was shown in the first chapter [§23], where the days of creation symbolize nothing else.

It is very common for the Word to call all units of time “days.” In this verse the practice is quite obvious, as it also is in verses 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 27, and 31 below. The general states at those times accordingly are symbolized by days as well. When years are mentioned in conjunction with days, the time spans represented by those years symbolize the nature of the states then; in other words, they symbolize the specific states.

[2] The earliest people had particular numbers they used for symbolizing various aspects of the church: three, seven, ten, twelve, and additional ones that they compounded out of these and others. This allowed them to sum up the states of the church. As a result, these numbers contain hidden wisdom that would require a long explanation. It was a way of evaluating different states in the church.

The same phenomenon occurs at many other places in the Word, especially in the prophets. In the rites of the Jewish religion there are also numbers for both timing and measurement in connection with sacrifices, minhas, oblations, and other acts of worship; and everywhere those numbers occur they symbolize holiness in the thing they are applied to.

What these numbers specifically involve, then—the eight hundred in this verse, the nine hundred thirty in the next, and so on for the numbers of years in the following verses—is more than I can ever convey. They all come down to changes in the state of religion among those people, seen in relation to their general state.

Later on, by the Lord’s divine mercy, I will need to tell what the simple numbers up to twelve symbolize. Unless this is known first, the symbolism of their products cannot be grasped.

488

The symbolism of days as general states and of years as specific states can also be seen in the Word, as I said [§§482, 487]. Take these words in Ezekiel:

You have made [the end of] your days approach and have come all the way to [the end of] your years. (Ezekiel 22:4)

This is about people who do loathsome things and fill their quota of sin, so in regard to the state of such people, days describes its general outlines and years its specific nature. In David:

You will add days to the monarch’s days; the monarch’s years will be like those of generation after generation. (Psalms 61:6)

This is about the Lord and his kingdom. The days and years stand for the state of his kingdom. In the same author:

I thought about the ancient days, the years of old. (Psalms 77:5)

The ancient days are the states of the earliest church, and the years of old are the states of the ancient church. In Isaiah:

The day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come. (Isaiah 63:4)

This stands for the final times; the day of vengeance stands for a state of damnation, and the year of the redeemed, for a state of blessing. In similar words from the same author:

. . . to proclaim a year of good pleasure for Jehovah and a day of vengeance for our God, to comfort all who mourn. (Isaiah 61:2)

Here again, both the word day and the word year are used, and they symbolize states. In Jeremiah:

Renew our days as in ancient times. (Lamentations 5:21)

Here the days obviously stand for the state of those people. [2] In Joel:

The day of Jehovah has come, because it is near: a day of shadow and darkness, a day of cloud and haze. One like it has not occurred for ages, and after it one will not occur again for the years of generation after generation. (Joel 2:1, 2, 11)

Here a day stands for a state of shadow, darkness, cloud, and haze for each person in particular and everyone in general. In Zechariah:

I will carry off the wickedness of that land in one day. On that day you will shout, a man to his companion, to [come] under the grapevine and under the fig tree. (Zechariah 3:9, 10)

And in another place:

There will be a single day; it is known to Jehovah; it is not day or night. And it will happen that at the time of evening there will be light. (Zechariah 14:7)

Plainly this is about some state [of mind], because it says that there will be a day that is not day or night, and that there will be light at the time of evening. Statements in the Ten Commandments provide further evidence:

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be lengthened and so that it may be well with you upon the ground. (Deuteronomy 5:16; 25:15)

The lengthening of days does not symbolize long life but a happy state.

[3] On a literal level, no other meaning for a day can be seen than that of time, but in an inner sense it means a state. Angels, who focus on the inner meaning of the Word, do not know what time is. They have no sun or moon to divide time into units, so they do not know what a day or a year is, only what a state and changes in state are. For this reason, whatever partakes of matter, space, or time dissolves under the gaze of angels alive to the Word’s inner meaning. The literal sense of these words from Ezekiel does so, for instance:

The day is near; yes, the day of Jehovah is near. The time of the nations will be a day of cloud. (Ezekiel 30:3)

And from Joel:

Oh my, the day! For the day of Jehovah is near, and [it comes] as devastation. (Joel 1:15)

The day of cloud stands for a cloud, or in other words, falsity. The day of the nations stands for the nations, or in other words, wickedness. The day of Jehovah stands for devastation. When the notion of time is laid aside, there remains the notion of the state that things were in at that time. The situation is the same for the days and years mentioned so frequently in this chapter.

489

The symbolism of sons and daughters as the truth and goodness that this church perceived—sons being the truth and daughters the goodness—can be seen from many places in the prophets. The things conceived and born in the church are called daughters and sons in the Word, just as they were in ancient times. An example from Isaiah:

The nations will walk toward your light, and monarchs, toward the radiance of your dawn. Raise your eyes all around and see: they all gather and come to you. Your sons will come from far away and your daughters will be nourished at your side. Then you will see and flow toward them, and your heart will be struck with awe and expand. (Isaiah 60:3, 4, 5)

The sons stand for truth, and the daughters, for good. In David:

Free me and rescue me from the hand of a foreigner’s sons, whose mouth speaks hollow words. Our sons are like plantings grown large in their youthful days; our daughters are like corner pieces cut in the shape of the Temple. (Psalms 144:11, 12)

A foreigner’s sons stand for pseudo-truths, that is, falsities. “Our” sons stand for doctrinal concepts concerning truth; daughters, for doctrinal concepts concerning good. In Isaiah:

I will say to the north, “Hand them over!” and to the south, “Do not hinder them! Bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth, leading forth a blind people (and they will have eyes) and the deaf (and they will have ears).” (Isaiah 43:6, 8)

The sons stand for truth, and the daughters, for good; the blind, for those who will see truth, and the deaf, for those who submit to it. In Jeremiah:

Shame has devoured our fathers’ toil from our youth—their smaller livestock, their herd, their sons, and their daughters. (Jeremiah 3:24)

The sons and daughters stand for truth and good.

[2] To see that sons stand for truth, look in Isaiah:

No longer will Jacob be ashamed and no longer will his face pale. Because when he sees his sons—the work of my hands—in his midst, they will revere my name and revere the Holy One of Jacob, and the God of Israel they will dread. Those wandering in spirit will know intelligence. (Isaiah 29:22, 23, 24)

The Holy One of Jacob, the God of Israel, stands for the Lord. The sons stand for regenerate people, who will gain an intelligent understanding of goodness and truth, as these words also explain. In the same author:

Sing, infertile woman (she had not given birth), because the sons of the desolate one are more numerous than the sons of the married one. (Isaiah 54:1)

The sons of the desolate one stand for the truth known to the early church (the church among non-Jews) and the sons of the married one for the truth known to the Jewish church. In Jeremiah:

My tent was devastated and all my ropes were torn out; my sons went away from me and were no more. (Jeremiah 10:20)

The sons stand for truth. In the same author:

His sons will be as they once were, and their assembly will be established before me. (Jeremiah 30:20)

Here they stand for the truth known to the ancient church. In Zechariah:

I will stir up your sons, Zion, along with your sons, Javan, and I will make you like the sword of a mighty man. (Zechariah 9:13)

Here they stand for truth from a loving faith.

490

The Word frequently uses a daughter to stand for good, as in David:

Daughters of kings are among your valued [friends]; the queen stands at your right hand in Ophir’s best gold. The daughter of Tyre is among your tribute. All glorious is the king’s daughter within the palace; her clothing is made of gold eyelet. In place of your forebears will be your sons. (Psalms 45:9–16)

The goodness and beauty of love and faith are being portrayed by a daughter here. That is why churches are called daughters—because of the good in them. The terms daughter of Zion and daughter of Jerusalem, for instance, are used in Isaiah 37:22 and in many other places. Churches are also referred to as “the daughter of [my] people” (Isaiah 22:4), “the daughter of Tarshish” (Isaiah 23:10), “the daughter of Sidon” (Isaiah 23:12), and “daughters in the field” (Ezekiel 26:6, 8).

491

Daughters and sons symbolize the same thing in verses 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 26, and 30 of this chapter. The nature of the particular church determines the nature of the “sons and daughters,” or goodness and truth. Here they are the distinct truths and forms of goodness that those people perceived, because these sons and daughters are mentioned in reference to the earliest church, the first ancestor of all the others that followed.

492

Genesis 5:5. And all the days that the human lived were nine hundred thirty years, and he died.

Days and years here as before [§§482, 487, 488] symbolize those times and states. He died means that such perception ceased to exist.

493

There is no need for me to linger any further over the symbolism of days and years as those times and states. I must only say here that in the world, the necessity for periods of time and units of measure, expressed in numbers, is unavoidable, since they are among the most concrete features of the natural world. But every time such terms are used, the number of days and years (and the numbers used in measurement) symbolize something abstracted from time (and measure). Just what is being symbolized depends on what the number is. This is true of the six days’ labor and the holy seventh day, discussed above [§395]. It is true of the jubilee that was proclaimed in the forty-ninth year of every cycle and celebrated in the fiftieth [Leviticus 25, 27]. It is true of the twelve tribes of Israel, matching the number of the Lord’s apostles; of the seventy elders [Numbers 11:16, 24–25] and the equal number of the Lord’s disciples [Luke 10:1]; and of many other phenomena. The numbers in these places symbolize some special quality, as distinguished from the objects to which they apply. Once the qualities are isolated, their various states are what the numbers symbolize.

494

The meaning of he died as the fact that such perception ceased to exist is clear from the symbolism of the word die as applying to everything that ceases to be what it was. In John, for example:

To the angel of the church in Sardis write, “These words says he who has the seven spirits and the seven stars: ‘I know your works, that you are said to live but are dead. Be watchful and strengthen what is left, which is close to death, because I have not found your works perfect before God.’” (Revelation 3:1, 2)

In Jeremiah:

I will expel your mother, who bore you, to another land where you were not born, and there you will die. (Jeremiah 22:26)

The mother stands for the church.

[2] The nature of a church, as explained already [§§407, 468], is that it tends to dwindle and deteriorate and its initial integrity dissolves. The main reason is that hereditary evil increases, since all parents add new evil to what they inherited. Every bad thing that parents actually do appears to be second nature, and when they do it repeatedly, second nature it does in fact become. It adds itself to their heredity and is transplanted into their children and ensuing generations. In this way, hereditary evil grows enormous in later generations, as anyone can recognize from seeing children with a bad character that is just like that of their parents and grandparents.

Some very wrongly believe there is no inherited evil aside from that which they say Adam passed on (see §313). The truth is that we all create an evil inheritance by actually committing sin, and this we add to what we have acquired from our parents. So we amass a legacy that endures through all the generations and is never softened, except in those whom the Lord regenerates.

This is the main reason every church degenerates. The same was true for the earliest church.

495

No one can see in what way the earliest church waned without knowing what perception is, since that church was perceptive in a way that none today is. A church’s perception consists in a gift from the Lord for perceiving good and truth as the angels do. The good and truth perceived are not so much those of public life as those having to do with love for the Lord and faith in him. What we profess to believe, as confirmed by the way we live, indicates what kind of perception we have, and whether we have any at all.

496

Genesis 5:6. And Seth lived one hundred five years and fathered Enosh.

Seth, as noted [§481], is a second church—a less heavenly church than the earliest that gave it birth but still one of the primeval churches. He lived one hundred five years symbolizes those times and states, as already explained [§§482, 487, 488]. He fathered Enosh means that another church, called Enosh, descended from the previous ones.

497

Seth’s identity as a second church—a less heavenly church than the earliest that gave it birth but still one of the primeval churches—is established by the things said about him above at verse 3 [§§484–485]. The situation with churches, as has also been mentioned [§§407, 468, 494:2], is that little by little, as time passes, their essential qualities diminish. The chief reason for this also appears above [§494:2].

498

The meaning of he fathered Enosh as the fact that another church, called Enosh, descended from the previous ones can be seen from the fact that the names in the current chapter just symbolize churches.

499

Genesis 5:7, 8. And after Seth fathered Enosh he lived eight hundred seven years. And he fathered sons and daughters. And all Seth’s days were nine hundred twelve years, and he died.

The days and numbers of years symbolize those times and states, here as before [§§482, 487, 488]. Sons and daughters have the same symbolism as before [§489], and so does he died [§494].

500

Genesis 5:9. And Enosh lived ninety years and fathered Kenan.

Enosh, as noted [§496], symbolizes a third church—one still less heavenly than the church Seth but still one of the primeval churches. Kenan symbolizes a fourth church that came after the others.

501

The churches succeeding one another over time, each described as giving birth to the next, operated much as fruits do, or as their seeds do. The fruit within the fruit or seed within the seed, so to speak, is at the center, deep inside, and each layer of fruit or seed receives life from the layer before it in order. The farther out you go toward the surface, the less there is of the fruit’s or the seed’s essence, until finally there is only a skin or covering where the fruit or seed ends.

The brain follows the same pattern. Inside it is a fine organic network called the cortical substances. These substances provide a starting point and medium for the soul’s operations. Following in order from them come fine coverings, then denser ones, and at last the ones that overlie all of the brain, called meninges. These are bounded by even more inclusive layers and in the end by the one that envelops the whole, which is the skull.

502

These three churches—the human, Seth, and Enosh—constitute the earliest church, although there were differences in how perfectly each of the three perceived things. The first church’s perceptivity lessened in all the ensuing churches and became more general, as just described in regard to the fruit or seed, or the brain. Perfection consists in the ability to perceive minute distinctions, and this perfection decreases when the ability is not so refined but more general. A dimmer kind of perception then takes the place of the clearer kind, and in this way perception begins to disappear.

503

The earliest church’s perceptive ability was not restricted to an awareness of what was good and true but included happiness and joy in doing good. Without happiness and joy in doing good, perception is not alive; from that happiness and joy it lives. The living quality of love and of the faith that comes from love, such as it was in the earliest church, is a quality we have when we are being useful, or when we adopt the goodness and truth that come from useful activity. Usefulness is the source from which, the means by which, and the measure according to which the Lord gives us life. Nothing useless can have any life in it, because anything that is useless is rejected.

In this, the earliest people were likenesses of the Lord; consequently in their perceptive abilities they became images of him. To be perceptive is to recognize what is good and true and so what is appropriate to faith. One who is under the influence of love is not satisfied with just knowing what is good and true but wants to do it—that is, to be useful.

504

Genesis 5:10, 11. And after Enosh fathered Kenan he lived eight hundred fifteen years, and he fathered sons and daughters. And all Enosh’s days were nine hundred five years, and he died.

Again the days and numbers of years, the sons and daughters, and the death symbolize what they did before [§§482, 487–489, 494].

505

Enosh, as noted, is the third church, one of the primeval ones but less heavenly and as a result less perceptive than the church Seth, which in turn was not as heavenly and perceptive as the church that gave it birth, called “the human.”

These three are the churches that constitute the earliest church. They are like the pit of a fruit or the germ of a seed in relation to the churches that followed. These later churches resemble the outer layers of a fruit or seed by comparison.

506

Genesis 5:12. And Kenan lived seventy years and fathered Mahalalel.

Kenan symbolizes the fourth church and Mahalalel the fifth.

507

The church called Kenan must not be counted as belonging with the three more perfect ones because in its time the more distinct perception of the earlier churches began to become more general. It was like the first, somewhat soft layers of a fruit or seed next to the pit or germ. Conditions in this church are not described, admittedly, but can be seen from later verses—from the description of the churches named Enoch and Noah, for example [§§519, 521–522, 530–531].

508

Genesis 5:13, 14. And after Kenan fathered Mahalalel he lived eight hundred forty years. And he fathered sons and daughters. And all Kenan’s days were nine hundred ten years, and he died.

The days and the number of years function as previously described [§§482, 487, 488]. Sons and daughters here as before symbolize the truth and goodness they perceived [§§55:2, 486, 489–491], although they perceived it in a more general way. Kenan’s death likewise means that [perception] ceased to be what it had been.

509

I need to observe only that all this is in relation to the church’s state.

510

Genesis 5:15. And Mahalalel lived sixty-five years and fathered Jared.

Mahalalel, as noted, symbolizes the fifth church; Jared symbolizes the sixth.

511

Since perception faded, and from being rather acute and distinct became more general and obscure, the vitality of love and of useful activity waned too; the strength of the living force in love and usefulness determines the strength of perception. To recognize truth on the basis of goodness is a heavenly trait.

In addition, the vital force in those who made up the church called Mahalalel was such that they preferred the pleasure gained from truth to the deep satisfaction gained from being useful. This I learned through experience with their kind in the next life.

512

Genesis 5:16, 17. And after Mahalalel fathered Jared he lived eight hundred thirty years, and he fathered sons and daughters. And all Mahalalel’s days were eight hundred ninety-five years. And he died.

The meanings here are the same as for parallel verses above [§§482, 487–489, 494].

513

Genesis 5:18. And Jared lived one hundred sixty-two years and fathered Enoch.

Jared, as noted, symbolizes the sixth church; Enoch symbolizes the seventh.

514

Nothing is said about the church called Jared either, but its nature can be seen from the church Mahalalel before it and the church Enoch after; it is halfway between them.

515

Genesis 5:19, 20. And after Jared fathered Enoch he lived eight hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. And all Jared’s days were nine hundred sixty-two years, and he died.

The meanings again are the same as those mentioned above [§§482, 487–489, 494]. Anyone can see that their ages did not really extend as far as 962 years in Jared’s case and 969 in Methuselah’s. The same thing can also be seen from the points that will be made at verse 3 of the next chapter [§575], by the Lord’s divine mercy, where the text says, “Their days will be one hundred twenty years.” The number of years, then, does not mean the lifetime of any individual but the times and states of the church.

516

Genesis 5:21. And Enoch lived sixty-five years and fathered Methuselah.

Enoch, as mentioned, symbolizes the seventh church, and Methuselah symbolizes the eighth church.

517

What the church Enoch was like will be described immediately below.

518

Genesis 5:22. And after Enoch fathered Methuselah he walked with God three hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

Walking with God symbolizes the doctrine concerning faith. He fathered sons and daughters symbolizes doctrinal teachings about truth and goodness.

519

There were at that time people who developed a theology out of the things perceived by the earliest church and the churches that followed. They designed it to serve as a standard by which everyone could judge what was good and true. The people who did this were called Enoch, and what they did was symbolized by the words and Enoch walked with God. They also used the name for the theology or set of teachings itself, which is what the name Enoch—“teach”—means.

Additional evidence for this signification is the symbolism of the word walk and the fact that he is said to have walked with God, not with Jehovah. Walking with God is teaching the doctrine concerning faith and living by it, while walking with Jehovah is living a life of love.

Walk is a figure of speech for living, in such phrases as walk in the law, walk in the statutes, and walk in truth. At its most basic level, walking has to do with a path, and a path relates to truth and consequently to faith, or to the doctrine concerning faith.

[2] What walking symbolizes in the Word can be established to some extent from the following passages. In Micah:

He has pointed out to you, friend, what is good; and what is Jehovah requiring of you but to carry out judgment and the love of mercy and to be humble walking with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Walking with God here too symbolizes living—living by the things “pointed out.” The expression with God appears, but the same phrase in regard to Enoch employs a different [Hebrew] word, one that can also mean from beside (God); so it is ambiguous. In David:

You rescued my feet from tripping, to walk before God in the light of the living. (Psalms 56:13)

Walking before God means walking in religious truth—the “light of the living.” Likewise in Isaiah:

The people walking in darkness now see great light. (Isaiah 9:2)

The Lord says in Moses:

I will walk in your midst and become your God, and you will become my people. (Leviticus 26:12)

This stands for the idea that they would live according to the teachings of the law. [3] In Jeremiah:

They will spread them out to the sun and to the moon and to the armies of the heavens—those that they loved, and that they served, and that they walked after, and that they sought. (Jeremiah 8:2)

A clear distinction is being made here between the activity of love and the activity of faith. That of love is loving and serving; that of faith is walking and seeking. The prophets pay close attention to words and never replace one word with another.

Walking with or before Jehovah, on the other hand, when it comes up in the Word, means living a life of love.

520

Genesis 5:23, 24. And all Enoch’s days were three hundred sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God and was no more, because God took him.

All Enoch’s days were 365 years means that they were few. He walked with God means the doctrine concerning faith, as before [§518]. He was no more, because God took him, means that this doctrine was preserved for use by future generations.

521

He was no more, because God took him, means that this doctrine was preserved for use by future generations. The case with Enoch was that, as stated [§519:1], he took what the earliest church perceived and reduced it to a doctrinal system—a forbidden thing at that time. Recognizing from perception, after all, is completely different than learning from doctrine.

People who have the gift of perception have no need to learn by way of doctrinal formulas what they already know. To illustrate: when we already know how to think effectively, we do not need an artificial system to teach us how. Using such a system would destroy our ability to think effectively, as it does for those who wallow in scholarly dust.

People who recognize what is good and true on the basis of perception receive that intuition from the Lord by an internal route. Those who recognize it on the basis of doctrine receive their knowledge by an external route—the physical senses. The difference is like that between light and darkness.

Furthermore, the perceptions of a heavenly type of person can never be described, because they involve the tiniest, most specific details and take into account all the variety of different conditions and circumstances.

It was foreseen, however, that the perceptiveness of the earliest church would come to an end, and that people thereafter would learn from doctrine how to identify truth and goodness; in other words, they would travel through the dark to arrive at light. In consequence, it says here that “God took him,” which is to say that God preserved perception for the use of future generations.

522

I was given the opportunity in fact to learn firsthand what perception became among the people called Enoch. I experienced it as something generalized and dim, and lacking a certain distinctness, since under these circumstances the mind turns its gaze outward to focus on doctrinal issues.

523

Genesis 5:25. And Methuselah lived one hundred eighty-seven years and fathered Lamech.

Methuselah symbolizes the eighth church and Lamech the ninth.

524

Nothing specific is mentioned about the nature of the church [meant by Methuselah] but its perception did grow general and dim, as can be seen from the description of the church called Noah. So it grew less sound, and as it did, its wisdom and understanding faded.

525

Genesis 5:26, 27. And after Methuselah fathered Lamech he lived seven hundred eighty-two years. And he fathered sons and daughters. And all Methuselah’s days were nine hundred sixty-nine years, and he died.

The meanings here are the same as for the rest.

526

Genesis 5:28. And Lamech lived one hundred eighty-two years, and he fathered a son.

Lamech here symbolizes the ninth church, whose perception of truth and goodness was so general and vague as to be almost nonexistent. So it was a church devastated. The son symbolizes the beginnings of a new church.

527

The symbolism of Lamech as a church whose perception of truth and goodness was so general and vague as to be almost nonexistent, so that it was a church devastated, is established by the preceding verses. What follows—since the next verse describes this church—establishes the same meaning again.

In the last chapter Lamech symbolized almost the same thing as here, namely, devastation. (For more on this subject, see the previous chapter at verses 18, 19, 23, 24 [§§404–411, 427–432].) The man who fathered him there had almost the same name—Methushael—so that the symbolism is almost the same as well. Methushael and Methuselah symbolize something that is dying, and Lamech something destroyed.

528

Genesis 5:29. And he called his name Noah, saying, “He will console us for our work and for the distress of our hands from the ground, which Jehovah cursed.”

Noah symbolizes the ancient church. Consoling us for our work and for the distress of our hands from the ground, which Jehovah cursed, symbolizes the doctrine that was to restore what had been corrupted.

529

The symbolism of Noah as the ancient church, the progenitor of the three churches that followed the Flood, will become clear in what follows, where Noah is treated of at length.

530

The names in this chapter, as noted [§§468:1, 483], symbolize different churches or doctrinal systems (which are the same thing, since a church develops out of doctrine and is called a church because of its doctrine). So Noah symbolizes the ancient church, or the doctrine left from the earliest church.

The way matters stand with churches and their theologies has been mentioned before [§§468, 494:2]: they tend to dwindle until none of the goodness or truth associated with faith remains any longer, and then the Word describes the church as devastated.

Still, a remnant—certain people, no matter how few, in whom religious goodness and truth endure—is always preserved. If that goodness and truth were not preserved in them, there would be no bond joining heaven and the human race together.

[2] About the remnant that exists in an individual person: The fewer the traces [of goodness and truth] remaining with us, the weaker the light that shines on our rational concepts and the facts we know. The light of good and truth flows in from those traces, or rather through them from the Lord. If we had no remnant, we would not be human but much worse than an animal. The smaller a remnant we have, the less human we are; the larger a remnant, the more human. A remnant is like a star in the sky; the smaller it is the less light it gives, and the larger it is the more light it gives.

The few traces that remained from the earliest church were present with those composing the church called Noah. What they retained, though, was not vestiges of perception but of integrity and of the theology derived from the perceptions of the earliest churches. Consequently a new church was now raised up by the Lord for the first time. Because its character was completely different from that of the earliest churches, it must be called the ancient church. It is called ancient because it existed at the end of the centuries preceding the Flood and in the first era following it.

The Lord in his divine mercy willing, this church will be discussed further in what follows.

531

The symbolism of consoling us for our work and for the distress of our hands from the ground, which Jehovah cursed, as the doctrine that was to restore what had been perverted will also, by the Lord’s divine mercy, be seen in what follows.

Work means that such people could not perceive what was true without a great deal of effort and anguish. The distress of our hands from the ground, which Jehovah cursed, means that they were unable to do anything good. This is how Lamech, or the church that lay in ruins, is described. The work and labor of our hands is when people have to rely on themselves or their own powers to find out what is true or do what is good. Anything that then results is the ground that Jehovah cursed, that is, something entirely false and evil. For what it means to say that Jehovah curses, see §245.

Consoling, however, relates to the son, Noah, who symbolizes a new rebirth and so a new church, which is the ancient church. This church, or Noah, also symbolizes a time of rest and the consolation that comes with rest, just as it was said of the earliest church that it was the seventh day—the day of the Lord’s rest (see §§84–88).

532

Genesis 5:30, 31. And after Lamech fathered Noah he lived five hundred ninety-five years, and he fathered sons and daughters. And all Lamech’s days were seven hundred seventy-seven years, and he died.

Lamech, as noted [§527], symbolizes a church devastated or in ruins. His sons and daughters symbolize what is conceived and born in such a church.

533

As nothing more is said of Lamech, either, than that he fathered sons and daughters, which are the things conceived and born in such a church, there is no need to linger further. Just what the offspring—the daughters and sons—are can be seen from the church itself, since the offspring have the same character as the church.

Both the church called Methuselah and the one called Lamech passed away right before the Flood.

534

Genesis 5:32. And Noah was a son of five hundred years. And Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Noah, as mentioned [§528], symbolizes the ancient church. Shem, Ham, and Japheth symbolize the three ancient churches whose progenitor was the ancient church, named Noah.

535

The church called Noah should not be counted among the churches preceding the Flood, as verse 29 makes clear; that church was to “console them from their work and from the labor of their hands from the ground, which Jehovah had cursed.” The consolation was that it would survive and endure.

But more will be said about Noah and his sons below, with the Lord’s divine mercy.

536

The perceptive ability of the churches that came before the Flood is discussed many times above, but in modern days perception is a wholly unknown thing. The ignorance about it is so great that people are capable of believing it to be a kind of ongoing revelation, or else something instinctive. Some suppose that it is no more than make-believe, while others have other ideas. Yet perception is the epitome of the heavenly character that the Lord gives to those who have a loving belief in him. Perception exists throughout heaven in untold variety, so with the Lord’s divine mercy, let me describe below [§§1383–1400] the general kinds as they exist in the heavens.

Heaven and Heavenly Joy (Continued)

537

A spirit once latched onto me at my left, asking whether I knew how he could get into heaven. I was permitted to answer that being allowed into heaven was up to the Lord alone, since only he knows what we are like.

A large number of people coming from the world seek nothing more than to enter heaven, not having the least idea what heaven or heavenly joy is. They do not realize that heaven is the sharing of love, or that heavenly joy is the joy this love imparts. Those who do not know are first taught what heaven and its joy are, and one of the ways they learn is through personal experience.

For example, one spirit who himself had recently arrived from the world shared the same desire for heaven [as the first spirit]. To give him a sense of heaven’s nature, his inner recesses were opened up so that he could feel something of heavenly joy, but when he felt it, he started to wail and writhe, begging to be released. He was so distressed that survival was impossible, he said. As a result, his inner reaches were closed off to heaven and he then revived.

This demonstrates how anxiety and the gnawing of conscience torture people who are let in to heaven for just a short time, if they are not right for it.

538

Another group with no idea what heaven is like was also making an effort to get in. They were told that unless they possessed a faith inspired by love, entering heaven was as dangerous as walking through fire; but they still insisted. On reaching the “front entryway”—the lower realm of angelic spirits—they received such a blow that they went tearing off in the opposite direction as fast as they could go. From this they learned how much danger there was in merely approaching heaven before the Lord had prepared them to feel the emotions that come with faith.

539

A certain spirit who in bodily life had considered adultery perfectly harmless was also allowed to cross heaven’s first threshold, since that was what he wanted. On arriving there, he began to suffer and to smell his own corpselike stench. These sensations grew until he could no longer stand them. If he had gone any farther, it seemed to him, he would have been destroyed.

Consequently he was banished from there to the underground realm. He felt angry that crossing heaven’s first threshold meant undergoing such tortures, since he was entering an environment opposed to adultery. He is one of the unfortunate ones.

540

Almost no one coming into the other life understands what the blessings and happiness of heaven are, since they do not know what deep-seated joy is or what it feels like. They can grasp it only in relation to bodily and worldly kinds of happiness and joy, and whatever they do not know about they consider worthless. Nevertheless, bodily and worldly thrills are relatively worthless and filthy.

In order for those who are honest but ignorant to learn what heavenly joy is and to come to recognize it, they are introduced first into scenes of Paradise that surpass anything they could ever have imagined. (With the Lord’s divine mercy, these scenes will be described further on [§1622]). They suppose they have now entered the heavenly Paradise, but they are taught that this is not the true happiness of heaven. Next they experience profound states of joy in their deepest core. Afterward they are carried into a state of peace reaching to the same deep level. They confess that nothing about that peace could ever be captured in word or thought. Finally they are brought into a state of innocence that again reaches right to their deepest level of sensation. This allows them to recognize what true good is like on the spiritual and heavenly planes.

541

Some who had no idea what heavenly joy was were abruptly carried up into heaven. They had been reduced to a condition in which they could be lifted up, their bodily desires and their delusions having been put to sleep. I heard one of them saying to me from there that now for the first time he could feel how much joy there was in heaven. He admitted that he had been grossly deceived, that he had held a very different view, and that he could now perceive the deepest degree of his own joy, which was immeasurably more than he had ever felt at the peak of any sensual experience during his physical existence. He called the pleasures that [he and his companions] usually enjoy foul.

542

In those who are taken to heaven for the purpose of discovering what it is like, bodily desires and delusions are put to sleep, since no one can enter heaven bringing such things along from the world. Either that or they are surrounded with the aura of spirits who moderate the unclean and discordant things in them in a miraculous way. Some people may have their inner recesses opened. These are some of the methods [of preparation], and there are others, depending on the way people have lived and the character they have acquired along the way.

543

Once some spirits eager to explore what heavenly joy was like were granted the opportunity to perceive the deepest level of their own joy, up to the point where they could no longer stand it. It was not angelic joy and barely resembled even the least of such joys, as I could tell when their joy was communicated to me. It was so paltry as to seem rather cold. Still, they pronounced it most heavenly, since it was the deepest of their own joys.

This experience showed not only that there are different levels but also that the deepest level of one kind barely extends to the shallowest or middle level of another. It demonstrated further that when we gain our most profound joy, we are in our own heavenly joy; we cannot bear any deeper variety, which would only end up turning painful for us.

544

A group admitted into the innocent state of the first heaven spoke to me from there and confessed that the condition of that heaven was so glad and joyful that it could never be imagined in the least. This was in merely the first heaven. There are three heavens, and each enjoys a state of innocence, with all its countless variations.

545

In order to teach me about the existence and nature of heaven and heavenly joy, the Lord has given me the opportunity to perceive the pleasures of heavenly joy frequently and for extended periods. Because I have learned these things by actually experiencing them, I possess the knowledge but cannot possibly put it into words.

To offer just an idea of it: The countless pleasures and joys there, which come together to create a single experience shared by all, carry with them a certain emotion. Within that common experience, or that common emotion, are points of harmony among a boundless number of feelings. These individual points of harmony do not come clearly but only vaguely to our awareness, because our perception is extremely generalized. Even so, I was allowed to perceive that there were countless parts, organized in a way that can never be described. Those countless parts flow from the order that exists in heaven, which determines their nature.

[2] The smallest individual elements of an emotion are organized in such a way that they are presented and sensed only as a collective whole, according to the capacities of the person who feels the emotion. In a word, every whole has an unlimited number of parts, organized in the most perfect way; every one of the parts is alive; and every one of them affects us, all the way to our inmost recesses. For the inmost recesses are where heavenly joy comes from.

I also perceived that joy and pleasure seemed to come from my heart, gently permeating all the inmost fibers of my body and thus all the bundles of fibers. The sensation of this joy at the deepest levels made it seem as though each fiber was composed of nothing but joy and pleasure and all the perceptiveness and sensitivity that come with joy and pleasure. The fibers seemed alive with happiness.

The joy we feel in physical indulgence, compared to these joys, is like a coarse, stinging dust compared to the gentlest breath of pure air.

546

The following experience was to teach me what happens with people who are eager to enter heaven but are not of a type that can stay there.

Once while I was in a community in heaven, an angel appeared to me as a little child wearing a wreath of dazzling sky-blue flowers on its head and garlands of other colors circling its chest. From this sign I was able to recognize that I was in a particular community where charity existed. Then into the same community came some upstanding spirits who on entering suddenly became much more intelligent and started talking like angelic spirits.

Next to be admitted was a group of people who claimed to be innocent on their own merits. Their condition was represented to me by a baby spitting up milk. That is what such people are like.

Afterward came people who supposed that their own good thinking made them intelligent. Their condition was represented in their faces, which were angular but reasonably attractive. They appeared wearing pointed hats with a protruding spike. Still, their faces did not seem to be made of human flesh but looked like lifeless sculptures. This is the condition of those who believe that they can make themselves spiritual or acquire faith on their own.

Other spirits were allowed in who were unable to stay there. Overwhelmed with dismay and anxiety, they fled the place.

Genesis Chapter 6

Heaven and Heavenly Joy [Continued]

547

None of the souls who come into the other life know what heaven or heavenly joy is. Most think it is a joy they can enter into regardless of how they have lived. Even those who hated their neighbor and indulged in a life of adultery believe this, entirely unaware that heaven is love—a love both mutual and chaste—and that heavenly joy is the happiness welling up from love.

548

Several times I have talked to spirits newly arrived from the world about the conditions of eternal life. “It’s important for you to know who the Lord of the realm is, what his style of government is like, and what the form of government is,” I pointed out. “On earth, the first thing you have to do on entering another country is to learn the identity and character of the monarch, the nature of the government, and other information about the country. How much more so in this realm, where you’ll live forever?

“The Lord alone rules not just heaven but the whole universe,” I said. “Whoever rules the one rules the other.

“The kingdom in which you now find yourself is the Lord’s. The laws of this kingdom are eternal truths, all founded on this solitary law: you are to love the Lord above all and your neighbor as yourself. Not only this, in fact, but if you want to be like angels, you’ll have to love your neighbor more than yourselves.”

[2] To all this they had no answer, because during bodily life they had heard something similar but had not believed it. They were astounded to hear that in heaven people can and do love their neighbor more than themselves (although they had heard that they should love their neighbor as themselves).

“Everything good in the next life expands without limit,” I told them. “Life bounded by the body is such that we can’t progress any farther than loving our neighbor as ourselves, because we’re wrapped up in bodily concerns. But when these concerns have been laid aside, love grows purer and purer until at last it is angelic. Angelic love is to love one’s neighbor more than oneself.

[3] “That this kind of love is possible you could have known from the love between certain married partners who would prefer death to seeing their spouse injured. You could have known it from the love parents have for their children: a mother would rather starve than see her baby go hungry. And this is true even among birds and animals.

“You could have known it from true friendship in people who risk danger for the sake of their friends. You could even have known it from polite friendship—the pretense that tries to pass for real friendship—in which we offer the better portions to those in our good graces and bear selflessness on our lips (though not in our hearts).

“Last, you could have known it from the nature of love, which is such that its joy is to serve others, not for one’s own sake but for the other person’s.”

But these things were incomprehensible to those who loved themselves more than others and to those who had been money-grubbing during physical life. Least understanding of all were the misers.

549

The angelic state is such that everyone conveys his or her own blessings and happiness to others. In the next life there is a communication and keen perception of all feelings and thoughts, so that in the sharing of joy each communicates to all and all to each, which essentially makes every individual the center of all the rest. This is how heaven is set up.

As a result, the more people there are to make up the Lord’s kingdom, the greater the happiness is; it increases as the numbers increase. This is why heavenly happiness is inexpressible.

Such a sharing of all with one and one with all exists whenever we love another person more than ourselves. But when we wish better to ourselves than to another, self-love takes control. Self-love shares nothing of its own with others except its self-conception, which is actually something extremely filthy. When this conception is perceived by others, we are immediately cut off and rejected.

550

Each and every part of the human body cooperates with the others in both the overall functioning of the whole and the specific functioning of each part. It is the same in the Lord’s kingdom, which is like a single human being and is also named the “universal human”; everyone there works together, whether at close quarters or more at a distance, and by many different means. This takes place in accord with the plan established and constantly reinforced by the Lord alone for the sake of everyone’s happiness.

551

The whole of heaven and its individual inhabitants without exception trace their origin to the Lord alone, in general and in the smallest particulars. This is the source of order, of unity, of mutual love, and of happiness, because this is what causes individuals to look to the health and happiness of all, and all to that of every individual.

552

Many experiences have shown me that all joy and happiness in heaven come from the Lord alone. At this point, let me recount just one such experience.

I saw that certain angelic spirits, using the greatest possible care, were making an ornate lampstand, with its lamps and flowers, in the Lord’s honor. For an hour or two I was allowed to observe how hard they worked to make absolutely everything beautiful and full of significance. They felt that the labor was their own, but I was able to sense clearly that they could invent nothing by their own power.

Finally, several hours later, they said they had succeeded in making a gorgeous lampstand, with all its representative art, in honor of the Lord, and at this they rejoiced from the depths of their being. I told them, however, that at no time had they designed or created anything on their own but that it was the Lord alone who had done this for them. At first they were scarcely willing to believe it, but being angelic spirits, they received enlightenment and confessed that it was so.

The same is true for all their other representative objects, for all their feelings and thoughts without exception, and so for heavenly joy and happiness; the least of them all come from the Lord alone.

553

Those who know how to share love are constantly advancing into the springtime of their youth in heaven, and the more millennia they live, the more joyful and happy that springtime is. Their progress continues forever, its never-ending increase determined by their development and growth in the capacity for sharing love, in charity, and in faith.

A woman who dies old, worn out by age, and who lived a life marked by faith in the Lord, charity toward her neighbors, and a happy, loving marriage with her husband—such a woman develops more and more of the bloom of mid- and early womanhood with the passage of years. She takes on a loveliness that eclipses any conception of beauty ever seen by the eye. Virtue and kindness are what shape her and make her a likeness of themselves. They cause the joy and beauty of neighborly love to shine out from the smallest details of her face, so that she becomes a form of charity itself. Some observers have been struck speechless on seeing these women.

[2] The inner workings of charity are such that charity itself is what provides the visible form and is the thing expressed in that form too. This is clear from actual experience in the other life. The whole angel, especially the face, is charity, which is both clearly presented to view and clearly perceived. To see the form is to see inexpressible beauty that touches the deepest, living reaches of the mind, filling them with charity. The beauty of the form provides an image in which religious truth is displayed—truth that is also perceived from that form.

Those who have lived a life marked by faith in the Lord, that is, by the faith that comes of charity, become these visible forms—these beauties—in the next life. All angels are such forms, in unlimited variety. Of them heaven is made.

Genesis 6

1. And so it was that humankind began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them.

2. And the sons of God saw the daughters of humankind, that they were good, and they took wives for themselves from among all whom they chose.

3. And Jehovah said, “My spirit will not denounce humankind forever, because they are flesh. And their days will be one hundred twenty years.”

4. The Nephilim were in the land in those days and for a very long time after the sons of God went in to the daughters of humankind, who bore children to them. These were mighty men, who for ages had been men with a name.

5. And Jehovah saw that the evil of the people in the land multiplied; and what the thoughts of their heart fabricated was nothing but evil every day.

6. And Jehovah was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and he grieved to himself at heart.

7. And Jehovah said, “I will obliterate the human whom I created from the face of the ground, from human to beast to creeping animal to the bird in the heavens, because I regret that I made these things.”

8. But Noah found favor in Jehovah’s eyes.

Summary

554

This is talking about the condition of the pre-Flood people.

555

It says that where the church existed, appetites (which are the daughters) started to control people. It also says that people forged ties between the teachings of faith and their cravings, hardening themselves in evil and falsity; this is the fact that the sons of God took wives for themselves from among the daughters of humankind (verses 1, 2).

556

Because doing so deprived people of any remnant of goodness or truth, a new way is predicted of forming people so they could acquire those remnants. The hundred twenty years are the remnants (verse 3).

557

The Nephilim are those who merged the teachings of faith with their desires and in this way, under the influence of self-love, dreamed up appalling delusions about their own importance compared to that of other people (verse 4).

558

The result was that no will for what was good or true and no perception of goodness or truth remained (verse 5).

559

The Lord’s mercy is described as regret and heartfelt grief (verse 6). People became such that their desires and delusions could only annihilate them (verse 7). So in order for the human race to be saved, a new church came into being, and this is Noah (verse 8).

Inner Meaning

560

Before going any further, let me mention the situation of the church that came before the Flood. Its situation was much like that of later churches, such as the Jewish church before the Lord’s Coming and the Christian church afterward: all of them perverted and adulterated true religious knowledge.

In specific regard to the people of the church before the Flood, they conceived appalling delusions as time passed. The goodness and truth that belong to faith they merged so thoroughly with their foul desires that almost no trace of either was left to them. When they reached this point, they virtually suffocated themselves. A person lacking any remnant [of goodness or truth], after all, cannot survive. Such a remnant, as noted earlier [§530], is what lifts human life above animal life. A remnant, or rather the Lord working by means of a remnant, is what allows a person to seem human, to learn what is good and true, to reflect on particular instances of it, and so to think and reason. This remnant alone has spiritual and heavenly life in it.

561

To explain what a remnant is: It is not just the good and true things that we learn out of the Lord’s Word from the time we are small and that become stamped on our memory. It is also all the states that rise out of those things, such as a state of innocence from babyhood, a state of love for our parents, siblings, teachers, and friends, a state of charity toward our neighbor and compassion toward the poverty-stricken and needy. In short, it is all states of goodness or truth.

These states, along with the good and true things imprinted on our memory, are called a remnant. The Lord preserves them in us, hiding them away in our inner being without our slightest awareness and carefully separating them from the things that are our own—in other words, from evil and falsity.

The Lord preserves all these states in us in such a way that not even the least significant of them is lost. This I learned from the fact that every one of our states from infancy to extreme old age not only remains in the other life but even returns. When we relive them, they are identical to the experience we first lived through in the world. This happens not only with the good and true things etched on our memory but also with any state of innocence or charity we have experienced. In addition, each and every one of our states of evil and falsity (or malice and delusion) remains and returns as well, in all its minutest detail. And when the latter states come back to us, the Lord tempers them by means of the former. All of which shows that if we had no remnant, we could not help being damned for eternity (see above at §468).

562

The pre-Flood people were such that in the end they had almost no remnant. The cause was their mental character, which inclined them to adopt dreadful, odious persuasions about absolutely everything that happened or that sprang into their thoughts. They did not want to retreat a single step from those delusions or, above all, from self-love, considering themselves godlike and their thoughts divine. A bent for self-deception on this scale has never emerged among any race of people before or since. Such a nature kills by suffocating, and so those people can never be in the vicinity of other spirits in the next life. When present, they rob other spirits of any ability to think, by the pressure of their own immovably determined opinions—not to mention other effects they produce, which are, by the Lord’s divine mercy, to be described below [§§1265–1272].

563

Should this kind of self-deception take over, it acts like a glue, and the good feelings and true thoughts that should be our remnant adhere to it. Then remnants can no longer be stored away, and what has already been stored away becomes unavailable. As a result, when people arrived at the height of this kind of delusion, they annihilated themselves and drowned in an inundation not unlike the Flood. Their extinction is compared to a flood for this reason and, in keeping with the custom of the earliest people, is also depicted as a flood.

564

Genesis 6:1. And so it was that humankind began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them.

Humankind symbolizes the human race of that time. The face of the ground symbolizes that whole area where the church existed. The daughters symbolize what resides in the will of such a person and so symbolize appetites.

565

The symbolism of humankind as the human race of that time—an evil and corrupt race—is established by subsequent verses:

My spirit will not denounce humankind forever, because they are flesh. (Genesis 6:3)

The evil of the people in the land multiplied; and everything that the thoughts of their heart fabricated was nothing but evil. (Genesis 6:5)

I will obliterate the human whom I created. (Genesis 6:7)

And from the next chapter:

All flesh creeping on the earth passed away, and every human, in whose nostrils was the breath of living spirit. (Genesis 7:21, 22)

In regard to humanity, it has already been said that the Lord alone is human [§§49, 162] and that from him every heavenly person (or heavenly church) acquires the name of human [§477]. Everyone who is not heavenly acquires the name of human from him too, as do people of all religions whatever. It is what distinguishes us from animals. Still, we are not human, are not different from the animals, except through having a remnant (as noted [§§530, 560]), which is the Lord’s. The remnant too enables us to be called human, and since the remnant enables this, and the remnant is the Lord’s, again it is from the Lord that we acquire the name of human, no matter how bad we are. We would not be human but the lowest of the animals if we had no remnant.

566

The symbolism of the face of the ground as that whole area where the church existed can be seen from the symbolism of the ground, since the Word carefully distinguishes ground from the earth or the land. Wherever it appears, ground symbolizes the church, or some aspect of the church. This is the origin of the human’s name—Adam, which means ground. Often when the earth or the land is mentioned in the Word, it means the absence of the church or of anything having to do with the church. The first chapter is an example. In it, only the earth or land is mentioned, since the church—the regenerate person—did not yet exist. The ground is first mentioned in the second chapter, because by then the church did exist. Something similar occurs here and in the next chapter:

All substance would be destroyed from the face of the ground. (Genesis 7:4, 23)

This means in the territory where the church was. In the same chapter:

. . . to keep their seed alive on the face of the earth. (Genesis 7:3)

This is about a church yet to be created. The same holds true everywhere in the Word, as in Isaiah:

Jehovah will have mercy on Jacob and will yet choose Israel and will put them on their ground; and the peoples will take them and lead them to their place, and the house of Israel will inherit them upon the ground of Jehovah. (Isaiah 14:1, 2)

This is about a church that has been formed; but a place where there was no church is called the earth in verses 9, 12, 16, 20, 21, 25, and 26 of the same chapter. [2] In the same author:

And the ground of Judah will make Egypt quake. On that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the tongue of Canaan. (Isaiah 19:17, 18)

The ground is where the church is and the land is where the church is not. In the same author:

The earth will wander, wander, like a drunkard. Jehovah will punish the army of the heights on high, and the monarchs of the ground down on the ground. (Isaiah 24:20, 21)

The meaning is similar. In Jeremiah:

Because of the chastened ground, since there was no rain on the land, the farmers were put to shame, they covered their head; for even the doe in the field gave birth. (Jeremiah 14:4, 5)

The land means the area surrounding the ground, and the ground means the area surrounding the field. [3] In the same author:

He brought the seed of the house of Israel out from the north land and from all the lands to which I drove them, and they will live on their ground. (Jeremiah 23:8)

The land and lands are where there are no churches; the ground is where the church or true worship is. In the same author:

I will make the survivors of Jerusalem—those left in this land and those living in the land of Egypt—I will make them a disturbance, an evil to all the kingdoms of the earth. And I will send against them sword, famine, and contagion to the point of devouring them off the ground that I gave to them and their ancestors. (Jeremiah 24:8, 9, 10)

The ground stands for theology and for the worship it gives rise to. The same holds true for Jeremiah 25:5. [4] In Ezekiel:

I will gather you from the lands to which you have been scattered, and you will acknowledge that I am Jehovah, when I have returned you onto Israel’s ground, onto the land in which I lifted my hand to give it to your ancestors. (Ezekiel 20:41, 42)

The ground stands for inner worship; it is called land when there is no inner worship. In Malachi:

I will harangue against the devouring pest for you, and it will not spoil the fruit of the ground for you; and the grapevine in the field will not be bereft for you. And all nations will call you fortunate, because you will be a land of pleasure. (Malachi 3:11, 12)

The land stands for the whole surrounding area and so, quite obviously, for a person, who is called “a land.” The ground surrounded by that land stands for the church, or theology. [5] In Moses:

Sing, you nations, his people. He will atone for his ground, his people. (Deuteronomy 32:43)

Clearly this stands for the church among non-Jewish nations, which is called the “ground.” In Isaiah:

Before the child knew to spurn evil and choose good, the ground that you despise in the presence of its two monarchs would be deserted. (Isaiah 7:16)

This speaks of the Lord’s Coming, saying that the ground prepared for the church—the true doctrine concerning faith—would be deserted. It is clear that the words ground and field are used in connection with planting, as in Isaiah:

He will give rain for the seed with which you would sow the ground. Cattle and young donkeys working the ground . . . (Isaiah 30:23, 24)

And in Joel:

The field was devastated and the ground mourned, because the grain was devastated. (Joel 1:10)

From this it can now be seen that the human—called adam in Hebrew, from the word for ground—symbolizes the church.

567

The whole region encompassing those who have learned what is taught about true faith is called the church’s territory. The land of Canaan was one such place during the time the Jewish church was there. Europe, where the Christian church now exists, is another. The lands and regions outside this are not the church’s territory, meaning they are not the face of the ground.

Just where that territory was before the Flood can be seen from the lands circled by the rivers that came from the Garden of Eden—rivers that the Word frequently describes as marking the boundaries of the land of Canaan [Genesis 15:18; Deuteronomy 1:7; 11:24; Joshua 1:4; 1 Chronicles 5:9]. Its location can also be determined from what follows, such as the fact that the Nephilim were in the land; and the land they were in was Canaan, as established by the presence of the children of Anak, who were some of the Nephilim (Numbers 13:33).

568

The symbolism of daughters as what resides in the will of such a person, and so as cravings, is clear from statements made about sons and daughters, and evidence offered, at verse 4 of the last chapter [§§489–491]. Sons were there shown to symbolize truth, and daughters goodness. Daughters, or goodness, belong to the will. But our character determines what our intellect and will are like and so what our “sons and daughters” are like. The current chapter is describing corrupted people, who have no will but raw desire instead, which they consider to be will, and which they also call will. Any feature attributed to a thing has its quality from that thing, and the people said to have these daughters were corrupt, as already shown [§§560, 562–563, 565].

[2] Daughters symbolize what is in the will, and when there is no will for good, they symbolize appetites; sons symbolize what is in the intellect, and when there is no comprehension of truth, they symbolize delusions. The reason for this lies in the nature of the sexes. The female sex is such by character and formation that the will or desire rules over the intellect. Every fiber in the female body is attuned to this, and it is the feminine nature. The male sex, on the other hand, is formed in such a way that intellect or reason reigns supreme. Every fiber in the male body is attuned to this, and it is the masculine nature. Marriage between the sexes results from these circumstances, as does a union between will and intellect in every individual.

Today no will for good exists but desire instead—and yet a modicum of intellect or rationality is possible. This is why so many laws about men’s privileges and wives’ submission were laid down in the Jewish church.

569

Genesis 6:2. And the sons of God saw the daughters of humankind, that they were good, and they took wives for themselves from among all whom they chose.

The sons of God symbolize the teachings of faith. Daughters here as before symbolize cravings. The sons of God saw the daughters of humankind, that they were good, and they took wives for themselves from among all whom they chose, means that they forged ties between the teachings of faith and their own appetites—appetites of any kind whatever.

570

The symbolism of the sons of God as the teachings of faith is established by the symbolism of sons, dealt with just above and in verse 4 of the last chapter [§489], where sons symbolized the church’s truth.

The church has truth in the form of doctrinal teachings. Because the people described in the present chapter received them by word of mouth from the earliest people, these teachings were true in the abstract. It is for this reason that they are called the sons of God, and also because of their relation to the desires called the daughters of humankind.

This verse is describing those people’s character, showing that they immersed the church’s truth—which is holy—in their cravings and in this way defiled it. In doing so they reinforced their own firmly held assumptions.

The way these matters stand is something we can all evaluate by looking at ourselves and the people around us. When we convince ourselves of some idea, we prove its truth to ourselves by the use of every seemingly valid argument—even by arguments that come from the Lord’s Word. As long as we cling to our adopted principles and persuasions, we force everything into agreement and harmony with them. The more we dote on ourselves, the more rigidly we stick by those ideas.

Such a description fits the race of people under discussion here. More will be said about them below [§§573, 580–586a, 607:3, 619–637, 659–662, 792–813], by the Lord’s divine mercy, in a further description of their hideous delusions. Surprising to say, these delusions are such that those people are never allowed to influence others with their rationalizations; if they did, they would kill all rational power in the spirits around them. They are allowed to influence others only with their desires.

Now it is clear what is meant by the sons of God saw the daughters of humankind, that they were good, and they took wives for themselves from among all whom they chose. The meaning is that they forged ties between the teachings of faith and their cravings—cravings of any kind whatever.

571

When we are such that we smother religious truth with our insane longings, we profane the truth and deprive ourselves of any remaining traces [of goodness or truth]. Although these traces stay with us, we cannot bring them to consciousness, since the moment we do so, we desecrate them once again with thoughts that are already defiled. Profanation of the Word creates a kind of callus that dams up all remaining goodness and truth and absorbs it. Be careful, then, not to desecrate the Lord’s Word, which—although it is not seen as containing truth by anyone caught up in false assumptions—does contain eternal, living truth.

572

Genesis 6:3. And Jehovah said, “My spirit will not denounce humankind forever, for this reason: that they are flesh. And their days will be one hundred twenty years.”

Jehovah said, “My spirit will not denounce humankind forever,” means that people would no longer be led in the same way. “For this reason: that they are flesh,” means because they became body-centered. “And their days will be one hundred twenty years” means that they ought to have traces of faith left; and it is a prophecy about the church to come.

573

The meaning of Jehovah said, “My spirit will not denounce humankind forever,” as the fact that people would no longer be led in the same way can be seen from context. Prior context shows that people developed the character described there by merging religious teachings or truths with their own desires to the point where they could no longer be shown the error of their ways, or see what was evil. All ability to perceive truth and goodness was snuffed out by their self-deceptions, since the only things they believed true were those that conformed with their theories. Subsequent context will show that people in the church changed after the Flood. What arose in them to take the place of perception was conscience, by which they could be rebuked. So the denunciation by Jehovah’s spirit symbolizes an inner voice—either perception or conscience—and Jehovah’s spirit itself symbolizes truth and goodness flowing in. Isaiah too says:

I will not press my quarrel forever; I will not rage eternally, since their spirit would be overwhelmed before me; and I made their souls. (Isaiah 57:16)

574

The symbolism of flesh as the fact that people became body-centered is established by the symbolism of flesh in the Word, where it is taken to mean both every person in general and a body-centered one in particular.

Flesh is understood as implying all people, in Joel:

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. (Joel 2:28)

The flesh stands for people; the spirit, for truth and goodness flowing in from the Lord. In David:

Hearer of prayers, to you will all flesh come. (Psalms 65:2)

Here flesh stands for all people. In Jeremiah:

Cursed will the man be who trusts in humankind and uses flesh as his arm. (Jeremiah 17:5)

Flesh stands for people, the arm for power. In Ezekiel:

. . . so that all flesh will know . . . (Ezekiel 21:4, 5)

In Zechariah:

Be silent, all flesh, before Jehovah. (Zechariah 2:13)

Here flesh stands for all people.

[2] Flesh is understood as particularly implying a body-centered person, in Isaiah:

The Egyptian is human and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit. (Isaiah 31:3)

This stands for the fact that their knowledge was limited to the bodily level. Horses here and elsewhere in the Word stand for the rational level. In the same author:

They will withdraw to the right and be hungry and will eat on the left and not get enough. They will each eat the flesh of their own arm. (Isaiah 9:20)

Flesh stands here for the things that are our own, which are all on the bodily level. In the same author:

From soul to flesh he shall consume [it all]. (Isaiah 10:18)

The flesh stands for bodily preoccupations. In the same author:

The glory of Jehovah will be revealed and all flesh will see it together. A voice says, “Shout!” And he said, “What shall I shout?” “All flesh is grass!” (Isaiah 40:5, 6)

Flesh stands for all body-oriented people. [3] In the same author:

Jehovah will argue his case by fire, and argue it with all flesh by his sword; and the number of those stabbed by Jehovah will multiply. (Isaiah 66:16)

Fire stands for punishment inflicted on corrupt desire, the sword for punishment inflicted on falsity, and flesh for bodily preoccupations. In David:

God remembered that they were flesh, a spirit wandering, never to return. (Psalms 78:39)

This is about the people in the wilderness craving flesh, or meat (Numbers 11:32, 33, 34), describing them as body-centered. Their yearning for flesh represented the fact that they desired only bodily rewards.

575

The days of humankind will be one hundred twenty years means that they ought to have traces of faith left. In verses 3 and 4 of the last chapter I said that days and years symbolize those times and states [§§482, 487–488], and that the earliest people used different combinations of numbers to symbolize the state of the church and changes in that state [§487:2]. But their method of calculating numbers for the affairs of their church is part of the knowledge that has been lost.

Likewise in the present verse the number of years comes up, and no one can have any idea what the numbers mean without knowing what significance lies hidden in the individual numbers from one to twelve and beyond. It is obvious that they involve some other, hidden meaning, since a life span of 120 years is inconsistent with earlier verses. People in later times did not live a mere 120 years either, as can be seen from those living after the Flood. Chapter 11 says of Shem that he lived 500 years after fathering Arpachshad, that Arpachshad lived 403 years after fathering Shelah, that Shelah also lived 403 years after fathering Eber, and that Eber lived 430 years after fathering Peleg. Chapter 9, verse 28, says that Noah lived 350 years after the Flood. And so on.

What the number 120 involves can be seen only from its factors, ten and twelve. To be specific, it symbolizes remaining traces of faith. In the Word the number ten—and tenths or tithes as well—symbolizes and represents a remnant preserved by the Lord in the inner self, the remnant being holy because it belongs to the Lord alone. The number twelve symbolizes faith, or all aspects of faith taken as a whole. The number compounded out of these symbolizes a remnant of faith.

576

The following places establish the fact that ten, like a tenth, symbolizes a remnant. In Isaiah:

Many houses will become desolate—large, beautiful ones—without any inhabitant, since ten acres of vineyard will yield a single bath, and the sowing of a homer will yield an ephah. (Isaiah 5:9, 10)

This concerns the devastation of spiritual and heavenly qualities. “Ten acres of vineyard will yield a bath” stands for the fact that so few traces of any spiritual quality remain. “The sowing of a homer will yield an ephah” stands for the fact that so few traces of any heavenly quality remain. In the same author:

And a great [portion] will be abandoned in the middle of the land, but a tenth will remain there and be converted; yet they are destined for eradication. (Isaiah 6:12, 13)

The middle of the land stands for the inner self, and the tenth part, for so small a remnant. In Ezekiel:

You shall have honest scales and an honest ephah and an honest bath. The measure of an ephah and of a bath will be the same, so that a bath may hold a tenth of a homer, and an ephah a tenth of a homer. Their measure will be according to the homer. And the statute for the oil—the bath for oil—is a tenth of a bath out of a kor, ten baths being a homer; for ten baths are a homer. (Ezekiel 45:10, 11, 14)

This discusses holy attributes of Jehovah in terms of measures, which symbolize different categories of sacred qualities. Ten here symbolizes a remnant of heavenly traits and of the spiritual traits that grow out of them. What would be the point of all these measures and the numbers that specify them if they did not contain some hidden, sacred significance? This applies to chapter 45 of Ezekiel and earlier chapters dealing with the heavenly Jerusalem and the new temple, to other prophets as well, and to various rituals in the Jewish religion. [2] In Amos:

The virgin of Israel has fallen; she will not rise again. This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: “The city going out as a thousand will leave a remnant of one hundred, and the one going out as a hundred will leave a remnant of ten for the house of Israel.” (Amos 5:2, 3)

Here a remnant is mentioned, of which the smallest part will remain, since it is only a tenth part, or in other words, a remnant of a remnant. In the same author:

Jacob’s pride and his palaces I hate, and I will shut up the city and its abundance. And it will happen that if ten men have been left in one house they will die. (Amos 6:8, 9)

Ten stands for the remnant, which will hardly last. In Moses:

Neither an Ammonite nor a Moabite will come into Jehovah’s assembly; not even the tenth generation of them shall ever come into Jehovah’s assembly. (Deuteronomy 23:3)

The Ammonite and Moabite stand for profanation of the heavenly and spiritual attributes of faith, the remnants of which were discussed earlier [§§468, 530, 560–561].

[3] The fact that tithes represent remaining traces can be seen from the discussion above. They are treated of this way in Malachi:

Bring all tithes to the treasure house to be plunder in my House, and let them test me, please, in this: if I do not open to you the floodgates of heaven and pour out on you a blessing. (Malachi 3:10)

“To be plunder in my House” stands for the remnant in our inner self. The remnant is compared to plunder because it is tucked away among all our evils and falsities, so to speak. Through the remnant come all blessings.

All feeling of charity in us, too, comes by way of the remnant in our inner self. This was represented in the religion of the Jews by their giving to the Levite, the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow after they had paid their tithes (Deuteronomy 26:12 and following verses).

[4] Since the remnant is the Lord’s alone, tithes are described as “holy to Jehovah,” as in Moses:

All tithes of the land—from the seed of the land, from the fruit of the tree—they will be Jehovah’s, holy to Jehovah. All tithes of herd and flock, everything that passes under the [shepherd’s] crook—a tithe will be holy to Jehovah. (Leviticus 27:30, 32)

The Decalogue was the Ten Commandments, or the Ten Words, which Jehovah wrote on tablets (Deuteronomy 10:4), and they symbolize a remnant. The fact that they were written by Jehovah’s hand symbolizes that the remnant is the Lord’s alone. The fact that they reside in the inner self was represented by the tablets.

577

The symbolism of twelve as faith, or as the properties of love and so of faith taken as a whole, can also be demonstrated by many phenomena in the Word: the twelve sons of Jacob and their names, the twelve tribes of Israel, and the Lord’s twelve disciples. But these will be covered later [§§3858, 3913:1], by the Lord’s divine mercy, especially in chapters 29 and 30 of Genesis.

578

These numbers alone indicate what the Lord’s Word holds at heart, in its inner recesses—what secret treasures lie hidden there, completely invisible to the naked eye but present throughout the whole. Each word hides similar mysteries.

579

Remarks to be made below [§§660, 661:2] about the pre-Flood people under discussion here will show, with the Lord’s divine mercy, that they had few if any remaining traces [of goodness and truth]. Because these traces could not be preserved in them, a prediction appears here concerning a new church called Noah that would have a remnant. This remnant too, with the Lord’s divine mercy, will be described below [§§635, 737, 1050].

580

Genesis 6:4. The Nephilim were in the land in those days and for a very long time after the sons of God went in to the daughters of humankind, who bore children to them. These were mighty men, who for ages had been men with a name.

The Nephilim symbolize those who placed no value on anything holy or true because of delusions about their own importance and superiority. For a very long time after the sons of God went in to the daughters of humankind, who bore children to them, means that they became so at the point when they merged the teachings about faith with their appetites and convinced themselves of false ideas. They are called mighty men from their love for themselves. For ages they had been men with a name means that they had been like this before as well.

581

The symbolism of the Nephilim as those who placed no value on anything holy or true because of delusions about their own importance and superiority can be seen from what appears above and just below. Specifically, it says that they merged doctrinal teachings with their appetites—the symbolic meaning of the two statements that the sons of God went in to the daughters of humankind and that they bore children to them.

People’s delusions about themselves and their fantasies grow as they amass more and more contributing arguments, until finally those delusions become permanent. And when they drag religious teachings in, they develop the most rigid point of view, which causes them to completely discount the value of anything holy or true, making themselves into Nephilim.

That tribe of people, who lived before the Flood, is such as described above [§§562–563]; every spirit they meet, no matter who, they choke to death with the most horrendous delusions, which flood out from them like a poisonous, suffocating fog. They strangle those spirits so effectively that the spirits forget how to think, and seem to themselves to be half dead.

Had the Lord by his coming into the world not freed the world of spirits from such a venomous tribe as that, not a single spirit could have survived there. This would have meant the end of the human race, which the Lord governs through spirits. As a result, they now are kept in a hell below a kind of boulder, massive and shrouded in mist, under the heel of the left foot. They make no attempt to rise up out of the place, leaving the world of spirits free of their extremely hostile crowd. This crowd and the toxic effect of their persuasions will be spoken of in another place [§§1265–1272], the Lord in his divine mercy allowing.

These are the ones called Nephilim, who place no value on anything holy or true.

[2] Though the Word does call them Nephilim, it refers to their descendants as Anakim and Rephaim. The following passage in Moses shows that they are called Anakim:

Those who scouted out the land of Canaan said, “There we saw the Nephilim, the children of Anak from among the Nephilim, and in our eyes we were like locusts, and we were the same in their eyes.” (Numbers 13:33)

Moses also shows that they were called Rephaim:

The Emim previously lived in the land of Moab, a people large and numerous and tall, like the Anakim. They themselves were accounted as Rephaim, like the Anakim, and the Moabites call them Emim. (Deuteronomy 2:10, 11)

The Nephilim are not mentioned anywhere else, but the Rephaim are, and the prophets describe them in the same way. Isaiah says:

Hell was disquieted below for you, coming to meet you; it stirred up the Rephaim for you. (Isaiah 14:9)

This is about hell, where such people are. In the same author:

The dead will not live, the Rephaim will not rise, because you inflicted punishment on them and destroyed them and wiped out all memory of them. (Isaiah 26:14)

Here too the subject is their hell, from which they will no longer arise. Again in the same author:

Your dead will live, my corpse; they will rise again. Wake up and sing, you who live in the dirt, because your dew is the dew on the vegetation. But the land of the Rephaim you will cast out. (Isaiah 26:19)

The land of the Rephaim is hell, which is what this verse describes. In David:

Will you do a miracle for the dead? Will the Rephaim arise, will they acclaim you? (Psalms 88:10)

This likewise deals with their hell and the fact that they cannot rise up to poison the atmosphere in the world of spirits with their dreadful persuasions.

The Lord, however, provided that the human race would no longer steep itself in such appalling fantasies and delusions. The people who lived before the Flood had a nature and psyche that enabled them to absorb such twisted thinking. The reason is not yet known to anyone but will be divulged below [§927], by the Lord’s divine mercy.

582

After the sons of God went in to the daughters of humankind, who bore children to them, means that at the point when they merged the teachings about faith with their corrupt desires they became Nephilim. This meaning can be seen from what was stated and demonstrated just above at verse 2 [§§569–571]: the sons of God symbolize the teachings of faith, and daughters symbolize desire. The child born from this combination is nothing but the practice of viewing the holy attributes of faith as worthless and profaning them.

Our cravings, which spring from self-love and materialism, are diametrically opposed to everything holy and true. They have the upper hand in us, so that when we acknowledge something as holy and true and then submerge it in our desires, our doom is sealed, since those desires cannot be uprooted and dissolved. They cling to every idea we have, and ideas are the means of communication people have with each other in the next life. Consequently, as soon as the suggestion of something holy and true comes up, immediately and directly the profanation and falsity attached to it is perceived. Such people, then, simply must be separated and forced down into hell.

583

The fact that the Nephilim are called mighty men from their love for themselves can be seen in many places in the Word where such people are referred to as strong. In Jeremiah, for instance:

The mighty of Babylon stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds; their might fails; they have turned into women. (Jeremiah 51:30)

The mighty of Babylon stand for those who have fallen into the trap of self-love. In the same author:

A sword against liars—and they will lose their minds; a sword against its mighty—and they will feel dismay. (Jeremiah 50:36)

In the same author:

I saw: they were dismayed and turned back. Their mighty were crushed; they fled madly and did not look back. Terror all around! The swift will not flee nor the mighty escape. Go up, horses, and run mad, chariots. Let your mighty ones leave, Cush, Put, and Lydians. (Jeremiah 46:5, 6, 9)

This is about using rationalization to delude oneself. In the same author:

How can you say, “We are mighty ones and men strong in war”? Moab has been devastated. (Jeremiah 48:14, 15)

In the same author:

The city was captured, as were its fortifications; it was occupied. And the heart of the mighty of Moab on that day became like the heart of a woman in agony. (Jeremiah 48:41)

Jeremiah 49:22 similarly mentions “the heart of the mighty of Edom.” In the same author:

Jehovah has ransomed Jacob and won him back from the hand of one mightier than he. (Jeremiah 31:11)

This passage uses a different [Hebrew] word for “mighty.”

It can be seen in Moses that the Anakim (who were offspring of the Nephilim) were described as strong:

You are crossing the Jordan today, arriving to take possession of nations larger and more numerous than you, of cities large and fortified to the sky, of a people large and tall, the children of the Anakim, whom you know. And you have heard, “Who will stand up to the children of the Anakim?” (Deuteronomy 9:1, 2)

584

Genesis 6:5. And Jehovah saw that the evil of the people in the land multiplied; and everything that the thoughts of their heart fabricated was nothing but evil every day.

Jehovah saw that the evil of the people in the land multiplied means that the will for good began to disappear. Every fabrication of the thoughts of their heart was nothing but evil every day means that there was no perception of truth or goodness.

585

The evil of the people in the land multiplied means that the will for good began to disappear, as can be seen from what was said above [§568]—that true will no longer existed but only desire. The same meaning can also be seen from the symbolism of the people in the land. At the literal level, the land is where the people are. On an inner plane, it is where love is, and since love is a matter of will or else of desire, the land is taken to mean human will itself. It is willing that makes a person human, and not so much knowing and understanding, since knowing and understanding derive from willing. Anything that fails to flow out of our will is something we do not want to know or understand. In fact when we speak and act at variance with our will, it is still a form of will—one far removed from our words and deeds—that controls us.

The land of Canaan (the Holy Land) is taken to stand for love and so for the will of a heavenly type of person, as many passages from the Word can prove. The same is true for the fact that the lands of various nations stand for the love in the hearts of those peoples—generally love for oneself and for worldly gain. But the term occurs so many times that there is not room to spend time on it here.

All of this leads to the conclusion that the evil of the people in the land symbolizes evil on the earthly level, present in the will. It is said to have multiplied because it was not completely sinister in everyone; there were some who still wished good to others, although for selfish reasons. Its thorough corruption is what the thoughts of their heart fabricated.

586a

What the thoughts of their heart fabricated was nothing but evil every day means that there was no perception of goodness or truth, because people immersed the teachings of faith in their filthy cravings, as has been said and shown [§§560, 570]. When this happened, all perception died out and in its place came monstrous convictions, or the most entrenched and fatal delusions. These were the cause of their extinction through suffocation. Such death-dealing persuasions are symbolized here by what the thoughts of their heart invented.

When what the heart fabricates is mentioned without the thoughts, it symbolizes the evil connected with self-love or with desire. An instance occurs in chapter 8 below, where after Noah had made burnt offerings Jehovah said, “I will never again curse the ground on the human being’s account, because what people’s hearts fabricate is evil from their youth” (Genesis 8:21). A fabrication is what we make up in our own minds and persuade ourselves is true. [2] In Habakkuk, for instance:

What use is a sculpture? For its fabricator sculpted it—a cast image and that which teaches a lie. For the fabricator trusts in his fabrication [and] in the making of mute idols. (Habakkuk 2:18)

A sculpture symbolizes false persuasions based on premises we have conceived and hatched from our own minds. Fabricators are those who persuade themselves of the ideas described as fabrications. In Isaiah:

Oh, your upside-downness! Will the potter be considered clay because the product says to its maker, “That one did not make me” and the fabrication said to its fabricator, “That one did not understand me”? (Isaiah 29:16)

A fabrication here stands for self-centered thinking and the resulting conviction that falsity is true. In general a fabrication (or design) is what we make up out of our heart or our will, and also out of our thoughts or persuasions. An example in David:

Jehovah knows our fabrication; he remembers that we are dust. (Psalms 103:14)

In Moses:

I know their designs that they are forming today, before I bring them into the land. (Deuteronomy 31:21)

586b

Genesis 6:6. And Jehovah was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth; and he grieved to himself at heart.

He was sorry symbolizes mercy. He grieved at heart has the same symbolism. Regret has to do with wisdom, grieving at heart with love.

587

The symbolism of Jehovah was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth and of he grieved at heart as mercy can be concluded from the fact that Jehovah never has regrets. After all, he foresees absolutely everything from eternity. When he made humankind—that is, when he created people anew and perfected them into heavenly people—he also foresaw that the race would gradually become what it did. Since he saw this ahead, he could not have changed his mind, as is plain in Samuel, who said:

The Undefeated One of Israel does not lie and will not be sorry, since he is not a human, that he should be sorry. (1 Samuel 15:29)

And in Moses:

God is not a man and tells lies, or the offspring of humankind and has regrets. Has he said a thing and will not do it, or spoken and will not secure it? (Numbers 23:19)

But regretting or feeling sorry symbolizes having mercy.

[2] Jehovah’s mercy—the Lord’s mercy—involves each and every thing the Lord does for the human race. Humankind’s nature is such that the Lord has mercy on us, and on each of us according to our circumstances. So he has mercy on the state of one whom he permits to be punished and on the state of one to whom he grants good fortune. Punishment is an act of mercy because mercy bends all the evil involved in punishment to good ends. To grant good fortune is also an act of mercy because we never earn any kind of good. The whole human race is evil, and left to ourselves we all plunge into hell. To pull us back out of hell, then, is mercy, and pure mercy at that, since the Lord does not need anyone.

Mercy is called misericordia [in Latin] because it removes us from the miseries of hell. It is therefore named in relation to the human race, which is miserable, and is the effect of love for all people because they are miserable.

588

But the Lord is said to feel regret and to grieve at heart because these activities seem to lie at the core of all human mercy. The language of this passage, like that of many others in the Word, goes along with the appearance. The true nature of the Lord’s mercy no one can know, because it infinitely transcends all human comprehension. But the nature of our own mercy we recognize, and that nature is to feel sorry and to grieve.

If we did not form an idea of mercy from some other feeling whose nature we do recognize, we could not think or learn anything about it at all. This is why human traits are frequently used to describe Jehovah’s attributes, or in other words, the Lord’s. For instance, Jehovah—the Lord—is said to punish, lead into crisis, destroy, and burn with anger, when the truth is that he never punishes anyone, never inflicts trouble on anyone, never destroys anyone, and never burns with anger. Because such claims are indeed made about the Lord, then, it follows that regret and grief are also attributed to him, since the one claim is a result of the other. This can be clearly seen from the following places in the Word. [2] In Ezekiel:

My anger will be ended, I will put my wrath to rest, and I will relent. (Ezekiel 5:13)

Since this verse ascribes anger and wrath to him, it also speaks of him as relenting. In Zechariah:

“Just as I thought to do evil when your ancestors aroused anger in me,” Jehovah Sabaoth has said, “and I did not relent, so, in turn, will I think in those days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.” (Zechariah 8:14, 15)

It says here that Jehovah thought to do evil when in reality he never thinks to do evil to anyone but good to each and every person. In Moses, when Moses entreated Jehovah:

“Turn back from the wrath of your anger and relent from the evil done to your people.” And Jehovah relented from the evil that he had said he would do to his people. (Exodus 32:12, 14)

Here too wrath and anger are attributed to Jehovah and he is therefore said to have relented. In Jonah, the king of Nineveh said:

Who knows? Perhaps God will turn and relent, to turn back from the heat of his anger, and we will not be destroyed. (Jonah 3:9)

Once again he is said to relent because he is said to have been angry. [3] In Hosea:

A change of heart has come over me; at the same time my regrets have burned. I will not carry out the wrath of my anger. (Hosea 11:8, 9)

This too speaks of his heart and the regrets burning there, just as the verse under discussion says that he grieved at heart. The regrets clearly stand for great mercy. Likewise in Joel:

Turn back to Jehovah your God, since he is indulgent and compassionate, patient and abounding in mercy, and regretful over evil. (Joel 2:13)

In this place as well regret plainly symbolizes mercy. In Jeremiah:

If perhaps they listen and turn back, a man from his wicked way, and I regret the evil . . . (Jeremiah 26:3)

Having regret stands for having mercy. In the same author:

If that nation turns back from its evil, I will relent from evil. (Jeremiah 18:8)

Again, relenting stands for having mercy—if they turn back. We are the ones who turn away from the Lord’s mercy; the Lord never turns away from us.

589

These and many other passages in the Word show that it speaks according to human appearances. Anyone who wants to use the appearances in which the statements of the Word are couched to support false premises will have an unlimited supply to choose from.

But using the Word to prove false assumptions is very different from taking the Word at face value. Those who confirm false assumptions start by seizing on a principle that they refuse ever to relinquish or even partially to retract. Instead they scrape together and pile up proofs from every available source, including the Word, until they have so thoroughly convinced themselves of their premise that they can no longer see the truth. [2] Those who take the Word at face value, however, or who believe it with a simple heart, do not start by taking hold of a principle but think, “Since the Lord said it, it is true.” And if they are taught how to understand it, by the use of other passages from the Word, they yield to it with joy in their hearts.

It does no harm to believe in all simplicity that the Lord is angry, punishes, relents, or grieves and that we should accordingly fear evil and do good, because it leads to the belief that the Lord sees everything large and small. Once committed to this belief, we receive enlightenment in all other areas—during the next life, if not before. The case is very different with those who delude themselves with their cherished assumptions, helped along by vile self-love and greed.

590

The fact that regret has to do with wisdom, and heartfelt grief with love, cannot be explained clearly to people’s understanding. It can only be explained in terms of human experience and so in terms of appearances.

Every concept in our thinking contains something of both intellect and will; to put it another way, it contains something of thought and of love for that thought. If an idea does not draw to some extent on the will, or on love in the will, it is not an idea, because without love we cannot think. There is a kind of marriage, perpetual and inviolable, between thought and will. So the contents of the will or the objects of love in the will are present within the ideas that make up our thinking, or are at least attached to them. From this human experience it seems more or less possible to know (or rather to grasp in some measure) what lies at the heart of the Lord’s mercy: wisdom and love.

As a result, the prophets (especially Isaiah) almost everywhere use two terms for every concept, one involving a spiritual quality and the other a heavenly one. The spiritual aspect of the Lord’s mercy is wisdom and its heavenly aspect is love.

591

Genesis 6:7. And Jehovah said, “I will obliterate the human whom I created from the face of the ground, from human to beast to creeping animal to the bird in the heavens, because I regret that I made these things.”

Jehovah said, “I will obliterate the human,” means that humanity would annihilate itself. “Whom I created from the face of the ground” symbolizes those who were descendants of the earliest church. “From human to beast to creeping animal” means that whatever was in their will would annihilate them. “To the bird in the heavens” means whatever was in their intellect or thoughts. “Because I regret that I made these things” symbolizes compassion, as above [§§587–588].

592

The meaning of Jehovah said, “I will obliterate the human” as the fact that humanity would annihilate itself is established by what was said above [§588]. That is, Jehovah (the Lord) is described as punishing, testing, doing evil, destroying or killing, and cursing. For instance, Jehovah is said to have killed Er, Judah’s firstborn, and Onan, his second (Genesis 38:7, 10), and all the firstborn of Egypt (Exodus 12:12, 29). Jeremiah has an example:

. . . whom I have struck in my anger and in my wrath. (Jeremiah 33:5)

In David:

He sent against them the wrath of his anger, his ire and fury and distress, a delegation of evil angels. (Psalms 78:49)

In Amos:

Will there be evil in the city and Jehovah did not do it? (Amos 3:6)

In John:

. . . seven golden bowls full of the anger of God, who lives forever and ever. (Revelation 15:1, 7; 16:1)

All of these banes are said to be from Jehovah, even though the truth is the exact opposite.

The reason they are attributed to him was given above [§§588–589]. A further purpose is to allow people to form first the very general idea that the Lord controls and arranges absolutely everything. Later they can learn that nothing bad comes from the Lord, least of all murder, but that we humans are the ones who bring evil on ourselves and destroy and kill ourselves. Still, it is not we who do so but evil spirits who goad us and lead us on; and yet it is we who do so after all, because we fully believe it is.

This is the reason, then, that the present verse says Jehovah would obliterate the human, when truly it is humans who destroyed and annihilated themselves.

[2] The actual situation is especially clear from those in the other life who undergo the tortures of hell. They are constantly weeping and blaming the Lord for all the negative consequences of their punishment. Those evil spirits in the realm of evil spirits who take pleasure—their greatest pleasure—in hurting and punishing others lay the blame in the same place. The ones they wound and discipline think it is the Lord who does so, but I told them and showed them that absolutely nothing bad comes from the Lord. “On the contrary,” I said, “you bring the evil on yourselves.

“The way all things in this other life are arranged and balanced, evil rebounds on the evildoer and turns into the miseries of punishment. This evil cannot be helped. It is described as being tolerated—tolerated for the sake of evil’s cure. But the Lord still converts all the negative consequences of punishment into good, so that nothing but goodness ever comes from him.”

What this kind of toleration is no one yet realizes. People view the thing that is tolerated as having been carried out by the One who allows it, simply because he allows it. The reality, though, is quite different, as will be explained later [§2447], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

593

The symbolism of whom I created from the face of the ground as those who were descendants of the earliest church can be seen from several things. The first is that the text speaks of the human he created (that is, regenerated) and later of the human whom he made (that is, perfected, or in other words, regenerated to the point of becoming heavenly). The second is that it says from the face of the ground, the ground being the area where the church is, as shown earlier [§§566–567].

Another indication is that the discussion treats of those who merged the teachings of faith with their appetites. People who had no access to the doctrine of the true faith could not commit this offense. Those outside the bounds of the church live in ignorance about what is true and good, and people who live in ignorance can have a certain kind of innocence even when they say or do something that violates the truth and goodness of faith. They may be driven by a zeal for the worship that they grew up with and that they consequently consider true and good.

The case is completely different with those who have the doctrine of the [true] faith among them. These are capable of mingling truth with falsity, and holiness with profanation. Their lot in the other life is accordingly much worse than the lot of those called gentiles, who will be discussed below, the Lord in his divine mercy willing.

594

The meaning of from human to beast to creeping animal as the fact that whatever was in their will would annihilate them can be seen from the symbolism of human, beast, and creeping animal.

A human is human only by virtue of will and intellect. These faculties distinguish humans from animals. All other characteristics are shared between them. Among the people being described here, every impulse for good and every inkling of truth had died out. Insane longings arose to replace the will for good and absurd delusions to replace the comprehension of truth, and these delusions joined forces with those longings. So after these people had essentially blotted out all remaining traces of will and intellect in this way, they themselves necessarily became extinct.

Prior discussions of beasts and creeping animals have established the fact that all aspects of the will are referred to as these creatures [§§44–46, 246]. Here, though, because of the nature of the people described, beasts do not symbolize positive emotions but negative ones, and consequently corrupt desires. And creeping animals symbolize the lower pleasures—bodily and sensual pleasures.

There is no further need for proof from the Word that animals and reptiles have this symbolism, since examples appear above in §§45, 46, 142, and 143; please see there.

595

For the symbolism of the bird in the heavens as whatever was in their intellect or thoughts, again see above, at §40.

596

Genesis 6:8. But Noah found favor in Jehovah’s eyes.

Noah symbolizes a new church. He found favor in Jehovah’s eyes is the fact that the Lord foresaw that this was the way the human race could be saved.

597

Noah symbolizes a new church, called the ancient church in order to distinguish between the very earliest church, which preceded the Flood, and the church that followed the Flood.

The states of these two churches were entirely different. That of the earliest church was to receive a perception of good, and so of truth, from the Lord. In the ancient church—“Noah”—the state changed to one of conscience concerning goodness and truth. The difference between conditions in the earliest church and in the ancient church was the difference between having perception and having conscience. Perception is not conscience. Heavenly angels have perception; spiritual angels have conscience. The earliest church was heavenly, but the ancient church was spiritual.

[2] The earliest church experienced direct revelation through personal contact with spirits and angels and also through visions and dreams sent by the Lord. These gave them a general ability to recognize what was good and true, and having recognized this, they confirmed the generalities (axioms, more or less) by countless insights gained through perception. These insights constituted particular details filling in the broad categories to which they belonged. In this way, daily experience corroborated general principle. Whenever they came across something that did not agree with general principle, they perceived that it was wrong, and whenever they came across something that agreed, they perceived that it was right. Heavenly angels are in the same state.

[3] The broad principles of the earliest church—its axioms, in effect—were heavenly, eternal truths. They included the idea that the Lord governs the universe, that he is the source of all goodness and truth and of all life, that our selfhood is pure evil and of itself is dead, and other ideas like these. The people of that church received from the Lord a perception of countless thoughts supporting and harmonizing with these principles.

To them, love was the most important element of faith. It was through love that the Lord enabled them to perceive everything belonging to faith, and so faith to them was love, as already stated [§§32:2, 202, 398].

The ancient church, on the other hand, became totally different, as later sections will reveal, by the Lord’s divine mercy.

598

He found favor in Jehovah’s eyes means that the Lord foresaw that this was the way the human race could be saved. The Lord’s mercy concerns the salvation of the whole human race and looks toward this. His favor or grace does too, which is why the human race’s salvation is symbolized here.

Noah symbolizes not only a new church but also the faith of that church—the faith that came of charity. So the Lord foresaw that the human race could be saved by the faith that comes of charity. This faith will be described below.

[2] The Word maintains a distinction between mercy and favor, however, and that distinction depends on differences between the kinds of people who receive them. Mercy is appropriate to the heavenly, and favor, to the spiritual. The heavenly acknowledge nothing but mercy while the spiritual acknowledge hardly anything but favor, or grace. The heavenly have no idea what favor is; the spiritual scarcely know what mercy is and consider it one and the same with favor.

These differences result from attitudes of humility in each, which are equally different. Those who are humble at heart beg the Lord for mercy, while those who are humble in their thinking seek his favor. If the latter pray for mercy, they do so in times of trouble, or else they do so with their lips rather than in their hearts.

Since the new church called Noah was not heavenly but spiritual, it is said to have found not mercy but favor in Jehovah’s eyes.

[3] The distinction that the Word maintains between mercy and favor, or grace, can be seen in many places where Jehovah is called merciful and favorable, such as Psalms 103:8; 111:4; 112:4; and Joel 2:13. The same distinction is preserved in other places too, such as Jeremiah:

This is what Jehovah said—“The population of those left by the sword has found favor in the wilderness”—as he went to give rest to Israel. From far off Jehovah appeared to me, [saying,] “And with eternal love I have loved you; therefore I drew you to me in mercy.” (Jeremiah 31:2, 3)

Favor describes a spiritual quality and mercy a heavenly one. In Isaiah:

Therefore Jehovah will wait, in order to show favor to you, and therefore he will lift himself up to have mercy on you. (Isaiah 30:18)

Favor again looks to a spiritual quality and mercy to a heavenly one. In a later part of Genesis, where Lot is talking to the angels:

Look, please; your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have enlarged the mercy that you have shown me, keeping my soul alive. (Genesis 19:19)

The fact that favor focuses on spiritual aims, which have to do with faith or the intellect, can be seen here too, where it says [as in Genesis 6:8] that someone “found favor in your eyes.” Mercy, however, focuses on heavenly aims, which have to do with love or the will, as can be seen from the statement that the angels had shown mercy and given life to his soul.

Text of Genesis Chapter 6:9–22

9. These are the births of Noah: Noah was a just, upright man in his generation. Noah walked with God.

10. And Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11. And the land was corrupt before God; and the land was full of violence.

12. And God saw the land, and found it was corrupt, because all flesh had made their way corrupt on the earth.

13. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before me, since the land is filled with violence because of them, and indeed, I am destroying them together with the earth.

14. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; you must make compartments in the ark, and you must tar it inside and out with tar.

15. And this is how you must make it: three hundred cubits for the length of the ark, fifty cubits for its width, and thirty cubits for its height.

16. You must make a window for the ark and complete it to a cubit above. And you must place a door for the ark in its side. Lowest, second-level, and third-level [compartments] you must make in it.

17. And I—yes, I—am bringing a flood of water on the earth, to destroy all flesh (all that has the breath of life in it) from under the heavens; all that is on the earth will pass away.

18. And I will set up my pact with you; and you will enter the ark: you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

19. And of every living thing, of all flesh, you must bring pairs of each into the ark, to keep them alive with you. A male and a female they must be.

20. Every kind of bird, and every kind of beast, every kind of everything creeping on the ground—pairs of all must go in to you, to stay alive.

21. And you, take for yourself some food of every type that is eaten and gather it to yourself, and it will serve you and them as food.”

22. And Noah did everything that God had commanded him; that is what he did.

Summary

599

This is about the state of the church called Noah before rebirth.

600

The people of that church are described as ones who could be reborn (verse 9). Still, out of that church would rise three kinds of theology, and they are Shem, Ham, and Japheth (verse 10).

601

No other people from the earliest church would be capable of rebirth, because of their fearsome convictions and unclean desires (verses 11, 12), through which they would utterly destroy themselves (verse 13).

602

Those in the church called Noah, though, were not like this, and they are portrayed by the ark (verse 14). Their remaining traces [of goodness and truth] are described by the measurements (verse 15). Different features of their intellect are depicted in the window, door, and compartments or decks (verse 16).

603

They would be preserved when everyone else perished in the flood of evil and falsity (verse 17).

604

The true thoughts and good impulses that they had would be salvaged (verse 18), that is, the contents of the intellect and those of the will; the means would be regeneration (verses 19, 20). They would undergo preparation for this step (verse 21). And so it happened (verse 22).

Inner Meaning

605

The present subject is the formation of the new church called Noah. Its formation is depicted by the ark that took in living things of every kind. But before that new church could come into being, it was necessary—as it always is—for the people in the church to suffer further trials, portrayed by the rising, tossing, and long ride of this ark on the flood waters. Their eventual transformation into truly spiritual people and their deliverance are depicted by the ebbing of the water and other later details.

No one who sticks exclusively to the literal meaning can see this message. The main reason is that all the elements link together to create a story and present the kind of picture that we expect from a narrative. The people of that time, though, had a manner of writing—most pleasing to themselves—that cloaked everything in symbols, and they would assemble these into a history. The more consistent the thread of the story, the better it suited their way of thinking. The people of those long-ago times, you see, did not spend so much time with bare facts as people today do but engaged in deep thought, which led to the fertile kind of results seen here. This was the wisdom of our ancestors.

606

Modern scholars may be familiar with the notion that the Flood, the ark, and consequently the description of both symbolize rebirth and the struggles that lead up to it. So they speak metaphorically of regeneration and struggle as flood waters.

607

What follows will lay out that church’s nature in detail; for now I will present just a glimpse of it through these brief remarks.

The earliest church was heavenly, as already noted. The church under discussion here, on the other hand, became spiritual. The earliest church had enjoyed a perception of goodness and truth. This church (the ancient) did not have perception but another kind of inner voice instead that can be called conscience.

[2] But what the world does not yet know and may have difficulty believing is that the people of the earliest church breathed internally; any external breathing was silent. As a result, they also spoke less with words than people afterward did and still do. Instead, like the angels, they spoke in ideas or mental images, which they could communicate by endless changes in facial expression, especially around the lips. This part of the face has countless series of muscle fibers that today cannot work separately but in those times were independent of each other. Using these muscles, they were able to display, signal, and represent their ideas in such a way that what we would now need an hour to express in articulated sounds (that is, words) would have taken them a minute. And they conveyed their message to the grasp and real comprehension of those present much more fully and clearly than words or sentences could ever do. This may seem impossible, and yet it is true.

There are also many others, not from this planet, who spoke and still speak in the same way, as will be described below [§§6814, 7359–7360, 7745–7746, 8022–8026, 8247–8248, 10587–10588, 10708–10710], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

[3] In fact I have been able to learn about this internal breathing of theirs—what it was like and how it changed over time. Since their respiration was like the respiration of the angels, who breathe in a similar way, they had access to the deeper concepts involved in thought and were capable of a kind of perception that could never be described. If its nature were described, no one would understand it, and therefore no one would believe it.

This internal breathing vanished little by little among their descendants. In those consumed by horrendous delusions and fantasies, such breathing lost the ability to present any thoughts to them that were not hideously ugly. The effect of this change was [so powerful] that the people themselves could no longer survive, and so they were all wiped out.

608

As internal breathing waned, external breathing almost of the kind we have today gradually replaced it. With external breathing came verbal speech—the speech of articulated sounds. This was now the vehicle for the individual ideas that make up thought.

In the process, the human condition changed radically. People could no longer perceive things in the way they had before but, as a substitute for perception, began to hear another kind of inner voice that can be called conscience. It was similar to conscience, although it was more or less a middle ground between perception and the conscience that some people today are familiar with.

When the ideas that make up thought came to be poured into this type of mold—into spoken words, that is—human beings could no longer receive instruction by way of the inner self as the earliest people had but only through the outer self. The revelations of the earliest church gave way to articles of doctrine, which would first be grasped through the physical senses. These physical sensations would be shaped into concrete images in the memory and then reshaped into ideas—the components of thought. The ideas would provide an avenue and a framework for instruction.

So it was that this church, which came after the earliest church, had a completely different kind of psyche. Had the Lord not imposed on the human race this new psyche or new approach, no one could ever have been saved.

609

Again, because humankind’s state-of-being in this church called Noah had altered completely from that in the earliest church, the race no longer could be taught or enlightened in the same way as the earliest people had been. The inner pathways were now blocked off, preventing any contact with heaven except that which lay hidden to consciousness. No channel of instruction lay open but the external one through the senses, as just noted.

Accordingly, the Lord in his providence saw to it that the teachings of faith would be safeguarded for the use of this generation, along with certain revelations made to the earliest church. Cain was the first to collect these teachings and preserve them against destruction. That is why a mark was said to have been put on him to prohibit his murder. (For more on these things, see the discussion of Genesis 4:15 [§§392–396].) Later, Enoch reduced those teachings into a systematic theology. The theology was not at all useful to the people of that time but only to a generation yet to come, which is why it is said that God took him. (For more, see the discussion of Genesis 5:24 [§521].) These are the teachings of faith that the Lord saved up for the use of the posterity or the church now being described. The Lord had foreseen that perception would die out and so had provided that the teachings would endure.

610

Genesis 6:9. These are the births of Noah: Noah was a just and upright man in his generation. Noah walked with God.

The births of Noah mean a description of the way the new church would be refashioned, or reborn. Noah was a just and upright man in his generation means that the church was one that could be endowed with feelings of charity; just has to do with the good involved in charity, upright with the truth involved. The generation is a stage of religious development. Walking with God symbolizes the doctrine concerning faith here, as it did above where Enoch was discussed.

611

The meaning of the births of Noah as a description of the way the new church would be refashioned, or reborn, can be seen from the things said above at Genesis 2:4 and 5:1 [§§89, 469–474].

612

The meaning of Noah was a just and upright man in his generation as the fact that the church was one that could be endowed with feelings of charity is established by the symbolism of just and upright. Being just has to do with the good involved in charity and upright with the truth involved in it. The same meaning can also be seen from the distinguishing feature of that church, which was charity, as will be discussed later [§§640, 765], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

The fact that being just has to do with the good involved in charity and upright with the truth involved in it can be seen from the Word, as in Isaiah:

They will seek me every day and desire a knowledge of my ways, as a nation that performs justice and does not abandon the rightful judgment of its God. They will ask me about judging justly; they will want God to come close. (Isaiah 58:2)

Judgment stands for the things advocated by truth, and justice for the things urged by good. Performing judgment and justice became a kind of standard formula that meant doing what is true and good; examples appear in Isaiah 56:1; Jeremiah 22:3, 13, 15; 23:5; 33:15; and Ezekiel 33:14, 16, 19. The Lord said:

The just will glow like the sun in my Father’s kingdom. (Matthew 13:43)

The just stand for people endowed with charity. And in a passage concerning the end of the era:

The angels will go out and separate the evil from the midst of the just. (Matthew 13:49)

Here too the just stand for those who display the good that comes of charity.

[2] An upright person, however, symbolizes the truth that grows out of charity. Truth can originate in many other places, but truth that grows out of the good embraced by charity and received from the Lord—this truth is called whole or upright and is referred to as the upright individual, or a person of integrity. One example appears in David:

Those who will stay in your tent, who will live on your holy mountain, are those walking in integrity and doing justice and speaking truth in their hearts. (Psalms 15:1, 2)

This portrays the upright person. In the same author:

With the holy person you bear yourself in a holy manner; with the upright man you show yourself to be upright. (Psalms 18:25)

The upright man is upright in consequence of the holiness or goodness embodied in charity. In the same author:

Jehovah will not withhold what is good from those who walk in integrity. (Psalms 84:11)

[3] The upright individual is one whom goodness inspires to be truthful, or in other words, a person who speaks and acts on truth out of love for others; and this is clear from the way the Word speaks of uprightness. Often it uses the words walk, path [or way], and right or rectitude in connection with the upright person or with integrity, and these words relate to truth. In David, for instance:

I will instruct the upright person about the path—how long it takes to reach me. I will walk in the integrity of my heart in the middle of my house. (Psalms 101:2)

And in the same Psalm:

The one who walks the path of the upright person, that is the one who will wait on me. (Psalms 101:6)

Elsewhere in the same author:

A blessing on those who are upright in their path, walking in Jehovah’s law! (Psalms 119:1)

In the same author:

Integrity and rectitude will guard me. (Psalms 25:21)

Again in the same author:

Observe what is upright and watch what is right, because a man’s final possession is peace. (Psalms 37:37)

All of this establishes the fact that justice is ascribed to one who does what is good and uprightness to one who acts on the truth that springs from goodness; and this is the same as performing justice and judgment. Holiness and justice are the heavenly aspect of faith, while integrity and judgment are the spiritual aspect that develops out of the heavenly aspect.

613

The fact that the generation is a stage of religious development is not evident from the literal sense, which tells a story. Because the message here is exclusively an inner one, though, what are symbolized are attributes of faith. The thread of the story too shows that the generation must be a stage of religious development. Several other places in the Word also use generation this way. In Isaiah, for example:

May they rebuild from you the age-old wastelands; the foundations of generation after generation may you raise up. And the name given to you will be “The one who walls up the breach,” “The one who brings back the paths to dwell by.” (Isaiah 58:12)

All the elements of this verse symbolize aspects of faith. The age-old wastelands symbolize faith’s heavenly qualities laid waste; the foundations of generation after generation symbolize the foundations of faith’s spiritual qualities. These had gone to ruin since ancient times, as is also symbolized. In the same author:

They will rebuild the age-old wastelands, the earlier desolate places they will raise up, and they will renew the wasted cities, the desolate places of generation after generation. (Isaiah 61:4)

The meaning here is similar. In the same author:

They will not labor for empty purpose and will not bear children for turmoil, because they are the seed of those blessed by Jehovah, as are their descendants with them. (Isaiah 65:23)

Here too the bearing of children is ascribed to the properties of faith, and labor, to the properties of love. The latter are described as the seed of those blessed by Jehovah, the former as offspring.

614

To see that walking with God symbolizes the doctrine concerning faith, look at earlier statements about Enoch at Genesis 5:22, 24 [§519]. He too was said to have walked with God, which there symbolized the doctrine of faith preserved for the use of later generations. Since this is the generation destined to use it, the phrase recurs here.

615

The present verse offers a general picture of the people of this church—not what they were already like but what they could become. (Future chapters deal with the actual formation of this character [§§838, 977–979].) Specifically, through religious knowledge they would be able to receive the gift of charitable feeling. In this way they would be able to act out of charity, and the goodness connected with charity would allow them to recognize what was true. So the goodness of charity (being just) comes first and the truth of charity (being upright) second.

Charity, as noted before [§§325, 351], is love for our fellow human beings and is mercy. It is a lower grade of love than that which marked the earliest church, whose love was directed toward the Lord. As you can see, love is now declining and becoming shallower, so that it has to be termed charity.

616

Genesis 6:10. And Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Noah fathered three sons means that three kinds of theology—symbolized by Shem, Ham, and Japheth—would rise out of that church.

617

The meaning of Noah fathered three sons as the fact that three kinds of theology would rise out of that church can be seen from all the earlier statements [§§337, 339, 402, 468] that names stand purely as symbols for various churches or, to put it another way, various theologies. The same applies here. But the sole reason the names come up here is the context, or the connection with what preceded—that the Lord foresaw that people whose minds worked this way would be able to receive a gift for loving others, although they would still give birth to three different kinds of theology. These theologies will be discussed below where Shem, Ham, and Japheth are treated of, the Lord in his divine mercy willing.

618

In order to understand why Noah was just and upright, he walked with God, and (in the present verse) he fathered three sons all take the past tense even though they look to future events, you need to know that the nature of the inner meaning makes tense irrelevant. The original language suits this quality, since sometimes one and the same word in it can be understood in any tense; likewise, the words are not divided up. This exposes the inner content to clearer view. The language acquires its flexibility from the inner meaning, which is more richly layered than anyone could ever believe, and this is why it does not allow tense or partitioning to place restrictions on it.

619

Genesis 6:11. And the land was corrupt before God, and the land was full of violence.

The land symbolizes the tribe of people mentioned earlier [§§562–563, 581:1]. It is described as corrupt because of their dreadful delusions, and as full of violence because of their unclean desires. The name God is used from here to the end of the chapter because there was now no church.

620

The symbolism of the land as the tribe of people mentioned earlier is established by places above that show the symbolism of the land (or earth) and the ground [§§268, 566].

Land is a term that surfaces repeatedly in the Word, where it means an area—such as the land of Canaan—in which the Lord’s true church exists. It also means an area—such as the land of Egypt or another non-Jewish nation—in which the church does not exist. Accordingly it stands for the race of people living there; and since it stands for the race, it also stands for every member of the race there.

An expression such as the land of Canaan uses the term land for a heavenly love. The lands of non-Jewish nations are so called on account of foul loves. But ground is used in reference to faith, which is planted as a seed. As I showed [§566:2], the land means the area surrounding the ground and the ground means the area surrounding a field, just as love is what contains faith and faith is what contains the religious knowledge that is planted.

The use of land in the current verse implies a race or tribe in which every element of heavenly love and of the church died away. (How a term applies [in a given context] can be determined from the subject under discussion.)

621

The fact that the land is described as corrupt or destroyed because of people’s dreadful delusions, and full of violence because of their unclean desires, can be seen from the symbolism of the two terms corruption and violence. The Word never confuses the two but consistently applies whatever term expresses the precise idea involved. This is done with a care so great that the word choices themselves instantly reveal the inner message. Such is the case with corruption and violence here. Corruption describes the traits of an intellect stripped bare, while violence describes the traits of a will laid waste. So corruption has to do with self-deception and violence with desire.

622

The relationship of corruption to delusions can be seen in Isaiah:

They will not do evil or practice corruption anywhere on my holy mountain, because the earth will be full of knowledge from Jehovah. (Isaiah 11:9; parallel in 65:25)

The doing of evil is associated with the will, or cravings, while the practicing of corruption is associated with the intellect, or persuasive lies. In the same author:

Doom to a sinning nation, to a people weighed down with wickedness, to the seed of evildoers, to children who corrupt! (Isaiah 1:4)

Here as elsewhere the non-Jewish nations and the seed of evildoers stand for evil, which is a matter of will or desire, while the people and the children who corrupt stand for falsities, which are a matter of intellect or self-deception. In Ezekiel:

More corrupt are you than they, in all your ways. (Ezekiel 16:47)

Corruption in this verse has to do with the things we understand, reason over, or think about, since way is a word symbolizing truth. In David:

They did a corrupt thing, and they made a heinous thing of their work. (Psalms 14:1)

The corrupt thing stands for appalling delusions and the heinous thing for unclean longings, which lay within their work, or from which it sprang. In Daniel:

After sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off, and he will have nothing; and the people of a leader yet to come will corrupt the city and the sanctuary, and its end will come in a flood. (Daniel 9:26)

Again the practicing of corruption or destruction stands for persuasive lies, which are described as a flood.

623

The fact that the land is described as full of violence because of unclean desires—especially the desires stemming from self-love, or flagrant arrogance—can also be seen from the Word. Violence is the name for the damage people inflict on holy things when they profane them. That is what these pre-Flood people did when they submerged doctrinal concepts in cravings of every kind. In Ezekiel, for example:

I will turn my face from them, and they will profane my hiding place. And if burglars enter it, they will profane it. Make a chain, because the land is full of judgment on [crimes of] blood, and the city is full of violence. (Ezekiel 7:22, 23, 24)

This describes the violent, identifying them as the kind of people depicted. In the same author:

They will eat their bread with anxiety and drink their water in desolation, so that the land of [Jerusalem] may be stripped of its abundance, on account of the violence of all those living in it. (Ezekiel 12:19)

The bread they will eat with anxiety is heavenly food, and the water they will drink in desolation is spiritual drink, both of which they treated violently, that is, profaned. [2] In Isaiah:

Their webs will not be for clothing, and they will not be dressed in their works. Their works are works of wickedness, and the perpetration of violence is in the palms of their hands. (Isaiah 59:6)

The webs and clothes refer to objects of mental activity, or of thought, the wickedness and violence to products of the will, or of works. In Jonah:

May they each be turned from their evil way and from the violence that is in the palms of their hands. (Jonah 3:8)

The evil way refers to falsities in the intellect, and the violence, to evil in the will. In Jeremiah:

Within a year will come rumor and violence in the land. (Jeremiah 51:46)

Rumor stands for properties of the intellect, violence for those of the will. In Isaiah:

No violence has he done, and no deceit is in his mouth. (Isaiah 53:9)

Violence has to do with traits of the will, deceit in the mouth with those of the intellect.

624

The current passage is about circumstances in which there is no church, as can be seen from the fact that from here on the present chapter speaks of God, whereas in the first part it spoke of Jehovah. When no church exists, the text uses the name God, but when a church does exist, it uses Jehovah. In Genesis 1, for instance, where there was no church, it said God, but later, when a church did exist, it said Jehovah God.

Jehovah is an extremely sacred name used nowhere else but in the church. This is not true of God, however, since every nation had its gods, and so the name God is not as sacred. No one was allowed to mention Jehovah without a knowledge of the true faith; but anyone could speak of God.

625

Genesis 6:12. And God saw the land, and found it was corrupt, because all flesh had made their way corrupt on the earth.

God saw the land means that God understood humankind. It was corrupt means that there was unmitigated falsity. Because all flesh had made their way corrupt on the earth means that humankind’s preoccupation with the bodily level had destroyed all comprehension of truth.

626

Anyone can see that God saw the land means that God understood humankind. God, after all, who knows absolutely everything from eternity, has no need to look to see whether we are [corrupt]. Seeing is a human activity, and consequently (as was noted at verse 6 and elsewhere [§§587–590, 592]) the passage is speaking from a human point of view. In fact the Word goes so far as to say that God uses eyes to see.

627

The meaning of because all flesh had made their way corrupt on the earth as the fact that humankind’s preoccupation with the bodily level destroyed all comprehension of truth is established by the symbolism of flesh. At verse 3 above [§574], flesh was described as symbolizing every person in general and one with a bodily focus in particular, or in other words, the whole bodily realm. A way symbolizes the comprehension of truth, or truth itself.

The use of way or path to describe a comprehension of truth, or truth itself, can be gathered from passages quoted in various places above [§§519:1, 612:3, 622, 623:2]. The following passages also illustrate the connection. In Moses:

Jehovah said, “Get up; go down quickly from here, because your people have corrupted themselves, they have suddenly turned back from the way that I commanded them. They have made themselves a cast image.” (Deuteronomy 9:12, 16)

In this passage it is commandments, which are truths, that were abandoned. [2] In Jeremiah:

. . . whose eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of humankind, to reward a man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds. (Jeremiah 32:19)

These “ways” are a life spent obeying what has been commanded, and the fruit of a person’s deeds is a life inspired by charity. So a way relates to truth, truth being contained in the things commanded and required of us. A son of humankind and a man carry the same connotation, as shown before [§§158, 264, 489, 568:2]. These symbols have the same meaning in Jeremiah 7:3 and 17:10. In Hosea:

I will bring on them the consequences of their ways, and their deeds will I return on them. (Hosea 4:9)

In Zechariah:

“Turn back from your evil ways and your evil deeds.” As Jehovah Sabaoth thought to do to us according to our ways and according to our deeds . . . (Zechariah 1:4, 6)

The meaning here is similar to that in the earlier passages, though turned around, since the ways and deeds are evil. In Jeremiah:

I will give them one heart and one way. (Jeremiah 32:39)

A heart stands for goodness, and a way, for truth. In David:

Make me understand the way of your requirements. Remove the way of falsehood from me, and favor me with your law. I have chosen the way of truth. I will run the way of your commandments. (Psalms 119:26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35)

The way of the divine requirements and commandments is being referred to as the way of truth, and the opposite, as the way of falsehood. [3] In the same author:

Make your ways known to me, Jehovah; teach me your paths. Lead the way for me in your truth and teach me. (Psalms 25:4, 5)

Again the way clearly stands for truth. In Isaiah:

With whom has Jehovah taken counsel, and [who] has instructed him, and taught him the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and made the way of understanding known to him? (Isaiah 40:14)

Obviously the way stands for a comprehension of truth. In Jeremiah:

This is what Jehovah has said: “Stand on the footways and see, and ask about the ancient paths—which way is the good one—and go on it.” (Jeremiah 6:16)

Once again the way stands for a comprehension of truth. In Isaiah:

I will lead the blind on a way they have not known; in paths they have not known I will lead them. (Isaiah 42:16)

Words used to describe truth include way, path, road, street, and lane, because these lead to truth. Jeremiah contains an example:

They caused them to stumble on their way, on the ancient roads, to go on the paths, on a way that was not paved. (Jeremiah 18:15)

Likewise in Judges:

In the days of Jael, the roads disappeared, and those going on the paths went by crooked roads. The lanes in Israel disappeared. (Judges 5:6, 7)

628

The inner meaning here is that all people everywhere in the land—in the church’s territory—had made their way corrupt, so that they did not comprehend truth, since all of them had turned their attention to the bodily plane. This included not only those mentioned in the last verse [Genesis 6:11] but also those referred to as “Noah,” specifically discussed both here and in the next verse. Before being reborn, they had the same character as the others. These details come first because the story of their rebirth waits till later [Genesis 8:15–22]. And since little of the church remained, the name God rather than Jehovah is now being used.

The present verse signals the fact that nothing true had survived, and the next, that nothing good had. The only truth and goodness left was the remnant possessed by the people called “Noah,” because without a remnant regeneration is impossible. The doctrinal concepts that they knew about also survived.

There was no comprehension of truth, however, because this is out of the question where no will to do good exists. When will is absent, so too is intellect, and the better or worse the will is, the better or worse the intellect. The earliest people had a will to do good because they loved the Lord, and from this they had a comprehension of truth. This ability to comprehend, though, was completely destroyed along with the will.

A glimmering of truth on the rational plane and a trace of goodness on the earthly plane did remain to the people called “Noah,” and for this reason they were capable of rebirth.

629

Genesis 6:13. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before me, since the land is filled with violence because of them; and indeed, I am destroying them together with the earth.”

God said means that is how it was. The end of all flesh has come before me means that the human race could not avoid destruction. Since the land is filled with violence means that there was no longer any will to do good. Indeed, I will destroy them together with the earth, means that the human race would meet its end when the church died.

630

The meaning of God said as the fact that that is how it was can be seen from this: in Jehovah there is only what is.

631

The meaning of the end of all flesh has come before me as the fact that the human race could not avoid destruction can be seen from the words themselves. It is also established by the symbolism of flesh as all people in general and body-oriented ones in particular, as detailed earlier [§574].

632

The meaning of the land is filled with violence as the fact that there was no longer any will to do good can be seen from statements and evidence concerning the symbolism of violence offered above at verse 11 [§623].

The last verse predicted that the comprehension of truth would be destroyed in the people of the church, and this verse predicts that the will to do good would be destroyed.

633

The fact of the matter is that no one has any understanding of truth or will to do good. Not even the people of the earliest church had them. When people develop a heavenly nature, they seem to have a will to do good and an understanding of truth, but the capability is all the Lord’s, as they themselves see, acknowledge, and perceive. The same holds true for angels. So entirely is this the case that anyone who fails to see, acknowledge, and perceive the truth of it utterly lacks any comprehension of truth or will to do good.

The independent self of every human being and every angel—even the most heavenly—is mere falsity and evil. As people know, the heavens are not pure in the Lord’s sight [Job 15:15], and all good and all truth belong to him alone.

If a person or an angel can be perfected, then by the Lord’s divine mercy that individual is perfected and receives what seems to be an understanding of truth and a will to do good. But what she or he has is only an apparent possession.

All people can be perfected and so receive this gift of the Lord’s mercy. The way they have lived their lives, in view of the evil they have inherited from their parents, determines the shape in which mercy comes to them.

634

It is tremendously difficult to explain comprehensibly what an understanding of truth and a will to do good are, in the strict sense. The reason for the difficulty is that we consider every thought passing through our minds to be part of our intellect (since that is the name we give it) and every desire entering our heart to be part of our will (since that is the name we give it).

What makes a clear explanation even harder is that many people today are also completely unable to tell the difference between activity in the intellect and activity in the will. When they think something, they say they want it, and when they want something, they say they think it. So again the obstacle is the labels people use.

Yet another barrier to comprehension is the fact that only what relates to their body captures people’s interest; that is, their lives are exceedingly shallow.

[2] For all these reasons, people are unaware that each of us has a deeper level inside, and another level deeper than that, and another level that is deepest of all. They do not see that our bodily urges and sense impressions form the outermost surface; our passions and memories, a deeper layer; our loves and rational thoughts, a still deeper layer; and a will to do good and a comprehension of truth, the deepest. These levels are differentiated from one another with the greatest possible clarity. Body-centered people, however, jumble them all together into an undifferentiated whole. This is the source of the belief that when our physical part dies, everything else must too, even though it is at death that we first start to live. Indeed the new life comes to us by way of our inner levels, passing through each level in order.

If our inner dimensions were not clearly distinguished in this way, and if they did not lie one within the other, in the next life we could never become spirits, never become angelic spirits, never become angels. These three groups are differentiated in the same way as the inner levels, which create the plainest demarcation possible among the three heavens.

This explanation casts a little light on what a comprehension of truth and a will to do good are, properly speaking, and shows that they can be ascribed only to a person whose character is heavenly, or to angels in the third heaven.

635

The things said in this verse and the last symbolize the impending destruction of all comprehension of truth and all will to do good during the cataclysm of the pre-Flood church. Among the people who had absorbed appalling delusions and foul desires in the times before the Flood, such destruction was so complete that not even a faint impression of those faculties remained visible. But among the people referred to as “Noah,” some traces did last. That remnant was not enough to reestablish in them any ability to understand or to will, only to present them with truth on the rational plane and good on the earthly plane. A person’s character, you see, determines how fully the remnant can operate. These people had enough remaining traces of intellect and will to enable them to be reborn. Self-deception did not block or swallow up the Lord’s operation through the remnant in them.

Delusions—false premises that have taken root—hinder the Lord’s operation at every turn. Unless they are eradicated, their possessor can never be reborn. More on this later [§§660–661, 792–806], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

636

The meaning of I will destroy them together with the earth as the fact that the human race would meet its end when the church died can be seen from the inclusion of together with the earth in this verse. The earth or land in the broad sense symbolizes love, as already pointed out [§§585, 620], and consequently the church’s heavenly qualities. Here, since no love or any heavenly impulse remained, the earth symbolizes self-love and whatever is hostile to the church’s heavenly qualities. People were still considered part of the church, though, since they held on to their religious teachings. As I said [§§566:2, 620], the land or earth means the area surrounding the ground, and the ground means the area surrounding a field, just as love is what contains faith and faith is what contains religious knowledge.

637

To expand on the symbolism of the words I will destroy them together with the earth as the fact that the human race would meet its end along with the church: If the Lord’s church were completely obliterated from the planet, the human race could never survive. Every last person would die.

The church resembles the heart, as noted earlier [§468:2]. As long as the heart thrives, so can the surrounding organs and limbs. But as soon as the heart dies, everything else dies too. The Lord’s church on earth is like the heart; from it the human race—including people outside the church—receives life. Since no one has the faintest idea why this is so, I wish to explain.

The situation of the earth’s entire population resembles that of the human body with all its parts. In this body, the church plays the role of the heart. If there were no church supplying the heart’s place—a church with which the Lord could be united by means of heaven and the world of spirits—a break would occur. And if there were a break between the human race and the Lord, we would be annihilated immediately.

For this reason, a church has always existed, ever since the first moment of humanity’s creation. Even when the church has begun to die out, it has always remained alive in a few people.

[2] The Lord came into the world for the same reason. Had divine mercy not prompted him to come, the whole human race on this planet would have been destroyed, because at that time the church had reached its last stages and hardly any goodness or truth was left.

Because we humans, regarded in ourselves, are much lower than animals, we have no chance at survival unless we are intimately connected with the Lord through heaven and the world of spirits. Left on our own we would plunge headlong into destroying ourselves and everyone else, because the ruination of ourselves and everyone else is all we long for.

Our proper code of life is to love one another as we love ourselves, but what we actually do these days is to love ourselves more than others and thus hate everyone else. Now, with unreasoning animals the case is totally different. Their proper code is the one they live by, and so they live in thorough harmony with their destiny. We humans, though, live exactly opposite to the pattern ordained for us, so if the Lord did not take pity on us, if he did not bind us to him through angels, we could not possibly survive a single moment.

Of this fact humanity is unaware.

638

Genesis 6:14. “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; you must make compartments in the ark, and you must tar it inside and out with tar.”

The ark symbolizes a member of this church. The gopher wood symbolizes such a person’s ardent cravings. The compartments symbolize a person’s two sides—that of will and that of intellect. Tarring it inside and out symbolizes being preserved from a flood of desires.

639

The symbolism of the ark as a member of this church—the church called Noah—can be seen fairly clearly from its description in subsequent verses. It can also be seen from the fact that the Lord’s Word concerns itself throughout with spiritual and heavenly subjects. To put it another way, his Word is spiritual and heavenly.

If the ark (with its specifications of tarring, dimension, and construction) and the Flood had no greater significance than the words themselves suggest, spiritual and heavenly implications would be utterly lacking. The story itself would be everything and would perform no more critical service to humankind than similar literature written by secular authors.

But in every corner of its inmost recesses the Lord’s Word contains and enfolds spiritual and heavenly matters, and this leads directly to the conclusion that the ark and everything said of it carries a hidden meaning not yet uncovered.

[2] The same holds true elsewhere, as, for instance, in respect to the little ark with Moses hidden inside that was laid among the rushes by the river’s edge in Exodus 2:3. It is even more sublimely true of the sacred ark in the wilderness, built according to the model shown to Moses on Mount Sinai. If it had not represented the Lord and his kingdom in each and every one of its details, it would have functioned as nothing more than a kind of idol or a cult object. Again, take Solomon’s temple. It had no innate holiness derived from the gold, silver, cedar, and stone of its construction, but gained all its holiness from the attributes individually represented by those materials. Likewise here; if Noah’s ark with the itemized plan for building it did not symbolize some hidden characteristic of the church, the Word would be not the Lord’s Word but a string of words devoid of life and no different from the work of any secular writer.

The logical conclusion is that the ark symbolizes a person belonging to the church called Noah, or the church itself.

640

The symbolism of gopher wood as such a person’s ardent cravings and of the compartments as that person’s two sides—the volitional side and the intellectual side—has so far escaped human awareness. No one, moreover, will be able to see how those meanings are symbolized without first hearing how matters stood in the church called Noah.

As I have quite often said [§§32:2, 200, 202, 310, 337, 393, 459, 597], love made it possible for the people of the earliest church to recognize whether something they were hearing formed a part of faith. To put it another way, a will to do good gave them a comprehension of truth. But their descendants inherited also a tendency for desire (which belongs to the will) to gain the upper hand in them. They took the lessons they had learned about faith and drowned them in desire, and the result was that they became Nephilim.

Since the Lord foresaw, then, that if the human race continued in this tendency they would succumb to eternal ruin, he provided that the will should be split off from the intellect. We would not be shaped by a will to do good, as we had been previously; instead through an understanding of truth we would receive a gift for charity, which would resemble a will to do good. Such is the character that was taken on by the new church called Noah, and in consequence they possessed a nature wholly different from that of the earliest church.

Other churches besides this one also existed during the same period—one called Enosh, for example, as described above at Genesis 4:25, 26. There were others too that left behind no such reference or description. Only the church Noah is depicted here, because its nature was so unlike the earliest church’s and diverged so radically from it.

641

The people of this church had to reform. The side of a person called the intellect had to reform first, before it was possible for the other side, referred to as the will, to do the same. So the present passage tells how the contents of the will were separated from those of the intellect and how they were concealed and stored away, so to speak, in order to block off any stimulus to the will. Had the appetites of the will been stirred up, it would have destroyed people, as will become clear from later explanations [§§660–661, 751, 760, 927], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

These two sides, the intellect and will, are as clearly distinguished in us as they could possibly be. I was able to learn this unmistakably from the fact that intellectual information coming from spirits and angels enters the left side of the head or brain but impulses of the will enter the right side. They affect the face in a similar way. When angelic spirits exert an influence, they waft in like the gentlest possible breezes. When evil spirits arrive, they essentially flood the left side of the brain with dreadful hallucinations and delusions and the right side with cravings. Their influence is like a deluge of fantasies and appetites.

642

Such observations clarify what this initial description of the ark involves, in requiring that the ark be built out of gopher wood, be divided into compartments, and be tarred outside and in with tar. The meaning is that this second side—the will side—would be protected from the Flood and only the intellectual side would lie open, as depicted in verse 16 by the window, the door, and the lowest, second, and third levels.

Maybe these ideas seem unbelievable because they have never occurred to anyone before and people have not pictured the Lord’s Word this way. Yet they are completely true. However, they represent the simplest and most general type of secret hidden from human knowledge. If I delved into the details, nobody would comprehend even a single one.

643

To take up the actual symbolism of the terms: it is clear from the Word that gopher wood means intense cravings and the compartments mean our two sides.

Gopher wood is a kind of wood loaded with sulfur, similar to fir and many others of the same kind. Sulfur is what makes this wood symbolic of cravings because sulfur catches fire quite easily.

The earliest people used gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood as metaphors and similes for human attributes. Gold stood for the most profound heavenly quality in us, bronze for a heavenly quality less profound, and wood for the lowliest, physical kind, rising out of the first two. Silver, on the other hand, was a metaphor or simile for the deepest possible spiritual quality, iron for a spiritual quality less deep, and stone for the lowest kind. When these substances are mentioned in the Word, the same qualities are symbolized by them on an inner plane. In Isaiah, for instance:

For bronze I will bring in gold; and for iron I will bring in silver; and for wood, bronze; and for stones, iron; and I will make peace your property, and justice your taskmaster. (Isaiah 60:17)

This passage deals with the Lord’s kingdom, which contains not metals like these but heavenly and spiritual elements. The presence of symbolism here is also evident from the fact that the verse speaks of peace and justice. The gold, bronze, and wood mentioned in it are interconnected and symbolize heavenly or will-related qualities, as I said. The silver, iron, and stone too are interconnected and symbolize spiritual or intellectual qualities. [2] In Ezekiel:

They will prey on your resources, they will plunder your wares—your stones and your wood. (Ezekiel 26:12)

Obviously the resources and wares mean not those of a worldly type but those of a heavenly and spiritual type. Likewise the stones and wood; the stones are the contents of the intellect, and the wood, those of the will. In Habakkuk:

A stone in the wall cries out, and a beam of wood answers. (Habakkuk 2:11)

The stone stands for the lowest plane of the intellect, and the wood, for the lowest plane of the will, which responds whenever a fact is produced from a person’s store of sense-based information. In the same author:

Doom to one who says to wood, “Wake up!” and says “Rouse yourself!” to silent stone. Will it teach [anyone anything]? Look, it is immobilized in gold and silver, and there is no spirit at its core. But Jehovah is in his holy temple. (Habakkuk 2:19, 20)

Here too wood stands for desire, and stone stands for the lowest level of the intellect, which is why the text connects it with silence and teaching. The absence of spirit at its core means that it does not represent anything heavenly or spiritual, as the Temple with its stone and wood does. The stone and wood are locked up in gold and silver with those who spend no time thinking about the things they represent. [3] In Jeremiah:

Our water we drink at the cost of silver; our wood comes at a price. (Lamentations 5:4)

The water and silver symbolize the assets of the intellect, the wood, those of the will. In the same author:

. . . saying to wood, “You are my father,” and to stone, “You gave us birth.” (Jeremiah 2:27)

The wood stands for desire in the will, from which such people trace their conception, and the stone, for facts learned through the senses, from which they have their birth. Many passages in the prophets talk of serving wood and stone, where these refer to sculptures of wood and stone. The meaning is that people were slaves to their desires and fantasies. Another expression refers to engaging in adultery with wood and stone, as in Jeremiah 3:9. In Hosea:

The people ask questions of their wood, and their wand shows them the answer, because a spirit of whoredom has led them astray. (Hosea 4:12)

This stands for looking to a wooden idol—or in other words, to their appetites—for answers. In Isaiah:

From yesterday a topheth has been prepared; its pyre is fire and much wood; Jehovah’s breath is like a river of burning sulfur. (Isaiah 30:33)

The fire, sulfur, and wood stand for filthy desires.

[4] Wood in general symbolizes what exists on the lowest plane of the will. Costly woods, such as cedar and so on, symbolize the good things there. The cedar wood in the Temple has such a meaning, as does the cedar wood used to cure leprosy (Leviticus 14:4, 6, 7) and the wood thrown into the bitter water at Marah, making it sweet (Exodus 15:25). These passages will be explained in their places, by the Lord’s divine mercy. Wood that was not valuable, however, and that was made into idols or used for a funeral pyre or some similar purpose symbolizes cravings. The gopher wood in the current verse was of this type, because of the sulfur. In Isaiah, for instance:

A day of vengeance for Jehovah! [Zion’s] rivers will turn into pitch, and its dirt into sulfur, and its land will become burning pitch. (Isaiah 34:8, 9)

Pitch stands for horrendous delusions, sulfur for filthy desires.

644

The symbolism of the compartments as a person’s two sides, that of will and that of intellect, is established by previous statements: there is a clear distinction between the two sides called will and intellect, and the result, as noted [§641], is the division of the human brain into two parts referred to as hemispheres. Intellectual affairs belong to the left hemisphere and volitional ones to the right. This is the broadest division.

Both will and intellect are further divided into parts without number. The concerns of our intellect and the concerns of our will have so many categories that even the general ones could never be labeled or listed, still less the specific ones.

A person is like a kind of miniature heaven that corresponds to the world of spirits and heaven, where the Lord draws distinctions among all the genera and species of intellectual and volitional affairs. He divides them up and organizes them so perfectly that even the smallest has its own distinct identity. More on this below [§§657, 675, 684, 775], by the Lord’s divine mercy.

The distinct groupings in heaven are called communities. In the Word they are called dwelling places, and in John 14:2 the Lord calls them places to live. Here they are called compartments, since they were a feature of the ark, which symbolizes a person who is part of the church.

645

The symbolism of tarring it inside and out with tar as being preserved from a flood of desire can be seen from what was said above [§§641–642]: the people of this church first needed to reform the functioning of their intellect and so were preserved from a flood of desire, which would destroy all the work of reformation.

The original [Hebrew] text does not actually say “tar with tar” but uses a term that refers to protection. The term comes from one for atone or appease and therefore involves similar ideas. Atonement, or the appeasement of the Lord, is protection from a flood of evil.

646

Genesis 6:15. “And this is how you must make it: three hundred cubits for the length of the ark, fifty cubits for its width, and thirty cubits for its height.”

The numbers here as before symbolize the remaining traces and their scarcity. The length is their holiness, the width their truth, and the height their goodness.

647

The symbolism assigned here must necessarily seem bizarre and far-fetched to any reader. It must be hard to accept, for instance, that three hundred, fifty, and thirty symbolize the remaining traces and how few they were. The same for the symbolism of length, width, and height as holiness, truth, and goodness.

But in the first place, see the statements and proofs concerning numbers above at verse 3 of this chapter [§575], which showed that one hundred twenty there symbolizes remaining traces of faith. In the second place, anyone can achieve clarity on this point who considers that people intent on the inner meaning, as good spirits and angels are, look beyond everything tied to the earth, the body, and the world alone. Accordingly they look beyond everything connected with numbers and measurement, and yet the Lord gives them a full perception of the Word’s message, even though they are completely detached from such things. This being true, those details obviously must involve heavenly and spiritual concerns so remote from the literal meaning that we cannot even see they are meant. All heavenly and spiritual matters are like this, without exception.

Now you can see how insane it is to try to inquire into faith through the use of empirical data and factual knowledge and to believe nothing until this method allows you to grasp it.

648

The heavenly and spiritual symbolism of numbers and dimensions in the Word is plainly indicated by the taking of the measurements of the New Jerusalem and the new temple as recorded by John and Ezekiel. Anyone can see that the New Jerusalem and the new temple symbolize the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens and on earth. Clearly that kingdom cannot be physically measured, and yet numerical dimensions of length, width, and height are specified.

From this, anyone can reach the conclusion that the numbers and measurements hold a sacred meaning. In John, for example:

A reed like a staff was given to me, and the angel stood nearby. He told me, “Get up and measure God’s temple and the altar and those worshiping in it.” (Revelation 11:1)

And regarding the New Jerusalem:

The wall of the heavenly Jerusalem was big and high, having twelve gates and on the gates twelve angels and names written, which are those of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On the east were three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, on the west three gates. The wall of the city had twelve foundations and on them the twelve names of the Lamb’s apostles. The one who was talking to me had a golden reed for measuring the city and its gates and its wall. The city lies square, and its length is as great as its width. So he measured the city with the reed at twelve thousand stadia. Its length and width and height were equal. He measured its wall at a hundred forty-four cubits, which is the measure of a human, that is, of an angel. (Revelation 21:12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)

[2] The number twelve turns up repeatedly in this passage. It is a sacred number because it symbolizes the holy things of faith, as was mentioned above at verse 3 of the present chapter [§577]. (The same thing will be demonstrated below at chapters 29 and 30 of Genesis [§§3858, 3862, 3913:1], with the Lord’s divine mercy.) This is why it adds that the measure is the measure of a human, that is, of an angel.

The meaning is similar for the new temple and the new Jerusalem spoken of in Ezekiel, where again they are described by their measurements. See Ezekiel 40:3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 22, 25, 30, 36, 42, 47; 41:1–end; 42:5–15; Zechariah 2:1, 2. In these places too, the numbers have no meaning by themselves. The only meaning is the one abstracted from the numbers, which is that of something holy and either heavenly or spiritual. This holds true for all the dimensions of the ark in Exodus 25:10 as well, and those of the appeasement cover, golden table, dwelling place, and altar in Exodus 25:17, 23; 26; 27:1. Likewise for all the figures and dimensions connected with the Temple in 1 Kings 6:2, 3; and for many others.

649

Here, though, the numbers representing the measurements of the ark simply symbolize the remnant present in the people of this church when they were being reformed, and the remnant’s meager size. This is established by the predominance of the number five in those figures, five symbolizing “some” or “a little” in the Word. An example from Isaiah:

Gleanings will be left in it, like what is shaken off the olive tree—two, three fruits at the crown of the highest branch; four, five on the branches of a productive tree. (Isaiah 17:6)

Two, three, and five stand for a few. In the same author:

One thousand will flee before the reproach of one, before the reproach of five you will flee, until you are left as a standing pole on the head of the mountain. (Isaiah 30:17)

Here again five stands for a few. The minimum fine added to any restitution people paid was a fifth part (Leviticus 5:16; 6:5; 22:14; Numbers 5:7), and the minimum surcharge when people redeemed an animal, a house, a field, or tithes was also a fifth part (Leviticus 27:13, 15, 19, 31).

650

The symbolism of the length as the holiness of the remnant, of the width as its truth, and of the height as its goodness, expressed in numbers, is not so easy to prove by the Word, because the meanings of each relate to the object or entity being described. Length, for example, when ascribed to time symbolizes what lasts to eternity, as in the phrase length of days (Psalms 23:6; 21:4). But when ascribed to distance, length symbolizes something holy, and this meaning follows from the former. The case with width and height is similar.

All earthly things have three dimensions, but the same dimensions cannot be applied to heavenly and spiritual things. When applied to something heavenly or spiritual—in abstraction from the dimensions—they mean more perfection or less, and also the nature or amount of the thing. So in the present verse the measurements imply the nature (they were traces) and amount (there were only a few).

651

Genesis 6:16. “You must make a window for the ark and complete it to a cubit above. And you must place a door for the ark in its side. Lowest, second-level, and third-level [compartments] you must make in it.”

The window that was to be completed to a cubit above symbolizes the ability to understand. The door on the side symbolizes hearing the message. The lowest, second-level, and third-level [compartments] symbolize matters of fact, reason, and understanding.

652

The symbolism of the window as the ability to understand and of the door as hearing the message, and the resulting theme of this verse as a person’s intellectual side, are indicated by what was said above. To be specific, the intellect was said to be the means of reformation for the people of that church [§§641, 642].

[Nowadays] people have two kinds of life, one belonging to the will and the other to the intellect. These become two kinds of life when will is absent and desire takes its place. The second, intellectual half is the part then capable of reforming. When the intellect has been reformed, we are able to receive a new will through it, allowing the two (that is, charity and faith) to continue as a single force in our lives.

Since at this point people were such that they had no will, but mere desire instead, the volitional side was closed off, as noted at verse 14 [§§640–642], and the other, intellectual side opened up, as described in the current verse.

653

Here is what happens during reformation, a process accomplished through conflict and trials. Evil spirits attach themselves to us, and they call up the facts we have heard—the ideas that seem rational to us—and nothing else. Their activity wards off any spirit who would arouse our desires.

There are, you see, two kinds of evil spirit: those who act on our rationalizations and those who act on our cravings. Those who stir up our rationalizations call forth all our misconceptions. They try to persuade us that falsity is truth, and more than that, they even turn our true ideas into false ones. These falsities we must combat when we are going through times of trial (although it is the Lord working through the angels connected to us who actually fights against them).

[2] After these battles have sifted out the falsities and apparently rid us of them, we are ready to accept the truth taught by faith. As long as falsity governs us, of course, we are completely unable to accept religious truth, because the false premises we have adopted stand in the way.

Once prepared in this way to accept religious truth, we can for the first time be sown with heavenly seed—the seed of charity. The seed of charity can never be sown in ground controlled by falsities, but only where truth rules.

That is how the reformation or rebirth of a spiritual person takes place. The same process took place among the people of the church described here, the church called Noah. That is why the current verse discusses the ark’s window and door and its lowest, second-level, and third-level compartments or decks. All these things relate to our spiritual or intellectual self.

654

The above process, then, as churches today know, is to gain faith through hearing. But faith is decidedly not a knowledge of faith’s tenets, a knowledge of what should be believed; such knowledge is mere book-learning. Faith is acknowledgment. What is more, acknowledgment is impossible to anyone who lacks the most important element of faith, which is charity—that is, love for others and mercy. Where charity exists, acknowledgment exists, which is to say, faith exists. Anyone who imagines otherwise is as far from understanding what faith is as the earth is from heaven. When charity (the goodness belonging to faith) is present, acknowledgment (the truth belonging to faith) is present.

Consequently, the purpose of our rebirth through matters of fact, reason, and understanding is to prepare the soil of our minds to receive charity. Charity—or rather the living out of charity—then forms the basis of thought and action. At that point we are reformed or reborn, and not before.

655

The symbolism of the window to be completed to a cubit above as the ability to understand is visible to anyone from the statements just made. Further clarity comes from considering that if the subject is the construction of the ark, and if the ark symbolizes a person in the church, the ability to understand cannot be compared to anything but a window above.

In other places too the Word calls human intellect (in other words, our inner sight) a window, whether that intellect engages in reason or merely rationalizes. In Isaiah, for example:

Afflicted one, tossed by a whirlwind, disconsolate: I will use rubies for your suns (windows), and make your gates of garnets and your whole border of desirable stones. (Isaiah 54:11, 12)

The word used here for windows is suns because of the light that windows let in or transmit. The suns or windows are ideas in the intellect—ones that spring from charity, which is why they are described as rubies. The gates are rational concepts from the same source. The border is organized knowledge and sensory evidence. All of these items have to do with the Lord’s church.

[2] All the windows in the Temple at Jerusalem represented the same thing. The ones at the top represented matters of understanding, those in the middle represented matters of reason, while those on the bottom represented matters of fact and sense impressions (the annex being three-storied; see 1 Kings 6:4, 6, 8). The windows of [the temple in] the new Jerusalem described by Ezekiel (40:16, 22, 25, 33, 36) have a similar representation.

In Jeremiah:

Death climbed through our windows, it came into our palaces, to cut off the toddler in the street, the youths in the avenues. (Jeremiah 9:21)

This is referring to windows of the middle story, which are matters of reason, and it says that these are obliterated. The toddler in the street is newborn truth.

As windows symbolize truth gained through the intellect and reason, they also symbolize falsity resulting from the misuse of reason. An example from the same author:

Doom to those who build their house on what is not justice and their upper rooms on what is not judgment; who say, “I will build myself a house of [large] dimensions, and upper rooms that are spacious,” and cut windows out for themselves (and it is paneled in cedar), painting it with vermilion. (Jeremiah 22:13, 14)

The windows stand for falsities adopted as premises. In Zephaniah:

Packs of animals will lie down in its midst, every wild animal of that nation. Both the spoonbill and the qippod will spend the night among its pomegranates. A voice will sing in the window; devastation is at the threshold. (Zephaniah 2:14)

This concerns Assyria and Nineveh, Assyria symbolizing the intellect, here one that has been devastated. A voice singing in the windows stands for misguided logic based on illusions.

656

By now it is apparent that the door on the side symbolizes hearing the message, and there is no need to bring in similar passages from the Word by way of confirmation. After all, the relationship between the ear and the internal sense organs is like that between the door on the side and the window above. And to say the same thing another way, it is like the relationship between hearing (which is the ear’s function) and intellectual activity (which is a function of the internal senses).

657

The symbolism of the lowest, second-level, and third-level [compartments] as matters of fact, reason, and understanding also follows.

There are three levels to the contents of the human intellect. The lowest has to do with factual knowledge, the middle with reason, and the highest with understanding. These levels are so clearly distinguished from each other that they never blur, but people are unaware of the distinction because they place life exclusively in what they can sense and learn about. Since they fixate on that level, they cannot see even that their ability to reason is different from their knowledge, still less that their ability to understand is different from it. The reality is that the Lord exerts an influence on our rational thinking through the things we truly understand, and on the data in our memory through our rational thinking, giving life to the senses of sight and hearing. This is true influx; this is the true connection between the soul and the body.

Life could never exist in us if it did not flow from the Lord into the things we truly understand, and through these into the contents of our rational mind, and through these into the facts stored in our memory. Or to be more accurate, it first has to flow into the contents of our will and through these into the things we understand, and so on.

Even though we are enmeshed in falsity and evil, the Lord’s life still enters in through the things we will and understand; but our rational mind absorbs those influences according to its form. This makes it possible for us to reason about, to reflect on, and to understand what is true and good. But more on these subjects below [§§6053–6058, 6189–6215, 6307–6327, 6466–6496, 6598–6626], with the Lord’s divine mercy; and also something on the way life operates in animals [§§1902:1, 3646, 4776:4–5, 5850, 6323].

658

These three levels—understanding, reason, and knowledge, which are described in a general way as a person’s intellectual possessions—are also symbolized by the windows of the three-floor annex to the Temple at Jerusalem (1 Kings 6:4, 6, 8), as noted [§655:2]. They were symbolized earlier as well, by the rivers going out from the Garden of Eden, which was in the east. In that passage, the east symbolizes the Lord, Eden symbolizes love in the will, the garden symbolizes the intelligence that grows out of it, and the rivers symbolize wisdom, reason, and knowledge. See what was said about these things earlier, at Genesis 2:10, 11, 12, 13, 14 [§§107–121].

659

Genesis 6:17. “And I—yes, I—am bringing a flood of water on the earth, to destroy all flesh (all that has the breath of life in it) from under the heavens; all that is on the earth will pass away.”

The flood symbolizes a deluge of evil and falsity. To destroy all flesh (all that has the breath of life in it) from under the heavens means that all the descendants of the earliest church destroyed themselves. All that is on the earth will pass away symbolizes the people who were part of that church and who adopted its nature.

660

The symbolism of the flood as a deluge of evil and falsity is established by statements above concerning the descendants of the earliest church. There it was said that sordid cravings took control of them and that they merged the teachings of faith with those cravings [§§560, 568:1, 570, 582, 593, 640]. The consequence was that they adopted falsities as their convictions [§§562, 581], blotting out everything true or good [§§573, 586a, 627–628, 632, 635], and at the same time shutting off access to the remnant within them so that it could not do its work [§§563, 571]. This inevitably resulted in their self-destruction [§§560, 563, 592, 594, 631, 636, 637].

When the path to the remnant within us is shut off, we cease to be human, because angels can no longer protect us. Evil spirits take thorough possession of us instead, and their only interest and desire is to annihilate us. Such was the cause of the extinction of the pre-Flood race, as portrayed in the worldwide deluge of the Flood.

Furthermore, an influx of fantasies and appetites coming from evil spirits is not unlike a flood, and that is why the Word frequently calls it a flood, as the remarks introducing the next chapter [§705] will show, with the Lord’s divine mercy.

661

The meaning of to destroy all flesh (all that has the breath of life in it) under the heavens as the fact that all the descendants of the earliest church destroyed themselves can be seen from what was just said. It can also be seen from earlier sections [§§560, 562–563] describing how the mentality that the same people inherited cumulatively from their forebears made them more disposed than others to soak up monstrous convictions of this type. The main reason was that they immersed the religious teachings they possessed in the torrent of their desires and so took on this disposition.

Circumstances are different for those who have never learned what the true faith teaches but live in complete ignorance. They cannot do as that church did; they have no way of profaning holy things and so blocking off access to the remnant within themselves. As a result, they do not drive the Lord’s angels away.

[2] The remnant within us, as already stated [§561], includes every lesson in innocence, in charity, in mercy, and in religious truth that we have received from the Lord since childhood. Each and every trace of those lessons is stored away. Without them, innocence, charity, and mercy would be wholly absent from our thinking and our actions. In that case, nothing good or true would be present, and we would be worse than savage beasts. The outcome would be the same if a remnant of these qualities did stay with us but unclean desires and dreadful, misconceived persuasions blocked its outlet, preventing it from operating. That is what happened with the people predating the Flood who exterminated themselves. They are the ones meant by all flesh (all that has the breath of life in it) under the heavens.

[3] Flesh symbolizes all people in general, and body-centered people in particular, as shown already [§574]. The breath of life symbolizes all life in general, but strictly speaking, it is the life in those who have been reborn. Here, then, it symbolizes the final generation of the earliest church. Although no living faith survived in them, they still had acquired from their ancestors a germ of that faith—which they smothered. It is here called the breath of life; in Genesis 7:22, it is referred to in the phrase, “in whose nostrils was the breath of living spirit.”

Flesh under the heavens symbolizes what is limited to our bodily plane, whereas the heavens are the truth that we understand and the good that we will. Once our bodily concerns are disconnected from truth in the intellect and good in the will, we can no longer remain alive. What sustains us is the bond we have with heaven, that is, with the Lord through heaven.

662

All that is on the earth will pass away symbolizes the people who were part of that church and who adopted its nature. As demonstrated earlier [§§566–567, 620], the earth does not mean the whole inhabited world, only the part that constituted the church. So the verse is not referring to any kind of flood, let alone a worldwide one. It is talking about the death, the “drowning,” of those in the church who were cut off from the remnant within them and consequently from any comprehension of truth or will to do good; which is to say that they were cut off from the heavens.

Scriptural passages quoted earlier attest to the symbolism of the earth or land as the area where the church existed, and so as the inhabitants of that area. The following verses also confirm the symbolism. In Jeremiah:

This is what Jehovah has said: “The whole earth will be stripped bare, yet I will not make a full end. Because of this the earth will mourn and the heavens above will be draped in black.” (Jeremiah 4:27, 28)

The earth stands for residents in the area where the church, which had been devastated, existed. In Isaiah:

I will shake heaven, and the earth will quake out of its place. (Isaiah 13:13)

The earth here stands for an individual in the church’s territory who is to suffer devastating experiences. In Jeremiah:

The people stabbed by Jehovah will on that day reach from the ends of the earth to the ends of the earth. (Jeremiah 25:33)

The ends of the earth here do not mean the entire globe but only the tract of land where the church was. So they symbolize the people who belonged to the church. In the same author:

I am calling for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the land. Upheaval has come all the way to the ends of the earth, because Jehovah has a quarrel against the nations. (Jeremiah 25:29, 31)

Again it is not the whole globe that is meant but only the territory of the church and so the inhabitant there, that is, a person who belongs to the church. In this passage the nations stand for falsities. In Isaiah:

Watch: Jehovah is leaving his place to exact punishment for wickedness in the inhabitant of the land. (Isaiah 26:21)

The meaning here is similar. In the same author:

Are you not listening? Has it not been pointed out to you from the beginning? Do you not understand the foundations of the earth? (Isaiah 40:21)

In the same author:

Jehovah is creating the heavens; he is God, forming the earth and making it; he is also establishing it. (Isaiah 45:18)

The earth stands for a member of the church. In Zechariah:

This is the saying of Jehovah as he stretches out the heavens and founds the earth and forms the human spirit in the middle of it. (Zechariah 12:1)

Plainly the earth stands for a person in the church.

The earth (or land) is distinguished from the ground, just as a person in the church is distinguished from the church itself, or as love is distinguished from faith.

663

Genesis 6:18. “And I will set up my pact with you; and you will enter the ark: you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.”

Setting up a pact means that [the people referred to as Noah] would be reborn. That he was to enter the ark, as were his sons [and his wife] and his sons’ wives means that they would be saved. The sons are truth and the wives goodness.

664

The last verse was about people who destroyed themselves. This one is about people who were being reborn and so would be saved, who are referred to as “Noah.”

665

The meaning of setting up a pact as the fact that they would be reborn can be seen clearly from this: No pact can mediate between the Lord and humanity except that of being united by love and faith. So a pact symbolizes union. This kind of union is the heavenly marriage, which is the truest compact. The heavenly marriage, or union, can exist only in those who are reborn, and accordingly a pact in the broadest sense symbolizes rebirth itself. The Lord enters into a compact with us when he regenerates us, and for this reason the ancients saw a pact as representing nothing but regeneration.

The literal meaning gives no clue that the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and so often renewed with their descendants had to do with any others than those actual people. But they were people incapable of rebirth, since they equated worship with outward observances alone. They also saw holiness in external elements without considering any connection to internal values. So the pacts struck with them could do no more than represent regeneration.

None of their rituals did more than this. Neither did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob themselves, who represented different aspects of love and faith. These men were like the priests and high priests, who were able to represent a heavenly and very holy priesthood no matter what their character was—even those who were criminal. When people serve to represent something, no thought is given to their personality, only to the quality represented. By the same token, all the monarchs of Israel and Judah—even the worst ones—represented the Lord’s royal power. In fact the pharaoh who raised Joseph up over the land of Egypt also represented that power.

This consideration and many others (to be mentioned later, by the Lord’s divine mercy) show that the numerous covenants with the children of Jacob were nothing more than rituals that held a representative meaning.

666

The fact that a pact means nothing else than rebirth with all it entails can be seen from numerous passages in the Word that call the Lord himself a covenant [or pact]. The term is applied to him because he is the only one to regenerate us and the only one to whom the reborn individual looks. He is also the all-in-all of love and faith.

The fact that the Lord is the pact itself can be seen in Isaiah:

I, Jehovah, have called you in justice and am holding your hand and guarding you; and I will give you as a pact with the people, as a light for the nations. (Isaiah 42:6)

The pact stands for the Lord, while the light for the nations means faith. Isaiah 49:6, 8 has a similar message. In Malachi:

Watch: I am sending my angel, and suddenly to his temple will come the Lord, whom you are seeking, and the angel of the covenant, whom you desire. Watch: He is coming! Who can endure the day of his coming? (Malachi 3:1, 2)

In this passage the Lord is called the angel of the covenant. The Sabbath is referred to as an eternal pact in Exodus 31:16 because it symbolizes the Lord. It also symbolizes us when he has regenerated us to the point of being heavenly.

[2] As the Lord is the pact itself, we can conclude that everything binding us to the Lord is part of the contract. Love and faith, then, are part of it, as is everything that comes of love and faith. These things are the Lord’s, and the Lord is in them. Consequently the covenant itself is in those things wherever they are received. And they are not received except in one who has been reborn. Everything in a person reborn that belongs to the Regenerator—the Lord—is part of the compact or, in other words, is the compact. In Isaiah, for example:

My mercy will not withdraw from you, and the compact of my peace will not recede. (Isaiah 54:10)

The mercy and the compact of peace are the Lord and everything that is his. In the same author:

Bend your ear and come to me; listen and let your soul live, and I will strike with you an eternal pact—the reliable mercies [that I showed] to David. Here, now, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and lawgiver for the nations. (Isaiah 55:3, 4)

David stands for the Lord. The eternal pact consists in attributes of the Lord’s and is fulfilled by means of them. These are the things meant by going to him and listening so that our souls may live. [3] In Jeremiah:

I will give them one heart and one way, to fear me every day, with good result to them and to their children after them. And I will strike an eternal pact with them, [pledging] that I will not turn away from doing good to them; and fear of me I will put into their heart. (Jeremiah 32:39, 40)

These words stand for people who are being reborn. They stand also for qualities in the person who has been reborn, those qualities being the one heart and one way. One heart and one way in turn are charity and faith, which are the Lord’s and so are part of the compact. In the same author:

“Look! The days are coming,” says Jehovah, “when I will strike a new pact with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah unlike the pact that I struck with their ancestors, because they nullified my pact. But this is the pact that I will strike with the house of Israel after these days: I will put my law in the midst of them, and upon their heart I will write it, and I will become their God, and they will become my people.” (Jeremiah 31:31, 32, 33)

This explains openly what a covenant is: love for the Lord and faith in him as adopted by one who is regenerating. [4] The same author calls love a compact with the day and faith a compact with the night (Jeremiah 33:20). In Ezekiel:

I, Jehovah, will become their God, and my servant David will be chief in their midst. And I will strike a pact of peace with them and bring an end on the earth to the evil wild animal; and they will live securely in the wilderness and sleep in forests. (Ezekiel 34:24, 25)

This is obviously about regeneration. David stands for the Lord. In the same author:

David will be chief over them forever. I will strike a pact of peace with them; it will be an eternal pact with them. I will put my sanctuary in their midst forever. (Ezekiel 37:25, 26)

Again this is about rebirth. David and the sanctuary stand for the Lord. In the same author:

I entered into a pact with you, and you were mine; and I washed you with water and cleaned your blood off you and anointed you with oil. (Ezekiel 16:8, 9, 11)

Plainly this is about rebirth. In Hosea:

I will strike a pact with them on that day—with the wild animal of the field, and with the bird in the heavens and the creeping animal of the earth. (Hosea 2:18)

This stands for regeneration. The wild animal of the field stands for what the will holds, the bird in the heavens for what the intellect holds. In David:

He has sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. (Psalms 111:9)

This stands for rebirth. It is called a covenant or contract because it is given and received.

[5] There are some, however, who do not regenerate. To put it another way, there are some who consider the outward show of worship to be worship, and who value and revere themselves, their own wishes, and their own thoughts as gods. Because they alienate themselves from the Lord, they are portrayed as nullifying the compact. In Jeremiah, for instance:

They abandoned the compact of Jehovah their God and bowed down to other gods and served them. (Jeremiah 22:9)

In Moses:

Whoever goes against the compact by serving other gods—the sun, the moon, the whole army of the heavens—will be stoned. (Deuteronomy 17:2 and following verses)

The sun stands for self-love, the moon for assumptions based on falsities, and the army of the heavens for the falsities themselves.

All of this now indicates that the ark of the covenant, containing the testimony (or covenant), was the Lord himself; that the book of the covenant was the Lord himself (Exodus 24:4, 7; 34:4, 5, 6, 7, 27; Deuteronomy 4:13, 23); and that the blood of the covenant was the Lord himself (Exodus 24:6, 8). The Lord alone is the Regenerator, so the covenant is regeneration itself.

667

The meaning of he was to enter the ark, as were his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives as the fact that they would be saved can be seen from the things said above. It can also be seen from things said below [§711] showing that they would be saved through being reborn.

668

The fact that the sons are truth and the wives goodness was also shown earlier, at Genesis 5:4 [§§489–491]. That verse spoke of sons and daughters but this one speaks of sons and their wives, because wives are the good connected with truth.

No truth would ever come into being if something good or pleasurable did not exist for it to grow out of. Goodness and pleasure have life in them, but truth does not have any life besides that which it gains from goodness and pleasure. It is from these that truth forms and sprouts. The same applies to faith (a matter of truth), which comes from love (a matter of goodness). Truth is like light. No light exists that does not come from the sun, that is, flame; this is the source from which light develops.

Truth is simply the form of goodness, and faith is simply the form of love. Truth develops out of goodness according to the quality of the goodness, and faith develops according to the quality of love or charity.

This, then, is the reason for the mention of a wife and wives, symbolizing the good connected with truth. For the same reason, the next verse says that two of each, a male and a female, were to enter the ark. Unless good is attached, no regeneration occurs.

669

Genesis 6:19. “And of every living thing, of all flesh, you must bring pairs of each into the ark to keep them alive with you. A male and a female they must be.”

A living soul symbolizes what lies in the intellect. All flesh symbolizes what lies in the will. You must bring pairs of each into the ark symbolizes the regeneration of these entities. A male is something true and a female something good.

670

The symbolism of a living soul as what lies in the intellect and of all flesh as what lies in the will is established by statements made above and others to follow.

In the Word, a living soul means every animal in general, no matter what kind, as it did at Genesis 1:20, 21, 24, and 2:19. In the current verse, though, since all flesh follows on its heels, it symbolizes the intellectual realm. The reason was given before [§§641, 652–654]: the people of this church first had to be reborn as to the ideas in their intellect. For the same reason, the next verse starts with the mention of birds, symbolizing matters of understanding, or of reason, and moves on to animals, symbolizing matters of will.

Flesh specifically symbolizes the body-centered part of the will.

671

The symbolism of you must bring pairs of each into the ark to keep them alive as the regeneration of these entities can be seen from remarks on the previous verse. There it was said that truth can be regenerated only by what is good and pleasurable, and the attributes of faith, therefore, only by the qualities of charity. In consequence the present verse says “pairs of each must go in,” or to be specific, both something of the truth that inhabits the intellect and something of the goodness that inhabits the will.

People who have not been reborn have neither an understanding of truth nor a will to do good. (They only appear to have them, although they do have faculties that everyone calls by those names.) They are indeed capable of grasping truth on the rational and factual levels, but such truth is not alive. They are also seemingly able to will what is good, but the goodness is not living. It is like the good deeds that non-Christians do, or even like the good actions of unreasoning animals, and these are merely analogous to good. Truth and goodness can never come to life in us before we regenerate and so before the Lord gives them life.

In the other world people can easily tell what is not alive and what is alive. When they come across truth that is not living, they immediately sense it as something material, fibrous, and shut off. When they come across goodness that is not living, they perceive it as something wooden, bonelike, or stony. The truth and goodness that the Lord has brought to life, though, is open, vibrant, and full of spiritual and heavenly essence, offering unhindered access all the way to the Lord. It displays this nature in every idea and action, down to the tiniest aspects. This, then, is the reason the verse says that pairs were to enter the ark to be kept alive.

672

I have already said and shown [§§54, 476, 489–491] that a male is something true and a female something good.

Every part of us, no matter how small, has something equivalent to a marriage in it. Whatever exists in our intellect, therefore, is coupled with something in our will. Without this mating, or marriage, we produce nothing at all.

673

Genesis 6:20. “Of the bird by its kind, and of the beast by its kind, of everything creeping on the ground by its kind—pairs of all must go in to you, to stay alive.”

A bird symbolizes matters of intellect, a beast matters of will, and something creeping on the ground both at the lowest level. Two of each must go in, to stay alive, here as above symbolizes the regeneration of these entities.

674

The symbolism of a bird as matters of intellect or of reason was shown earlier, at §40. So was the symbolism of a beast or animal as matters of will, or emotions, at §§45, 46, 142, 143, 246. The symbolism of something creeping on the ground as both at the lowest level can be seen from the fact that anything creeping on the ground is as low as possible. The symbolism of pairs of all must go in, to stay alive, as the regeneration of these entities was explained at the last verse.

675

The present verse speaks of every kind of bird, every kind of beast, and every kind of creeping thing. In this regard it needs to be known that in each of us the contents of the intellect and of the will divide into countless major categories and an even greater number of specific kinds, each perfectly distinct from the others, even though we are unaware of the fact. During our regeneration, the Lord brings every single one of these forward in its sequence, disentangling it and setting it in its proper place so that he can turn it in the direction of truth and goodness and unite it with them. This he does in many different ways, depending on the states we go through, which are also beyond number.

Still, none of these things—the individual genera and species, the individual stages of our life—can ever be perfected to eternity. Each embraces factors whose number is unlimited when taken separately and even higher when compounded. We do not even realize this is true; still less can we see how we are reborn. That is what the Lord says to Nicodemus about a person’s regeneration:

The spirit blows where it wishes, and you hear its voice, yet you do not know where it is coming from or where it is going off to; this is the way with everyone who is born from the spirit. (John 3:8)

676

Genesis 6:21. “And take for yourself some food of every type that is eaten and gather it to yourself, and it will serve you and them as food.”

He was to take for himself some food of every type that was eaten symbolizes what is pleasurable and good. He was to gather it to himself symbolizes what is true. It was to serve him and them as food symbolizes both.

677

To describe the food of people who are to be reborn: Before we can be reborn, we have to be equipped with everything instrumental to rebirth. Good, joyful feelings serve the needs of our will, while truth from the Lord’s Word, along with support and confirmation from other sources, serves our intellectual needs. Till we receive this preparation, we cannot be regenerated. Those supplies are our food. That is why we cannot be regenerated before we reach adulthood. But we each have foods particularly appropriate to us that seem to be all our own, and the Lord provides us with them prior to our rebirth.

678

The symbolism of he was to take for himself some food of every type that was eaten as what is pleasurable and good can be seen from statements to the effect that pleasure and goodness are the constituents of human life but that truth is not so much so [§§32–34, 503, 590, 668]. This is because truth acquires its life from what is pleasing and good.

From the time of childhood right through to old age, no item of knowledge or reason is ever instilled in us unless it enters by way of something pleasant and good. Because the human soul lives on goodness and pleasure and sustains itself by means of them, they are called food. They actually are food, since the soul could never survive without them, as anyone who is willing to pay attention can see.

679

The symbolism of he was to gather it to himself as what is true follows as a consequence, since gather is used of the items in our memory; they are “gathered” there. In addition, this clause involves the idea that both—goodness and truth—are collected in us before we undergo regeneration. Without a collection of good feelings and true ideas to serve as instruments for the Lord’s work, we could never be regenerated, as just noted. This leads to the conclusion that it was to serve him and them as food symbolizes both.

680

Everyone can see that goodness and truth are a person’s genuine food. Anyone deprived of them is dead, not living. The kinds of food that our souls feed on when we are [spiritually] dead are the pleasures of evil and the gratifications provided by falsity; these are lethal foods. So are the pleasures and satisfactions afforded by bodily, worldly, and earthly things, which have no inherent life.

What is more, people devoid of life have no idea what spiritual and heavenly food is. They are so ignorant on this score that every time the Word mentions food or bread, they suppose it means physical food. Take, for instance, the phrase from the Lord’s Prayer, Give us daily bread; they think this refers only to the nourishment of the body, or if their thinking stretches any further, they allow that it also includes the body’s other needs, such as clothing, riches, and so on. They even argue bitterly against the notion that any other kind of food is meant. Yet they see clearly that the words before and after this phrase have to do only with heavenly and spiritual concerns and that the Lord’s kingdom is the subject of the prayer. They are also capable of grasping that the Word of the Lord is spiritual and heavenly. [2] From this circumstance and others like it, the extent to which people today focus on the body is obvious enough. So is their desire (like that of Jews) to interpret everything the Word says as dealing with the crudest of material concerns.

The Lord himself teaches plainly what food and bread mean in his Word. Of food he speaks this way in John:

Jesus said, “Work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that lasts to eternal life, which the Son of Humankind gives you.” (John 6:27)

Of bread he says in the same author:

Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and died. This is the bread that came down from heaven so that a person could eat of it and not die. I am the living bread who came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, that person will live forever. (John 6:49, 50, 51, 58)

Some today say, as those who heard this did,

“This saying is hard. Who can listen to it?” And they backed away and no longer walked with him. (John 6:60, 66)

The Lord told them:

The words that I am speaking to you are spirit and are life. (John 6:63)

[3] In similar fashion, water symbolizes the spiritual aspects of faith. The Lord speaks of it this way in John:

Jesus said, “Anyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink the water that I give them will never be thirsty to eternity. Instead, the water that I give them will become a spring of water gushing up in them to provide eternal life.” (John 4:13, 14)

People do exist today, however, who resemble the woman the Lord talked to by the spring, when she answered,

Lord, give me this water, to keep me from being thirsty and coming here to draw! (John 4:15)

[4] Many passages in the Word establish that food there stands only as a symbol for spiritual and heavenly nourishment, which is faith in the Lord and love. In Jeremiah, for instance:

The enemy has stretched its hand out over every pleasant thing in Jerusalem. Because she has seen the nations, they have come into her sanctuary, about which you commanded, “They shall not come into your assembly.” All the people are groaning, looking for bread. They have exchanged what is pleasant to them for food to revive their soul. (Lamentations 1:10, 11)

These words mean no other bread or food than a spiritual kind, since they deal with the sanctuary. In the same author:

I called out to my lovers; they deceived me. My priests and my elders expired in the city, for they had tried to find food for themselves and would have brought their soul back [to life]. (Lamentations 1:19)

The meaning is similar. In David:

All of them wait for you to give them their food in its season. You give to them; they gather. You open your hand; they receive abundant good. (Psalms 104:27, 28)

This too stands for spiritual and heavenly food. [5] In Isaiah:

Everyone who is thirsty, come to the water, and whoever does not have silver, come, buy and eat! And come, without silver and without the price buy wine and milk! (Isaiah 55:1)

The wine and milk stand for spiritual and heavenly drink. In the same author:

The young woman will conceive and deliver a child, and you shall call his name Immanuel. He will eat butter and honey, in order to know to spurn what is evil and choose what is good. It will happen on account of the abundance of milk-making that they will eat butter, since butter and honey are what everyone who is left in the middle of the land will eat. (Isaiah 7:14, 15, 22)

Eating honey and butter is taking nourishment that is heavenly and at the same time spiritual. Those left in the land stand for remnants [of goodness and truth]. Malachi also discusses these:

Bring all tithes to the treasure house, so that there may be food in my House. (Malachi 3:10)

Tithes stand for remnants. For more on the symbolism of food, see §§56–58, 276.

681

The best place to learn about heavenly and spiritual food is in the other life. Angels and spirits sustain their life not with the kind of food the world offers but with every word that issues from the Lord’s mouth, as he himself teaches in Matthew 4:4.

The situation is that the Lord alone is the life of all. From him comes each and every thing that angels and spirits think, say, or do. This is true not only of angels and good spirits but also of evil spirits. They speak and do evil because that is how they receive and pervert all the good and true things that are the Lord’s. The form of the recipient determines the way a thing is received and the effect it has. The case is comparable to that of various objects struck by the sun’s light that turn the light they receive into hideous, unpleasant colors according to their makeup and the arrangement and structure of their parts, while other objects turn the light into lovely, pleasing colors.

So the entirety of heaven and the entire world of spirits live on everything that comes out of the Lord’s mouth, and every individual there receives life from the same source. Indeed, this applies not only to heaven and the world of spirits but to the entire human race as well. I know that people will scoff, but I can still assert from years of constant experience that it is absolutely true.

Evil spirits in the world of spirits are also reluctant to believe that it is so. For this reason they have received many personal demonstrations, which were so effective that they have begrudgingly confessed the situation to be so.

If angels, spirits, or people on earth were to be deprived of this food, they would die instantly.

682

Genesis 6:22. And Noah did everything that God had commanded him; that is what he did.

Noah did everything that God had commanded him means it happened in this way. The repetition of did means that it involves both [good and truth].

683

Again, the double mention of did means that it involves both. In this connection, it needs to be realized that the Word, especially in the prophets, describes a single phenomenon in two ways. In Isaiah, for instance:

He has passed by in peace; he did not tread the path with his feet. Who has managed and done it? (Isaiah 41:3, 4)

One expression looks to good, the other to truth. In other words, one looks to what exists in the will, the other to what exists in the intellect. So passing by in peace involves qualities of the will, not treading the path with his feet qualities of the intellect. The same holds for managing and doing.

This is how the Word ties together the properties of the will and those of the intellect, that is, those of love and those of faith, or in other words, heavenly attributes and spiritual ones. At each point it achieves a kind of marriage and a reflection of the heavenly marriage. The repetition of a single word here achieves the same purpose.

The Communities That Make Up Heaven

684

There are three heavens. Good spirits inhabit the first, angelic spirits the second, and angels the third. Each heaven is deeper and purer than the one before it. The result is that the heavens are perfectly distinct from one another.

The first heaven, the second heaven, and the third heaven are each divided into numberless communities. Each community consists of many people who because of the compatibility and unanimity among them form a single personality, so to speak. And all the communities together form a single human being.

The distinctions among the communities are created by differences in mutual love and in faith in the Lord. Those differences are so far beyond counting that I cannot list even the most universal kinds.

Not the smallest difference exists that is not fitted into its exact place in the overall plan. In this way it can unite with all the other pieces in perfect concord to form a common whole, and the common whole can contribute to unity among the individual pieces. Thus everything combines for the happiness of the whole (rising from the individuals’ happiness) and for the individuals’ happiness (rising from the happiness of the whole).

In consequence, each angel and each community is an image of the whole of heaven and a kind of heaven-in-miniature.

685

The ties that connect people in the next life are remarkable. They are like family ties on earth, in that some acknowledge others as parents, as children, as siblings, as blood relatives, and as more distant connections. Their love for one another reflects these different levels of relationship. The varieties come in unlimited number. The way they are communicated and perceived is so exquisite that it cannot be described.

People there pay no attention at all to who was whose parent, child, blood relative, or connection on earth. They do not care what a person’s outer identity was like, whether the individual had importance or wealth, and so on. They look only at differences in mutual love and in faith, and at what kind of capacity for welcoming love and faith a person has received from the Lord while living in the world.

686

The Lord’s mercy is love for all of heaven and all of the human race. It is this mercy—and so it is the Lord alone—that organizes all the elements, large and small, into communities. This same mercy gives rise to the love in marriage and consequently the love parents have for their children. These loves are fundamental and primary. From them come all other loves in boundless variety, organized into communities and delineated with utter clarity.

687

Since that is what heaven is like, no angel or spirit could ever have any life without being part of some community, without joining in harmony with many others. Community is simply harmony among many. No one’s life is ever isolated from the life of others.

In fact no angel, spirit, or society could ever have any life—could ever be affected by good, form an intention, be affected by truth, form a thought—without a tight link to heaven and the world of spirits through other members of the group.

It is the same for the human race. Whoever we are, whatever we are like, we need the same kind of link to heaven through the angels with us, and to the world of spirits and even hell through the spirits with us. Otherwise we could never engage in life; we could never be affected by good or truth, never form an intention or thought. Everyone living in the body associates with some community of spirits and angels, despite being totally unaware of the fact. If we were not closely connected to heaven and the world of spirits through the spiritual society we associate with, we could not survive for a minute.

The situation resembles that in the human body. When any part of it lacks connection with the rest through nerve fibers and blood vessels and so lacks the means for performing its function, it ceases to be part of the body. Instead the body immediately isolates it and rejects it as being devoid of life.

When we come into the next life, we are shown the actual communities we lived in and associated with during bodily life. On entering that society after bodily life, we come into the selfsame life we lived while in the body, and on that life we build a new one. Depending on the life we carried out in the body, then, we either go down to hell or are raised into heaven.

688

Since there is this kind of bond connecting all with each and each with all, it also extends to the most minute details of feeling and thought.

689

We are all, as a whole and as individuals, in such flawless balance at the heavenly, spiritual, and earthly levels that none of us can think, feel, or act unless inspired by many others. Yet each of us imagines that we act by ourselves in absolute freedom.

In a similar way, nothing ever exists that is not balanced by its opposite, and also by intermediate steps between them. So each of us by ourselves and numbers of us taken together live in the most perfect balance.

For this reason, nothing bad can happen to anyone without being immediately counterbalanced. When a surplus of evil accumulates, the evil or the person committing it is punished by the law of equilibrium—spontaneously, it seems. But this never occurs except in order that good may come out of it.

This pattern (and so this balance) constitutes the design of heaven, which the Lord alone shapes, arranges, and preserves to eternity.

690

Another fact to be aware of is that no community can ever be completely and absolutely the same as another, and within a community, no individual can ever be exactly like another. To everything there is a concordant and harmonious variety. The Lord brings this variety into order in such a way that everything bends toward a common goal. This he accomplishes by means of our love for him and faith in him. The result is unity.

Accordingly, heaven and its joy are never completely and exactly the same for one person as for another. Just as love and faith come in great variety, so do the heaven and heavenly joy that love and faith contain.

691

So much in general for the communities [of heaven], on the basis of my repeated experience over a long period of time. More detail is to come, with the Lord’s divine mercy.

Genesis Chapter 7

Hell

692

People have only the most general concept of hell, just as they do of heaven, and that concept is almost so vague as to be none at all. It is like the picture of the world at large available to those who have never been outside their cabins in the forest. They know nothing about its empires and countries, let alone its forms of government, and least of all about society and the way people live in society. Until they know these things, their concept of the world cannot be more than the sketchiest notion, which is practically no notion whatever. Likewise with regard to heaven and hell. In reality, both heaven and hell contain too many marvels to count—indefinitely more than any planet could hold.

The vast number of wonders there can be seen from this one thought: Just as no two people ever have the same heaven, no two ever have the same hell, and all the souls that have ever existed in the world since the beginning of creation flock together there.

693

Love for the Lord and for one’s neighbor constitutes heaven, as do the joy and happiness it brings. By the same token, spiteful opposition to the Lord and one’s fellow human constitutes hell, as do the penalties and torture it brings.

Hatred comes in countless different types and even more variations on those types. For every variety of hatred, there is a hell.

694

By the Lord’s arrangement and through mutual love, heaven forms a single human being with a single animating soul, so it looks toward a single goal: the preservation and salvation of all to eternity. In contrast, hell, out of its sense of autonomy and through self-love and materialism—through hatred, in other words—forms a single devil with a single animus, so it looks toward a single goal: the destruction and damnation of all to eternity. Thousands and thousands of times have I experienced the whole effort of hell as turning in this direction. If the Lord, then, did not preserve us all, every single solitary moment, we would be snuffed out.

695

However, the Lord forms and organizes hell in such a way that the bonds and restraints of people’s own desires and fantasies hold them fast. Their whole life consists in those desires and fantasies, and because their life is a living death, it turns into tortures so dreadful that they cannot be described.

The most intense pleasure of their life is to punish, torment, and inflict pain on each other. They use methods utterly unknown in the world. By these methods they know how to trigger acute sensations, exactly as though their victims were still in the body. They also know how to produce appalling, terrifying hallucinations, not to mention many other kinds of frights and terrors. The Devil’s crew takes such passionate delight in doing this that if they could increase and intensify the pain and anguish infinitely, they still would not rest satisfied; they would burn to add another infinity of grief. But the Lord negates their efforts and softens their abuse.

696

Everything in the other life, overall and in particular, exists in such perfect balance that evil punishes itself. In this way, evil contains its own penalty. So does falsity, which rebounds on the person who subscribes to it. We each bring on ourselves our own punishment and torture, and at the same time we bring on the diabolical crowd that inflicts it.

The Lord never sends anyone to hell but wants to lead everyone out. Still less does he inflict pain. Instead, since evil spirits actually run to get there, the Lord turns all the punishment and torment to good and puts it to some use. No penalty can ever exist unless the Lord has some purpose in mind for it, because the Lord’s kingdom is a realm of purpose and usefulness. But the purposes that hellish spirits can serve are ignominious. When performing those services, they are not in as much pain, but when they cease to be useful, they are returned to hell.

697

We each have at least two evil spirits and two angels present with us. Through the evil spirits we have contact with hell, and through the angels we have contact with heaven. If we were not in touch with both, we could not possibly survive for a minute. So every one of us, although completely unaware of the fact, associates with some group of hellish spirits; but their torment is not transmitted to us, because we are undergoing preparation for eternal life. In the other world, we are sometimes shown the community we had been part of, since we go back to it and therefore to the life we had lived on earth. From there we either head toward hell or go up to heaven.

People who do not lead good, charitable lives or allow the Lord to guide them are part of the hellish crowd. After death they become devils themselves.

698

In addition to hell itself, there is also a process of devastation, described at length in the Word. We take with us into the next life innumerable evils and falsities acquired from the sins we have actually committed. These we heap up and twine together, even those of us who have lived honorably. Before the honest can be lifted into heaven, their evils and falsities have to be dispelled, and this process is called devastation.

There are many kinds of devastation, and it can last for a longer or shorter time. Some people are taken to heaven after a very brief period, and some go immediately after death.

699

I have been sent down to hell several times in order to see the torture that those in hell go through and the devastation of those in the underground realm. (Being sent to hell is not a matter of moving from one place to another but of gaining entrance to one of hell’s communities while staying in the same place.) Let me report on just one experience.

I had the clear sensation of a kind of pillar drawing around me and growing perceptibly larger. The idea came to me that this was the bronze wall mentioned in the Word, formed out of angelic spirits to keep me safe in my mission to the unfortunates below. While there, I heard plaintive wails like these: “Oh God, oh God! Have mercy on us! Have mercy on us!” These laments continued for a long time. I was allowed to talk with those unhappy people as much as I wanted. Their main complaint concerned the evil spirits, whose sole and burning desire was to cause them pain. They had lost hope, saying that they believed the agony would go on to eternity. But I was able to comfort them.

700

Because there are so many hells, as I said, describing them in an organized way means doing so in this order:

1. The hells of those who spent their lives in hatred, revenge, and cruelty [§§814–823].

2. The hells of those who spent their lives in adultery and lechery; in addition, the hells of deceivers and witches [824–831].

3. Misers’ hells; the foul Jerusalem there and outlaws in the wilderness; in addition, the feces-laden hells of those who have pursued sensual pleasure alone [938–946].

4. Next, other hells than these [947–970].

5. Last, those who are undergoing spiritual devastation [1106–1113].

These may be found at the beginnings and ends of the ensuing chapters.

Genesis 7

1. And Jehovah said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen you before me as a just person in this generation.

2. Of every clean animal you are to take yourself seven each, seven each, a man and his wife; and of the animal that is not clean, two each, a man and his wife;

3. and of the bird of the heavens seven each, seven each, a male and a female, to keep their seed alive on the face of the whole earth.

4. Because in seven more days I will be making rain fall on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will obliterate all substance that I have made from the face of the ground.”

5. And Noah did everything that Jehovah had commanded him.

6. And Noah was a son of six hundred years when the flood of water took place on the earth.

7. And Noah entered the ark, as did his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him, because of the waters of the flood.

8. Of the clean animal and of the animal that is not clean and of the bird and of everything that creeps on the ground,

9. two each, two each entered to Noah in the ark, a male and a female, as God had commanded Noah.

10. And it happened in seven days that the waters of the flood came on the earth.

11. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the springs of the great abyss burst and heaven’s floodgates opened.

12. And there was a downpour on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

13. On that very day Noah entered the ark, as did Shem and Ham and Japheth, Noah’s sons, and Noah’s wife and his sons’ three wives with them,

14. they, and every kind of wild animal, and every kind of beast, and every kind of creeping thing creeping on the earth, and every kind of bird, every flying thing, every winged creature.

15. And they entered to Noah in the ark, two each, two each of all flesh that had the breath of life in it.

16. And those entering—a male and a female of all flesh—entered as God had commanded him. And Jehovah closed it behind him.

17. And the flood was forty days on the earth, and the waters grew and lifted the ark and it rose off the earth.

18. And the water strengthened and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark went on the face of the water.

19. And the water strengthened greatly, greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered.

20. Fifteen cubits upward the water towered, and it covered the mountains.

21. And all flesh creeping on the earth passed away—including the bird and the beast and the wild animal and every crawling thing crawling on the earth—and every human.

22. Everything that had the breath of living spirit in its nostrils, of all that was on dry land, died.

23. And all substance that was on the face of the ground was obliterated, from human to animal to creeping thing to the bird of the heavens, and they were obliterated from the earth. And Noah alone was left, and what was with him in the ark.

24. And the water strengthened on the earth for one hundred fifty days.

Summary

701

The general topic here is the preparation of the new church. As it had to be prepared in respect to intellectual things earlier, so here it has to be prepared in respect to the things of the will (verses 1–5).

702

Then its times of trial are described—those involving ideas in the intellect (verses 6–10) and those involving the intentions of the will (verses 11, 12).

703

Next, attention turns to the protection and preservation of that church (verses 13–15). But the stage it was going through is described as one in which it wavered (verses 16, 17, 18).

704

Last of all, the subject becomes the final generation of the earliest church and its nature. They were held in the grip of persuasive lies and of desires that rose out of self-love, so much so that they were destroyed (verses 19–24).

Inner Meaning

705

This chapter speaks in detail of the Flood, which does not symbolize simply the trials that people in the church called Noah had to endure before they could be reborn; it also symbolizes the ruination of those who could not be reborn.

The Word compares both trial and ruination to floods of water, and it also calls them floods directly.

Trial. In Isaiah:

“For a short moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you back. In a flood of anger I hid my face from you a moment, but with eternal mercy will I have mercy on you,” your redeemer, Jehovah, has said. “For to me it is [like] the waters of Noah, to whom I swore that the waters of Noah would no longer pass over the earth. So have I sworn that I would not rage against you or censure you. Afflicted one, and storm-tossed, and not gaining comfort!” (Isaiah 54:7, 8, 9, 11)

This is about the regenerating church and about times of trial, which are called the waters of Noah. [2] The Lord himself also calls our struggles a flood in Luke:

Jesus said, “Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and does them is like a person building a house. The person dug and went down deep and set a foundation on the rock. For this reason, when a flood took place, the river struck that house but was not strong enough to dislodge it, since it was founded on rock.” (Luke 6:47, 48)

Anyone can see that the flood here means times when we are tested.

Ruination. In Isaiah:

The Lord is bringing up over them the waters of a river, strong and abundant: the king of Assyria and all his glory; and he comes up over all their brooks and will go over all their banks, and he will go through Judah. He will flood in and pass over; he will reach all the way to their neck. (Isaiah 8:7, 8)

The king of Assyria stands for delusions, for falsities adopted as premises, and for faulty reasoning based on them, which ruin us and which ruined the people living before the Flood. [3] In Jeremiah:

This is what Jehovah has said: “Look! Water climbing from the north; and it will become a flooding river and will flood the earth and its abundance, the city and those living in it.” (Jeremiah 47:2, 3)

This is about Philistines, representing those who seize on false premises and use them as a basis for reasoning about spiritual matters. False premises and warped reasoning drown a person, as they did the pre-Flood people.

The Word uses floods of water as a simile and a metaphor for times of both trial and ruin because these are similar phenomena. During them, evil spirits stream in with their persuasive lies and false assumptions and arouse the same kind of thinking in us. With a person who is regenerating these agitations are trials; with one who is not regenerating, they bring ruination.

706

Genesis 7:1. And Jehovah said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen you before me as a just person in this generation.”

Jehovah said to Noah means it happened in this way. The name Jehovah is used because the topic under consideration is charity. Enter the ark, you and all your household, symbolizes what exists in the will, which is the house. Entering the ark here is being prepared. Because I have seen you as a just person in this generation means having a good quality that makes regeneration possible.

707

The text from here to verse 5 almost restates the contents of the last chapter, without much change. The same is true beyond verse 5. One who is unaware of the inner meaning of the Word necessarily believes that this is mere repetition. It happens in other passages in the Word too, especially in the prophets, where the same idea is expressed by two different phrasings and sometimes is even taken up yet again and redescribed. The reason, though, is the one given before [§§590, 683]: that we have two very distinct faculties called intellect and will and that the Word deals with each individually; such is the cause of the repetition.

What follows will make it clear that this is the situation here.

708

The meaning of Jehovah said to Noah as it happened this way can be seen from this, that in Jehovah there is only what is. What he says, happens, and always has happened. The meaning is the same as that in verse 13 of the last chapter [§630] and in other places where Jehovah’s speaking means what happens and has happened.

709

The name Jehovah is used because the topic under consideration is charity.

In the last chapter, from verse 9 to the end, the name used is not Jehovah but God, because the subject there was the preparation of “Noah”—in other words, the people of the church called Noah—in respect to their intellectual possessions, which have to do with faith. Here, however, the subject is their preparation as to the contents of the will, which are a matter of love. When ideas in the intellect are under consideration, or in other words, the truth that faith discloses, the name God is used. When the intent of the will is under consideration, or in other words, the good effects of love, the name Jehovah is used. It is not the concerns of the intellect or matters of faith that constitute religion, you see, but the concerns of the will or matters of love. Jehovah is present in our love and charity, not in our faith, unless our faith is a result of love or charity. For this reason the Word compares faith to the night but love to the day. Genesis 1 is an example, where in talking about the great lights it says that the greater light—the sun, symbolizing love—rules by day and the smaller one—the moon, symbolizing faith—rules by night (Genesis 1:14, 16). Something similar occurs in the prophets, in Jeremiah 31:35; 33:20; Psalms 136:8, 9; and in the Book of Revelation 8:12.

710

The symbolism of enter the ark, you and all your household, as what exists in the will is clear from what I have just said. The previous chapter, where it dealt with affairs of the intellect, used different words: “You will enter the ark: you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you” (Genesis 6:18). The symbolism of a house or household as the will and what it holds is established by numerous places in the Word, as in Jeremiah:

Their houses are transferred to others, their fields and wives together. (Jeremiah 6:12)

The houses, fields, and wives refer to facets of the will. In the same author:

Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. (Jeremiah 29:5, 28)

The houses to build and inhabit belong to the will, while the gardens to plant belong to the intellect. It is similar in other places. The recurrent phrase the House of Jehovah stands for the church, in which love is first and foremost. The house of Judah stands for the heavenly church, and the house of Israel for the spiritual church, because a house is the church. As a consequence, the mind of someone in the church is also a house, containing as it does both volitional and intellectual content, or qualities of charity and faith.

711

The fact that entering the ark means being prepared was stated above at Genesis 6:18, but the meaning there was preparation in regard to intellectual things, which are the truths that faith espouses. Here the meaning is preparation in regard to affairs of the will, which are the good impulses of charity, leading to salvation.

To be prepared is to be equipped with true thoughts and good impulses, and unless we are prepared, we can never regenerate, still less be tested. The evil spirits [who are] present with us during those processes stir up everything false and evil in us; and if we lack anything true or good to which the Lord can redirect the evil and falsity, and by which he can disperse it, we go under.

The truth and goodness are remaining traces that the Lord has stored away for just such a purpose.

712

Because I have seen you as a just person in this generation means having a good quality that makes regeneration possible, as was explained and demonstrated at Genesis 6:9 [§§612–615]. There, the word just had to do with the good involved in charity, and upright, with the truth involved in it. There, generations was plural because the realm of the intellect was the theme, but here the word is singular because the realm of the will is the theme. The will encloses intellectual things in its embrace, whereas the intellect does not enclose volitional ones.

713

Genesis 7:2. “Of every clean animal you are to take yourself seven each, seven each, a man and his wife; and of the animal that is not clean, two each, a man and his wife.”

Every clean animal symbolizes positive emotions. Seven each means that these things are holy. Man and wife [in this instance] symbolize truth united to goodness. An animal that is not clean symbolizes negative emotions. Two each means that these things are relatively profane. Man and wife [in this instance] symbolize falsity united to evil.

714

The symbolism of every clean animal as positive emotions is established by things said and shown about animals before, in §§45, 46, 142, 143, 246.

The reason for this way of symbolizing emotions is that, of ourselves, taken on our own merits, we are nothing but animals. Our sensory abilities, appetites, desires, and feelings are identical to theirs. The good kinds of love that we feel—even the best kinds—such as love for others of our own kind, for children, and for a mate, are also exactly the same, with no difference whatever.

What makes us human and raises us above the beasts is our possession of a deeper plane of life than exists or can ever exist with beasts. That life is the life of faith and love received from the Lord. If it did not lie at the heart of each of the qualities we share with animals, we would never be any different than they are.

Take love for our acquaintances, for a single example. If we loved our peers for selfish reasons only, and nothing more heavenly or godly lay behind it, that would not justify our claim to be human, because animals do the same. Likewise for all other kinds of love.

Consequently, unless the vital force of love from the Lord inhabited our will and the vital force of faith from the Lord inhabited our intellect, we would not be the least bit human. It is the life we have from the Lord that extends our life beyond death, because the Lord attaches us to himself. Once he does, we can reside in his heaven with the angels and live forever.

Even when people live like wild animals, loving only themselves and what centers on themselves, the Lord’s mercy is still so great (since it is divine and infinite) that he cannot abandon them. Instead he constantly breathes his life into them through the angels. This life force, although they may receive it in no other way, still grants them the capacity to consider, reflect, and understand whether a thing is good or bad on the planes of morality, public life, worldly interest, or bodily preoccupations, and therefore whether it is true or false.

715

The earliest people were aware that they were nothing more than animals and beasts and that if they were human it was only because the Lord made them so; and when feeling humble about themselves they confessed as much. So any attribute existing in themselves they not only compared to beasts and birds but also called such. Attributes of the will they compared to and referred to as animals. Attributes of the intellect they compared to and referred to as birds.

They made a distinction, though, between good and wicked feelings. The good ones they likened to lambs, ewes, kids, she-goats, bucks of the goats, rams, young cattle, and adult cattle. This was because these are good, gentle beasts, and useful in our lives, whether for eating or for the use of their hides and wool in our clothing. These in the main are the clean animals.

But those that are bad and savage and that are not useful in our lives are the unclean animals.

716

The symbolism of seven each as things that are holy can be seen from what was said about the seventh or Sabbath day above at §§84–87. Those sections say that the Lord is the seventh day and that from him comes the entire heavenly church, or the heavenly person, and in fact the heavenly quality itself, which, because it belongs to the Lord alone, is very sacred. In the Word, accordingly, seven symbolizes holiness. Indeed the inner meaning contains absolutely no suggestion of numbers in places like this, since people absorbed by the inner meaning (angels and angelic spirits, for example) do not even know what a number is and so what seven is. As a result, the present verse makes no implication whatever that they took seven pairs of every clean animal or in other words, that they possessed goodness in a seven-to-two ratio to evil. The meaning is that the qualities of will with which the member of the church was being supplied were good ones, holy ones, which as noted [§§677, 679–680] make regeneration possible.

[2] The symbolism of seven as holiness or holy elements can be seen from the rituals of the representative church, in which the number seven crops up so many times. One example is the sevenfold spattering of some of the blood and oil [used in a ritual], as, for instance, in Leviticus:

Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the dwelling place and everything that was in it and consecrated them, and he spattered some of it on the altar seven times and anointed the altar and all its utensils to consecrate them. (Leviticus 8:10, 11)

Seven times would have had no meaning here at all had holiness not been represented by it. The oil symbolizes the holy quality of love. From another place:

When Aaron enters the holy place, he shall take some of the young ox’s blood and spatter it with his finger on the face of the appeasement cover, toward the east, and he shall spatter some of the blood with his finger before the face of the appeasement cover seven times. Likewise, at the altar, he shall spatter some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, and he shall cleanse it and consecrate it. (Leviticus 16:14, 19)

Each and every item here symbolizes the Lord himself and consequently the holiness of love—the blood, the appeasement cover, the altar, the east toward which the blood was to be spattered, and so the number seven as well. [3] It was similar with the sacrifices, discussed in another place:

If a soul sins by mistake, or if an anointed priest sins, to the people’s guilt, he shall slaughter a young ox before Jehovah, and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and spatter some of the blood seven times before Jehovah toward the veil of the holy place. (Leviticus 4:1, 3, 5, 6)

Here again seven symbolizes holiness, because the verses are describing atonement, which is exclusively the Lord’s function, and as a result they are describing the Lord. Similar rituals were also established for the healing of leprosy as described in another place:

Using the blood of a flying creature, cedar wood, scarlet cloth, and hyssop, seven times the priest shall spatter the person to be cleansed of leprosy and cleanse the person. Again, seven times [he shall spatter] some of the oil that is on his left palm before Jehovah. And again, using the cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet cloth and flying creature’s blood, seven times he shall spatter a house where there is leprosy. (Leviticus 14:6, 7, 27, 51)

Anyone can see that there is absolutely nothing meaningful in the cedar wood, scarlet cloth, hyssop, oil, or flying creature’s blood, or consequently in the number seven, unless it comes from their function in representing what is holy. If you remove all holy import from them, what remains is a lifeless triviality or something profane and idolatrous. When they symbolize something holy, on the other hand, the worship bound up in them is divine worship, which takes place deep within and is merely represented by the outward acts.

Certainly the Jews had no way of knowing what these things symbolized—the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet cloth, the bird—so no one today does either. Still, if they had only cared to, they could have considered that something holy but beyond their ken was involved. So they could have worshiped the Lord, or in other words, the Messiah who was to come and cure them of their leprosy, that is, of profaning what is holy. Then they could have been saved. As soon as those who think this way and believe these things arrive in the other world, they learn (if they so desire) what every single detail represented.

[4] Something similar is said about the red cow:

The priest would take some of its blood on his finger and spatter some of its blood toward the face of the meeting tent seven times. (Numbers 19:4)

As the seventh day or Sabbath symbolized the Lord and (because of him) the heavenly person and heavenliness itself, in the Jewish religion the seventh day was far more sacred than any ritual. That was the reason for the absolute Sabbath every seventh year (Leviticus 25:4) and for the jubilee that was to be proclaimed after seven Sabbaths of years, that is, after seven times seven years (Leviticus 25:8, 9).

The symbolism of seven at the highest level as the Lord and so as the holiness of love can also be seen from the golden lampstand with its seven lamps, which are described in Exodus 25:31, 32, 33, 37; 37:17, 18, 19, 23; Numbers 8:2, 3; Zechariah 4:2. This is what John says about them:

. . . seven golden lampstands; in the middle of the seven lampstands was one like the Son of Humankind. (Revelation 1:12, 13)

It is obvious that the lampstand with its seven lamps symbolizes the Lord and that lamps stand for holy love—a heavenly thing—which is why there were seven of them. [5] In the same author:

From the throne came seven fiery lanterns burning before the throne, which are God’s seven spirits. (Revelation 4:5)

The seven lanterns that came from the Lord’s throne are seven lamps. The number seven has a similar meaning where it comes up in the prophets, as in Isaiah:

The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times as strong, like the light of seven days, on the day when Jehovah bandages his people’s fracture. (Isaiah 30:26)

The light seven times as strong, like the light of seven days, does not mean any sevenfold strength but the holiness of the love that the sun symbolizes. See also the statements made and evidence offered above at Genesis 4:15 [§395].

These things add to the proof that no number in the Word, no matter what it is, ever has a merely numerical meaning. This too was shown above, at Genesis 6:3 [§§575–578].

717

A further conclusion from all this is that the current passage deals with the things in a person’s will, or with a person’s good, holy traits, which have to do with the will. The present verse, after all, says that of clean animals Noah was to take seven each, and the next says the same of birds. Verses 19 and 20 of the last chapter, however, said not that he was to take seven each but two each, or pairs, because the subject there was intellectual matters. Things of the intellect are not holy in themselves, although love, which belongs to the will, makes them holy.

718

The symbolism of man and wife as truth united to goodness is established by the following considerations. A man symbolizes truth, which belongs to the intellect, while a wife symbolizes goodness, which is a matter of will, both of which were treated of earlier. And a person does not have the smallest particle of thought, the slightest stir of feeling or activity, that does not involve a kind of marriage between intellect and will. Without some kind of marriage, nothing at all is ever produced or comes into existence. The actual organic substances of which we are made, whether taken together or separately, even down to their simplest forms, have in them both a passive and an active nature. If the passive and active did not join together in something that resembles the marriage between a husband and wife, they could not possibly exist in those substances, much less produce anything. This is true throughout the world of nature.

These enduring unions trace their origin and source to the heavenly marriage, which stamps every entity in all of creation, animate or inanimate, with a picture of the Lord’s kingdom.

719

The symbolism of an animal that is not clean as negative emotions can be seen from statements made and supported above about clean animals [§§45–46, 142, 143, 246, 714–715].

The term clean applies to animals that are tame, well behaved, and useful. Unclean animals are the opposite: savage, evil, and useless. They come in different genera and species and in the Word are exemplified by wolves, bears, foxes, swine, and many others, symbolizing various types of craving and malice.

Why does this verse say that unclean animals—wicked feelings—were to be brought into the ark? The situation is this: The present passage is characterizing the people in this church in terms of the ark and its contents, that is, what was brought into it—in other words, what existed in those people before they were reborn. They did have the true ideas and good impulses that the Lord supplied and granted to them before they underwent regeneration, since without a fund of truth and goodness no one could ever regenerate. Here mention is made of the evil in them, symbolized by the unclean animals.

When we are being reborn, there are evils that have to be dispelled, or rather pried loose and tempered, by means of good. None of the evil that we have committed or inherited can ever be removed to the point of complete abolition. It lurks within and is merely loosened and mitigated by the good we receive from the Lord, to the point where it becomes harmless and invisible. This secret has not yet come into common knowledge.

It is the evil we have actually committed that relaxes its grip on us and softens, not so much the evil we have inherited. This too is a matter unknown.

720

The symbolism of two each as things that are relatively profane can be seen from the symbolism of the number itself.

Two symbolizes marriage (and when it symbolizes the heavenly marriage it is a holy number), but it also symbolizes the same thing as six. Two has the same relation to three as the six days of labor have to the seventh, holy day of rest. So in the Word the third day is interchangeable with the seventh and involves almost the same meaning. This is because of the Lord’s resurrection on the third day. For the same reason, just as the seventh day speaks of the Lord’s entry into the world and into his glory (and all the other times he comes as well), so also does the third day. In consequence, the two preceding days are not holy but relatively profane, as in Hosea:

Come, let us return to Jehovah, because he has injured us and will heal us. He has struck us and will bandage us. He will bring us to life after two days; on the third day he will raise us up and we will live before him. (Hosea 6:1, 2)

In Zechariah:

“It will come about in all the earth,” says Jehovah, “that two parts in it will be cut off, will die, and a third will be left in it. And I will lead the third part through fire, and smelt them as silver is smelted.” (Zechariah 13:8, 9)

And Psalms 12:6 says that the silver would be very pure when purified seven times.

Just as seven each does not mean seven each but what is holy, then, two each plainly does not mean two each but what is relatively profane. In no way does this imply that the ratio of unclean animals (or negative emotions in those people) to clean animals (or good impulses) was as low as two to seven. On the contrary, we harbor immeasurably more evil than good.

721

The symbolism of man and wife as falsity united to evil is clear from the things said directly above. Here man and wife is used of unclean animals but just above of clean animals. There it symbolized truth united to good, here falsity united to evil. The nature of the object described determines the meaning of the description.

722

Genesis 7:3. “And of the bird of the heavens seven each, seven each, a male and a female, to keep their seed alive on the face of the whole earth.”

The bird of the heavens symbolizes aspects of intellect. Seven each symbolizes what is holy. A male and a female symbolizes truth and goodness. To keep their seed alive on the face of the whole earth symbolizes the truth that faith espouses.

723

The symbolism of the bird of the heavens as aspects of intellect has already been demonstrated [§40], so there is no need to dwell on it.

724

The symbolism of seven each as what is holy has also been demonstrated [§716]. Here, though, it symbolizes holy truth, which is holy because of its origin in goodness. There is no such thing as holy truth except for the truth that comes from goodness. We can speak all manner of truth from the Word and so from memory, but unless love (love for our fellow humans) is what brings it to our lips, it can by no means be described as holy. If love and charity are indeed the qualities that bring it forward, on the other hand, we then acknowledge and believe what we are saying, and so it comes from the heart.

The case is the same with faith, which so many people claim is the only thing that saves. Unless love or charity is what gives rise to faith, it is not faith at all. Love and charity are what consecrate faith. The Lord is present in love and charity, not in faith separated from them. Detached faith has our own selves at its core, and in us there resides utter filth. When we separate faith from love, what we privately seek in speaking is either to hear ourselves praised or to profit monetarily.

We can all recognize this phenomenon from our own experience. When an individual claims to love another, to prefer that other to anyone else, to acknowledge that other as more noble than anyone else, and so on, and yet thinks otherwise privately, that individual makes such a claim with the lips alone, denying the words at heart and sometimes even mocking them. People do the same with faith. Here is something I have come to know extremely well from frequent experience: Some of those who most hate the Lord and persecute the faithful in the other life are people who preached about the Lord and faith during bodily life with such eloquence and such a devout facade as to astound their listeners, although they were not speaking from the heart.

725

The symbolism of a male and a female as truth and goodness is established by statements made and evidence offered earlier to the effect that a man and a male symbolize truth while a wife and a woman symbolize good. Male and female are used of what belongs to the intellect, however, whereas man and wife are used of what belongs to the will. This is because a husband and wife represent marriage in a way that male and female do not. Truth acting on its own is completely unable to enter into marriage with goodness—it is possible only for goodness to join with truth—because no truth whatever exists that does not grow out of goodness and so is not coupled with goodness. If you extract goodness from truth, nothing remains but mere words.

726

The symbolism of to keep their seed alive on the face of the whole earth as the truth that faith espouses can be seen from the fact that it was through this church that life was given to the seed, the seed meaning faith. All the other descendants of the earliest church destroyed the heavenly and spiritual seed in themselves by their foul appetites and appalling delusions. So that the heavenly seed would not die out, though, the people referred to as Noah were regenerated, and this was accomplished by means of spiritual seed. These are the things symbolized.

Those who receive the Lord’s life are said to be given life, or kept alive, because only attributes of the Lord’s have life in them. Anyone can see so from this idea, that no life at all attaches to things that have no connection with eternal life or that do not look to eternal life. Life that is not eternal is not life; in a short time it ends. Neither is Being an attribute of anything that ceases to be, only of things that never cease to be. So life and Being inhabit only those things that are the Lord’s, or Jehovah’s, because all Being and all eternal life are his.

By eternal life I mean eternal happiness.

See the remarks and illustrations on this topic at §290.

727

Genesis 7:4. “Because in seven more days I will be making rain fall on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will obliterate all substance that I have made from the face of the ground.”

In seven days symbolizes the beginning of their inward trials. Rainfall symbolizes the trials themselves. Forty days and nights is a symbol for how long their trials last. Obliterating all substance that I have made from the face of the ground means that human self-sufficiency is obliterated, so to speak, when a person is reborn. The same words also symbolize the annihilation of those in the earliest church who destroyed themselves.

728

The symbolism of in seven days here as the beginning of their inward trials can be seen from the inner meaning of all the words in the current verse, which deal with the trials of the people referred to as Noah. The general subjects are both the inward trials of the “Noah” element and the total devastation that befell some in the earliest church. As a result, in seven days symbolizes not only the start of trials but also the end of ruin.

The reason in seven days symbolizes these things is that seven is a holy number, as has been said and shown at verse 2 of this chapter [§§716–717], at Genesis 4:15 and 24 [§§395, 433], and at §§84–87. It symbolizes the Lord’s arrival in the world and his entry into glory, and it specifically symbolizes every time that the Lord comes to us.

Every arrival of the Lord entails a beginning for those who are regenerating and an end for those who are being destroyed. For the people of this church, his coming was the start of adversity, because when tested, an individual begins to turn into a new person and to regenerate. At the same time it was the end for those in the earliest church who had developed in such a way that the only possible outcome was extinction. By way of a parallel, at the time of the Lord’s advent into the world the church was in the final stage of its destruction and a new church was formed.

[2] This symbolism of in seven days can be seen in Daniel:

Seventy weeks have been decreed upon your people and upon your holy city, to bring an end to transgression, and to seal up their sins, and to atone for wickedness, and to introduce everlasting justice, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holiest One. And you will know and perceive that from the issuing of the Word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the time of Messiah the prince, there will be seven weeks. (Daniel 9:24, 25)

The seventy weeks and the seven weeks here symbolize the same thing as seven days: the Lord’s Coming. But since this is explicitly a prophecy, the numbers involving a seven mark the period as being even more holy and certain. The use of seven to describe this period symbolizes not only the Lord’s arrival but the start of a new church at the same time, as indicated by the statement that the Holiest One would be anointed and Jerusalem would be restored and rebuilt. It also symbolizes a final devastation at the same time, as indicated by the statement that those weeks were decreed upon the holy city in order to bring an end to transgression and to seal up its sin. [3] Similar words occur elsewhere in the Word, as in Ezekiel, where the prophet says of himself:

I came to the captives at Tel-abib, who were sitting by the river Chebar, and I sat there seven days, thunderstruck among them, and it happened at the end of seven days that the word of Jehovah came to me. (Ezekiel 3:15, 16)

Here too the seven days stand for the start of a divine visitation, seeing that after the seven days during which Ezekiel sat with the captives the word of Jehovah came to him. In the same author:

They will bury Gog, in order to cleanse the land for seven months. At the end of seven months, they will make a careful search. (Ezekiel 39:12, 14)

Again the period of seven stands for the final point of devastation and the start of divine visitation. In Daniel:

Nebuchadnezzar’s heart will change from [that of] a human, and the heart of an animal will be given to him, and seven seasons will pass over him. (Daniel 4:16, 25, 32)

This likewise stands for the end of devastation and the start of becoming a new person.

[4] Seventy years of captivity in Babylon represented the same thing. Whether it is seventy or seven, it involves the same meaning—seven days or seven years or the seven “ages” or decades that make up seventy years. The process of devastation was represented by the years of captivity; the beginning of a new church was represented by the liberation and rebuilding of the Temple.

Similar things were represented by Jacob’s service with Laban, described in these words:

“I will serve you seven years for Rachel,” and he served seven years. Laban said, “Fill out this week and we will give you her as well for the service that you serve with me yet another seven years.” And Jacob did so and filled out this week. (Genesis 29:18, 20, 27, 28)

The seven years of servitude here involve a similar meaning, as does the fact that marriage and liberty followed the days of the seven years. This span of seven years was called a week, as it also was in Daniel [9:24, 25].

[5] The command that the people circle Jericho seven times to make the wall fall represented the same thing. It says that on the seventh day they got up at dawn and circled the city in the customary way, seven times, “and it happened on the seventh time that the seven priests blew their seven horns and the wall fell” (Joshua 6:1–20). Had such details been devoid of symbolic meaning, it never would have been ordered that they circle seven times or that there be seven priests and seven horns.

These and many other passages (such as Job 2:13; Revelation 15:1, 6, 7; 21:9) show that in seven days symbolizes the beginning of a new church and the end of the old. Since the present verse deals both with the people of the church called Noah and their trials and with the last descendants of the earliest church, who destroyed themselves, the seven days more cannot symbolize anything else than the start of Noah’s trials and the end of the earliest church, or its final ruination and death.

729

The symbolism of rainfall as the trials themselves can be seen from the remarks and supporting quotations introducing this chapter [§705]. They showed that a flood or a deluge of water—which is what this rain was—symbolizes not only trials but also devastation. The meaning will also be clear from what is said about the Flood in the sections to follow.

730

The fact that forty days and nights is a symbol for how long their trials last stands out clearly from the Lord’s Word.

The use of forty as a symbol for the length that times of trial last comes from the fact that the Lord submitted to being tested for forty days, as shown in Matthew 4:1, 2; Luke 4:2; and Mark 1:13. Each and every tradition established in the Jewish church, and in all the other representative churches that preceded the Lord’s Coming, foreshadowed him. So the forty days and nights did too, representing and symbolizing every time of struggle in general, and the length that any one time of struggle lasts in particular.

When we are being tried, we experience the devastation or stripping away of everything self-centered and bodily. What is self-centered and bodily has to die—and die through combat and struggle—before we can be reborn as a new being, or in other words, as a spiritual and heavenly being. Because of this, forty days and nights also symbolize the length of time that devastation lasts. They do so here, in a verse that deals with both the trials of the people in the new church known as Noah and the devastation of the pre-Flood people.

[2] The symbolism of forty as the duration of both trials and devastation, whether long or short, can be seen in Ezekiel:

You shall lie on your right side and carry the wickedness of the house of Judah forty days; a day for each year is the [task] I have set for you. (Ezekiel 4:6)

Forty stands for the length of time the devastation of the Jewish church lasted. It stands also as a representation of the Lord’s struggles, since it says that he was to carry the wickedness of the house of Judah. In the same author:

I will turn the land of Egypt into wastelands, a ruinous wasteland. It will not be traversed by a human foot, nor will an animal’s foot traverse it, and it will not be inhabited for forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt a ruin in the middle of ruined lands; and its cities in the midst of wasted cities will be a lonely place for forty years. (Ezekiel 29:10, 11, 12)

Again forty stands for the time it takes for them to be devastated (or laid waste) and ruined. On a deeper plane it positively does not mean forty years but only the overall process by which faith is brought to ruin, whether this takes a short or long time. In John:

Throw out the courtyard that is outside the temple and do not measure it, because it has been given to the nations, which will trample the holy city for forty-two months. (Revelation 11:2)

[3] And in the same author:

The beast was given a mouth speaking grand things and blasphemies, and it was given authority to act for forty-two months. (Revelation 13:5)

Here the number stands for the course that devastation runs, since it certainly does not mean a period of forty-two months, as anyone can see.

This time the number mentioned is forty-two, which is the same as forty, for the following reason. Seven days symbolize the end of devastation and a new start while six symbolizes hard work, from the six days of labor or combat. Seven multiplied by six, then, produces forty-two, symbolizing the length of time devastation lasts and the length of time struggles or labor and conflict last for those who are being reborn. This period contains something holy. The round number of forty is a substitute for the exact figure of forty-two, as is clear from the above places in the Book of Revelation.

[4] The fact that the Israelite people wandered in the wilderness for forty years before entering the land of Canaan likewise represented and symbolized the duration of hardship and also of devastation. The former was represented and symbolized by the fact that they did eventually enter the holy land. The latter was represented and symbolized by the fact that everyone who had passed the age of twenty by the time of leaving Egypt, except for Joshua and Caleb, died in the wilderness. Hardships are meant by the things against which the people murmured so many times, and devastation is meant by the plagues and deaths that so often struck.

The symbolism of these events as trials and devastation will be shown where the relevant passages are explained, the Lord’s divine mercy permitting. Moses speaks of them this way:

Remember all the path that Jehovah your God led you on these forty years in the wilderness to afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. (Deuteronomy 8:2, 3, 16)

Moses’ forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai are again a symbol for the length of time that struggle lasts, or for the testing of the Lord, as is clear in Moses:

He was on Mount Sinai forty days and forty nights, not eating bread, not drinking water, pleading for the people that they not be destroyed. (Deuteronomy 9:9, 11, 18, 25–29; 10:10; Numbers 14:33, 34, 35; 32:8–14)

[5] The reason forty days symbolize the duration of struggles, as noted, is that the Lord allowed himself to be tried by the Devil for forty days. Since everything represented the Lord, if the angels were thinking about trial, that idea was represented visually in the world of spirits by the kinds of things that exist in the world. All the thoughts angels have are made visible in representative form when they pass down into the world of spirits. So the number forty served for the idea of adversity, since the Lord would struggle for forty days. (To the Lord, and consequently to the angels in heaven, the future is the same as the present. What is to come is already here, or what will happen is already an accomplished fact.) This is why the number forty in the representative church was able to represent times of trial, and of devastation as well.

But these things cannot yet be grasped in a satisfactory way, since no one knows about the influence the angelic heavens have on the world of spirits or the fact that the influence works this way.

731

Obliterating all substance that I have made from the face of the ground means that human self-sufficiency is obliterated, so to speak, when a person comes to life. This can be seen from earlier statements about selfhood [§§154–155, 164]. Our insistence on autonomy is thoroughly evil and false. As long as it maintains its grip, we are dead. However, when we suffer times of trouble, this sense of autonomy is shaken off; that is, it is loosened and mitigated by the truth and goodness we receive from the Lord. In the process, it is brought to life and yet seems to disappear. The fact that it becomes invisible and harmless is symbolized by being obliterated even though it is never obliterated but remains.

The situation is almost like that with black and white. When these two are modified in various ways by rays of light, they turn into beautiful colors, such as blues, yellows, and reds. Through these colors, and depending on the objects they appear in (flowers, for instance), they display themselves as lovely and appealing. Still, they remain inherently and fundamentally black and white.

But since the present verse deals at the same time with the final devastation of the people in the earliest church, obliterating all substance that I have made from the face of the ground also symbolizes those who perished. So does verse 23 below [§§807–811].

The substance that I have made is every trait (or every person) that had a germ of heaven in it (or who was part of the church). As a result, the current verse and verse 23 below use the word ground, symbolizing a person in the church in whom the seed of goodness and truth has been sown. Once evil and falsity had been dispelled, as noted, that seed grew and grew in the people referred to as Noah, although among the pre-Flood people who died it was killed off by tares.

732

Genesis 7:5. And Noah did everything that Jehovah had commanded him once again means it happened in this way.

See Genesis 6:22, which twice says that “Noah did”; this verse says it only once. And Genesis 6:22 uses the name God where this verse uses Jehovah. The reason is that the passage there dealt with matters of the intellect while this one deals with matters of the will. Matters of intellect regard matters of will as different and separate from themselves, but matters of will view matters of intellect as united to themselves, or as being one with themselves. The ability to understand, you see, rises from the will. This is why the previous chapter uses the word did twice where the present one uses it just once, and why the previous chapter uses the name God where the present one uses Jehovah.

733

Genesis 7:6. And Noah was a son of six hundred years when the flood of water took place on the earth.

Noah as a son of six hundred years symbolizes the first stage of their trials. The flood of water on the earth symbolizes the onset of trial.

734

Earlier sections talked about the truth in the intellect with which the Lord supplied members of the Noah church before they could regenerate (Genesis 6:13–22) and about the good in the will that the Lord also gave them (Genesis 7:1–5). Because the text deals with both, it seems to repeat itself.

The theme here, though, is the trials those people underwent, and at this point it is the first stage and so the onset of trial (verses 6–11). As anyone can see, redundancy enters in once again. The current verse says that Noah was a son of six hundred years when the Flood took place on the earth, while verse 11 says it happened in the six hundredth year of his life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day. Again, verse 7 says that Noah entered the ark with his sons and the wives, while verse 13 below says the same; and verses 8 and 9 say that the animals entered to Noah in the ark, while verses 14, 15, and 16 say the same thing as well. So the present chapter clearly engages in the same kind of repetition of earlier material.

No one who sticks to the literal meaning alone can see any other possibility beyond the fact that some narrative element is being repeated in this way. Here as elsewhere, however, there is not a single syllable that is extraneous or frivolous, because it is the Lord’s Word; so repetition never occurs unless it symbolizes something additional. At this point, as before, it means that there is a first testing, which is a testing of our intellectual side, and then a testing of our motives [§§641, 652–654, 670].

The two kinds of trial follow each other in the person who is regenerating. It is one thing, after all, to face a challenge to our intellect and quite another to face one to our motives. A challenge to the workings of our intellect is slight; a challenge to the workings of our will is serious.

735

The reason for the weakness of a challenge to the workings of our intellect, or in other words, to the falsities we adopt, is that our senses lie to us, and the lies they tell us are such that we cannot help participating in them. In consequence, they are easy to dispel.

Take those who restrict themselves to the literal meaning of the Word where it speaks in terms they can grasp and so speaks according to their sensory illusions. If such people maintain a simple belief in those passages because it is the Lord’s Word, then even if they are immersed in deceptive appearances, they readily allow themselves to learn better. One who believes that the Lord is angry with the ungodly, punishes them, and does evil to them, for example, easily learns how the case really stands, since the fallacy came from the literal meaning.

Then too some people in all simplicity believe that they can do good on their own and that in the next life they will receive a reward from the Lord if they are intrinsically good. These, too, readily learn that the good they do comes from the Lord and that the Lord rewards them freely, out of mercy.

When people like these find the ideas of their intellect—fallacies like these—tested, the trial is inevitably a light one. It is also their first trial and hardly even seems to be a test. That is the kind of trial under discussion here.

The case is different with another group of people. These are individuals who do not believe the Word in simplicity of heart. On the contrary, they confirm themselves in illusions and falsities because these justify their desires. As a result they heap up a large number of compelling rationalizations based on self-interest and on the facts they know; and then they use the Word to bolster their arguments. So they stamp this way of thinking on their minds and convince themselves that falsity is truth.

736

To describe Noah, or in other words, the people of this new church, they were the kind who had an uncomplicated belief in the things they had received from the earliest church. These were the doctrinal tenets that the people called Enoch had collected and organized into a kind of systematic theology [§§519–521].

Their character was entirely different from that of the pre-Flood people who died in the Flood and who were called Nephilim. These were the people who had merged the teachings of faith with their foul desires and so had seized on horrendous delusions that they would not back away from, no matter how hard others tried to teach them and to show them the falsity of their notions.

People with the same two types of mentality or personality exist today too. The former can regenerate easily, the latter only with difficulty.

737

The symbolism of Noah, a son of six hundred years, as the first stage of their trials can be seen from this: From here all the way to Eber in chapter 11, the numbers, the ages in years, and the names have a purely symbolic meaning, just as the ages and names of everyone in chapter 5 did.

The symbolism here of six hundred years as the first stage of trial can be seen from the number’s major factors, ten and six, which are multiplied twice. If a larger or smaller number is produced by the use of the same factors, the symbolism does not change.

The number ten has already been shown at Genesis 6:3 to symbolize remaining traces [§576]. The symbolism here of six as hard work and combat can be seen from many places in the Word. The case is this: preceding verses have discussed our preparation for struggle, which involves receiving from the Lord a supply of truth in the intellect and goodness in the will. This truth and good are in the form of remaining traces, which are not brought to our consciousness until we are regenerating. If the trials we go through are a means to regeneration for us, the remnant we possess is for the use of the angels who attend us. From the remnant they draw out those resources that they can employ in defending us against evil spirits, who attack us by stirring up the falsity in us.

The symbolism of the number ten as the remnant and of six as combat is the reason for the reference to six hundred years, in which the numbers ten and six predominate, symbolizing a time of trial.

[2] The particular symbolism of six as combat or conflict is established by the first chapter of Genesis, which specifies six days for rebirth before a person turns heavenly. During those six days, the combat never lets up, but on the seventh day comes rest. This is the source of the six days of labor and the seventh of Sabbath, symbolizing rest.

For the same reason, a Hebrew slave was to serve for six years and go free in the seventh (Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12; Jeremiah 34:14). For the same reason, they were to sow the land and gather its produce for six years but to leave it fallow in the seventh (Exodus 23:10, 11, 12); and the same for a vineyard. And for the same reason, the seventh year was to be an absolute Sabbath for the land, a Sabbath to Jehovah (Leviticus 25:3, 4).

Because six symbolizes labor and conflict, it also symbolizes the dispersing of falsity. In Ezekiel:

Here, six men were coming by way of the upper gate, which faces north, and each had a weapon for dispersing [people] in his hand. (Ezekiel 9:2)

And in the same author’s prophecy against Gog:

And I will make you turn back and will destroy a sixth of you and bring you up from the flanks of the north. (Ezekiel 39:2)

In these verses, six and destroying a sixth stands for dispersing something, the north stands for falsity, and Gog stands for those who wring dogma from the most superficial matters and use it to destroy inner worship. From Job:

In six periods of distress he will liberate you, and in the seventh, evil will not touch you. (Job 5:19)

Here six stands for spiritual battles.

[3] In some of the other occurrences of six in the Word, it does not symbolize hard work, battles, or the dispersing of falsity. Instead it symbolizes the holy quality of faith, because it is drawing a connection with twelve (which symbolizes faith and all properties of faith taken together) and with three (which symbolizes holiness). From those numbers comes this additional, positive meaning of six. One example occurs in Ezekiel 40:5, where it says that the reed a man was using to measure Israel’s holy city was six cubits. There are other instances as well.

The reason the positive meaning develops out of those numbers is that spiritual struggles have the holy quality of faith in them. Then too, the six days of labor and combat look to the seventh, holy day.

738

Noah is called a son of six hundred years here because a son symbolizes truth in the intellect, as already demonstrated [§§489, 570]. But verse 11 below does not call him a son, because that passage deals with that church’s struggles in respect to the workings of its will.

739

The symbolism of the flood of water on the earth as the onset of trial follows from the fact that the present subject is struggles in respect to intellectual issues—struggles that come first and are relatively slight, as explained. For this reason it is called a flood of water, not simply a flood, as it is in verse 17 below. Water mainly symbolizes our spiritual possessions, the intellectual elements of faith, and the opposites of these, which are falsities. The Word contains many passages that support this meaning.

[2] The symbolism of a flood of water as times of trial can be seen from the evidence offered in the preface to this chapter [§705]. It can also be seen in Ezekiel:

This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: “I will make a stormy wind break out in my wrath, and in my anger a flooding downpour will take place, and hail stones in my rage, until their full end, so that I destroy the wall that you coated with your foolish plaster.” (Ezekiel 13:11, 13, 14)

The stormy wind and flooding downpour stand for the ruination that falsity causes. The wall coated with foolish plaster stands for a fiction that seems to be the truth. In Isaiah:

Jehovah God is a shelter from the flood, a shade from the heat, for the spirit of the violent is like a flood against a wall. (Isaiah 25:4)

The flood stands for a challenge to our way of thinking, and it differs from a challenge to the intentions of our will, which is called heat. [3] In the same author:

Indeed, the Lord has someone who is strong and mighty, like a flood of hail, a storm of obliteration, like a flood of strong, overflowing water. (Isaiah 28:2)

This describes different levels of distress. In the same author:

When you cross through the water, I will be with you, and [when you cross] through the rivers, they will not flood over you. When you go through fire, you will not be burned, and flame will not scorch you. (Isaiah 43:2)

The water and rivers stand for falsity and fantasies, the fire and flame for evil and cravings. In David:

All the godly will pray to you over this at the time when they find you, so in a flood of many waters, [the waters] will not reach them. You are a hiding place for me; you will save me from anguish. (Psalms 32:6, 7)

The flood of waters stands for trials. Another word for flood is also applied to them in the same author:

Jehovah sits by the flood, and Jehovah sits as monarch forever. (Psalms 29:10)

These passages and those prefacing the chapter [§705] show clearly that a flood of water simply symbolizes times of trial and of devastation, even though described as if part of a story, according to the custom of the earliest people.

740

Genesis 7:7. And Noah entered the ark, as did his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him, because of the waters of the flood.

Noah entered the ark because of the waters of the flood means that while being tested he was protected. His sons as before symbolize truth, his wife goodness, and the sons’ wives truth united to good.

741

Anyone can see that Noah entered the ark because of the waters of the flood means that he was protected.

The tests that we undergo are nothing else than battles between the evil spirits and angels who are present with us. The evil spirits summon up every wrong that we have ever done or even considered from childhood on. So they stir up both what is evil and what is false in us and condemn us for it. Nothing gratifies them more; it is the central pleasure of their lives. But through the angels the Lord protects us and prevents evil spirits and demons from pushing beyond the furthest limits of our endurance and drowning us.

742

The fact that Noah’s sons symbolize truth, his wife goodness, and the sons’ wives truth united to good came up before at Genesis 6:18 [§668], where the same words appear.

Although this verse speaks of Noah’s sons, of his wife, and of his sons’ wives, the truth and goodness they symbolize are protective truth and goodness in the people themselves referred to as Noah. Such was the mode in which the earliest people wrote the Word, weaving heavenly secrets together to form a story.

743

Genesis 7:8, 9. Of the clean animal and of the animal that is not clean and of the bird and of everything that creeps on the ground, two each, two each entered to Noah in the ark, a male and a female, as God had commanded Noah.

As earlier, a clean animal symbolizes positive emotions, an animal that is not clean symbolizes cravings, a bird in general symbolizes thoughts, and everything that creeps on the ground symbolizes the sensory level and anything that gives sensual pleasure. Two each, two each, symbolizes elements that answer to each other. They entered the ark means that they were protected. A male and a female symbolizes truth and goodness, as they have done before. As God had commanded Noah means it happened in this way.

744

The symbolism of a clean animal as positive emotions was stated and shown at verse 2 of this chapter [§§714, 719], so there is no need to linger over it. The same holds true for the symbolism of an animal that is not clean as cravings or evil wishes.

745

The general symbolism of a bird as thoughts is established by frequent statements about birds above [§§40, 142, 595, 674, 723] indicating that they symbolize intellectual or rational matters. The term there, however, was bird of the heavens; here it is simply bird. Consequently, in a general way it symbolizes thoughts. There are, after all, many kinds of birds, both clean and unclean. Verse 14 below divides them into birds, flying things, and winged creatures, the clean ones being thoughts based on truth, the unclean ones thoughts based on falsity. They will be discussed in what follows [§§776–778], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

746

The symbolism of everything that creeps on the ground as the sensory level and anything that gives sensual pleasure was also stated and shown above [§§44, 195–197, 251, 594, 674].

The earliest people used creeping, crawling animals as a metaphor and simile for the things that we acquire through our senses and the things that give us sensual pleasure. Therefore they also called such things by the names of those animals. They did so because those things occupy the lowest plane of existence and seem to creep on our surface, barred from lifting themselves any higher.

747

Anyone can see the symbolism of two each, two each, as elements that answer to each other, by considering that such things are pairs. They cannot be pairs unless they answer to each other as do truth and goodness, and evil and falsity. All things display something like a marriage or coupling within them, like the match of truth with goodness or of evil with falsity, because the intellect is married to the will. To put it another way, ideas in the intellect are married to the intentions of the will. In fact everything has its partner or mate, without which it could never remain in existence.

748

I already said at verse 7 above [§741], where it concerned Noah and his sons and the wives, that they entered the ark means that they were protected.

749

The symbolism of a male and a female as truth and goodness can be seen from what appeared previously at Genesis 6:19, where male and female are used of birds, but man and wife are used of the animals. The reason also appeared there; the contents of the will marry the contents of the intellect but the contents of the intellect (regarded in themselves) do not really marry those of the will. The former relationship is like that of husband and wife but the latter like that of male and female. And since the present chapter takes up first the challenge to the ideas in their intellect that the people under discussion faced, as noted [§734], the phrase used is a male and a female. It implies combat, or a challenge to one’s intellectual concerns.

750

The fact that as God had commanded means it happened in this way was shown before at Genesis 6:22 [§682] and in this chapter at verse 5 [§732].

751

The subject under discussion here is the trials of the people in the new church called Noah, but few if any know what goes on in times of trial because few today experience them. Those who do are wholly convinced that it is something inherent in themselves that causes them to suffer. In consequence, let me offer a brief explanation of the matter here.

During such times it is evil spirits who stir up our falsities and evil, as mentioned [§§653, 705:3, 711, 741]. From our memory they stir up everything we have ever considered or committed since childhood. Evil spirits are able to do this with such consummate skill and malice that words cannot describe it. The angels who accompany us, though, bring out the goodness and truth that we have and use it to defend us. The conflict between the parties is what we sense and feel, and it causes our conscience to gnaw at us and torment us.

[2] There are two kinds of trial, one testing the intellect, and the other the will. In struggles involving our intellectual processes, evil spirits stir up only the following: the wrong we have done (symbolized here by the unclean animals), for which they accuse and condemn us; our good deeds (symbolized by the clean animals), which they twist in a thousand ways; our thoughts (symbolized by the birds); and the things symbolized by the animals creeping on the ground. A struggle of this kind is mild, and we perceive it only as the memory of such things, along with a kind of resulting anxiety.

[3] A struggle involving the urges of our will, on the other hand, does not stimulate the memory of our thoughts and deeds in this way. Rather, wicked demons (a name for evil spirits of this type) kindle in us the cravings and vile kinds of love that already permeate us, and so they attack us with our own longings. This they manage so malevolently and covertly that no one could ever believe it was their doing. It takes them only a moment to infiltrate the vital energy that lies behind our longings. In almost no time they change and redirect our desire for goodness and truth into a desire for evil and falsity. We end up totally unaware that this event did not happen on its own, that it did not unfold spontaneously. This kind of trial is very severe, and we perceive it as an excruciating, burning pain inside. It will be discussed below [§§755–757, 760, 845].

The truth of all this I was privileged to see and recognize from repeated experience. I also learned when it was that evil spirits and demons poured and flooded in, where they came from, who they were, and what their methods were. These experiences too will later be described individually, by the Lord’s divine mercy.

752

Genesis 7:10. And it happened in seven days that the waters of the flood came on the earth. As before, these words symbolize the start of their trials.

753

The symbolism of seven days as the start of their trials was demonstrated above at verse 4 [§728]. The words also suggest the same ideas discussed above—that this struggle, involving the thoughts in their intellect, was the start of their trials, or the first struggle [§§641, 652–654, 670, 734]. And the expression provides a conclusion to the passage.

Because this first trial involved the contents of the intellect, the words waters of the flood are used to describe it, as they were before at verse 7, and as a flood of water was in verse 6. In the strict sense, the term symbolizes just such a trial, which was shown there [§739].

754

Genesis 7:11. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the springs of the great abyss burst and heaven’s floodgates opened.

The six hundredth year, second month, and seventeenth day, symbolizes the next stage of their trials. All the springs of the great abyss burst symbolizes the climax of their struggles over the intentions of the will. Heaven’s floodgates opened symbolizes the climax of their struggles over ideas in the intellect.

755

The symbolism of the six hundredth year, second month, and seventeenth day as the next stage of their trials follows from what has been said so far. From verse 6 up to this point, verse 11, the text has dealt with the first stage of trial, which was a challenge to the concerns of the intellect, but the present passage deals with the next stage, a challenge to the concerns of the will. This is the reason for the restatement of Noah’s age. It is expressed the first time as the fact that he was a son of six hundred years but here as the fact that the Flood took place in the six hundredth year of his life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day.

No one can possibly guess that the years of Noah’s life, specified down to the year, month, and day, mean a condition of struggle in respect to the promptings of the will, but this was the way the earliest people spoke and wrote, as noted [§66]. They took particular delight in being able to specify periods and names in order to construct an authentic-sounding history. This is what their wisdom consisted in.

[2] I have already shown, at verse 6 above [§737], that six hundred years simply symbolize the first stage of trial. The six hundred years here have a similar meaning, but the months and days are added in order to symbolize the second stage. In fact, two months (or in the second month) is added, symbolizing the actual combat, as can be seen from the symbolism of the number two, given above at verse 2 of this chapter. It was shown to have the same symbolism as six: hard work, combat, and dispersing something. (See the demonstration there.)

The number seventeen, however, symbolizes both the beginning and the end of trial, because it is composed of seven and ten. When seven symbolizes the beginning of trial, it implies the phrase in seven days, or a seven-day week, which was shown above at verse 4 of this chapter [§728] to symbolize the beginning of trial. But when seven symbolizes the end of trial, as it does below in Genesis 8:4, it is a holy number. Ten, symbolizing the things that remain, is added to the seven because without a remnant we cannot be reborn.

[3] The symbolism of seventeen as the beginning of trial can be seen in Jeremiah, where he was commanded to buy a field in Anathoth from Hanamel, his father’s brother. Jeremiah weighed out silver for him, seventeen shekels of silver (Jeremiah 32:9). This number also symbolized the people’s captivity in Babylon, which represented the trials suffered by the faithful and the devastation suffered by the faithless. In fact it represented the start of trial and at the same time the end of trial, or liberation. All this can be seen from later verses in the same chapter of Jeremiah: verse 36 concerns their captivity, and the next, verse 37, their liberation. A number like this would never have shown up in Jeremiah had it not, like all the other details, entailed secrets from heaven.

[4] The symbolism of seventeen as the start of trial can also be seen from Joseph’s age—he was a “son of seventeen years”—when he was sent to his brothers and sold into Egypt (Genesis 37:2). The fact that he was sold into Egypt has a similar representation, as will be demonstrated in the appropriate place [§§4670, 4788, 5886], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

That passage in Genesis contains historical details with a representative meaning, and events happened according to the description there. The events of the current passage, though, are made-up history with a symbolic meaning and did not happen according to the literal description here. Yet the components of Joseph’s story down to the individual words still involve heavenly secrets as much as those of Noah’s story do.

This fact necessarily seems strange, because anywhere that an item of true or made-up history occurs, the mind lingers over the literal meaning, unable to extricate itself, and it therefore believes no symbolism or representation exists beyond the letter. [5] But any intelligent person can see that the Word has some kind of inner meaning in which its life resides. (Its life is not in the letter, which apart from the inner meaning is dead.) Without a deeper meaning, how does a historical fact [in the Word] differ from one reported by any secular author? What use would it be to know in what year, month, and day of Noah’s life the Flood took place, if this did not involve some heavenly mystery? Can anyone fail to see that all the springs of the great abyss burst and heaven’s floodgates opened is a prophetic turn of speech? Other similar arguments could be offered.

756

The symbolism of all the springs of the great abyss burst as the climax of their struggles over the intentions of the will can be established by statements just above about two kinds of trial. One kind involves activity in the intellect, the other the activity of the will, the latter being much more severe than the former. It can also be established by the fact that up to this point the discussion has centered on challenges to the workings of the intellect. More evidence for this meaning comes from the symbolism of the abyss as corrupt desires and the falsities that spring from them, as before (§18), and from the following passages in the Word. In Ezekiel:

This is what the Lord Jehovih says: “When I turn you into a ruined city, like cities that are not inhabited; when I bring up over you an abyss, and many waters cover you . . .” (Ezekiel 26:19)

The abyss and the many waters stand for the climax of struggles. In Jonah:

The waters circled me right to my soul; the abyss surrounded me. (Jonah 2:5)

The waters and the abyss here again stand for the extremity of the trials. In David:

Abyss is shouting to abyss at the sound of your watercourses. All your breakers and all your waves go over me. (Psalms 42:7)

Clearly these things stand for a low point in the struggles. In the same author:

He rebuked the Suph Sea and it dried up, and he took them through the abysses as if through the desert. And he saved them from the hand of the one who hated them and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And water covered their foes. (Psalms 106:9, 10, 11)

The abysses stand for their trials in the wilderness.

[2] The people of ancient times used an abyss to symbolize hell, and they compared delusional thinking and persuasive lies to water, rivers, and smoke pouring out of an abyss. The hells of some spirits look this way too, like an abyss or like the oceans (to be described later [§8099:2–3], by the Lord’s divine mercy).

The evil spirits who carry out a person’s devastation and also those who put a person through trial come from such hells. Their fantasies, which they pour into us, and the desires that they use to inflame us are like inundations and vapors coming from such places. (As was noted [§§50, 687], evil spirits connect us with hell, and angels with heaven.) So when all the springs of the abyss are said to burst, these are the things symbolized.

In Ezekiel one can see that hell is called an abyss and that its loathsome discharges are called rivers:

This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: “On the day that he went down into hell, I caused him to mourn; I made the abyss cover him and held back its rivers, and great waters were shut in.” (Ezekiel 31:15)

John too calls hell an abyss in Revelation 9:1, 2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3.

757

The symbolism of heaven’s floodgates opened as the climax of their struggles over ideas in the intellect can be established by the same statements just made. Trials involving the urges of the will, or cravings, simply cannot be detached from trials involving concepts in the intellect. If the two were separated, there would be no struggle, only a deluge of the kind that overwhelms people who live amid the raging fire of their appetites, in which they find the core pleasure of their lives, as hellish spirits do.

The term heaven’s floodgates comes from the flood of falsities or rationalizations that pours in, as portrayed also in Isaiah:

One fleeing because of a horrifying sound will fall into a pit, and one climbing out of the middle of the pit will be caught in a snare, because the floodgates in the heights opened and the foundations of the earth shook. (Isaiah 24:18)

758

Genesis 7:12. And there was a downpour on the earth for forty days and forty nights means that this struggle continued. The downpour is the struggle, forty days and nights is its duration.

759

The fact that the downpour means struggle is plain from statements made and evidence offered earlier concerning the Flood [§§733–757]. It is also plain from the meaning of the springs of the abyss burst and heaven’s floodgates opened as struggles or times of trial.

760

The symbolism of forty days and nights as its duration was shown above at verse 4 [§730].

Forty, as noted there, symbolizes every period that trials last, long or short, and in fact it symbolizes severe trial, which involves the impulses of the will.

We construct a life for ourselves through endless sensual pleasures, through love for the material world and for ourselves, and so through our cravings, which are extensions of those loves. The result is that these qualities and nothing more form the material of our lives. Such a life cannot possibly harmonize with heavenly life. No one can love worldly advantages and heavenly ones at the same time; to love what the world offers is to look downward, to love what heaven offers is to face upward. Still less can we love ourselves and our neighbor at the same time, and least of all the Lord. Those who love themselves hate everyone who fails to serve them. So those who love themselves are utterly alienated from heavenly love and charity, which consists in loving our neighbor more than ourselves and loving the Lord above everything.

This demonstrates how large a gap separates mortal life from heavenly life, which is the reason the Lord uses adversity to regenerate us and bend us into harmony.

That is why this kind of struggle is so severe, since it touches, attacks, destroys, and changes our very life. Consequently the situation is depicted in the words the springs of the abyss burst and heaven’s floodgates opened.

761

I have already said [§§741, 751] that spiritual struggle is a battle inside us between the evil spirits and angels present with us, and that we sense this conflict indistinctly in our conscience.

Further vital information about this combat is that angels constantly defend us and deflect the evil that the evil spirits intend against us. They even defend the falsity and evil we have in us, because they know very well where we obtained the falsity and evil: from evil spirits and demons. We never produce anything misguided or wicked out of ourselves. It is the evil spirits with us who produce it and at the same time cause us to believe that it comes from us. Such is their malevolence. What is more, at the same instant that they are filling us with these things and making us believe this way, they are also accusing and condemning us. I can back this claim with many different experiences.

Those lacking faith in the Lord cannot receive light dispelling this belief that they are the source of evil, so they adopt the evil as their own and become just like the evil spirits who accompany them. That is the human condition.

As angels are aware of this, during the trials of regeneration they even defend our falsity and evil. Otherwise we would suffer defeat, since we have nothing in us that is not evil and therefore false and are accordingly nothing more than a heap and conglomeration of evils and resulting falsities.

762

Spiritual struggles are little known today and are not permitted to the extent that they once were, since people are not under the guidance of religious truth and would consequently succumb. Instead there occur other experiences, such as misfortunes, sorrows, and anxieties rising from earthly and bodily causes; and there is physical illness and disease. To some extent these experiences still subdue and shatter our life of pleasure and desire, and they direct and raise our thoughts to profound and godly themes. But they are not spiritual tests. Spiritual tests cannot take place except with those who receive from the Lord a conscience concerning what is true and good. Conscience itself is the field in which those trials do their work.

763

The topic under discussion so far has been times of trial. Now follows the purpose of such times, which was that a new church might come into being.

764

Genesis 7:13. On that very day Noah entered the ark, as did Shem and Ham and Japheth, Noah’s sons, and Noah’s wife and his sons’ three wives with them.

They entered the ark here as before means that they were saved. Noah symbolizes qualities of the church. Shem, Ham, and Japheth symbolize qualities of the churches that developed out of that church. Noah’s sons symbolize doctrinal teachings. Noah’s wife symbolizes the actual church. His sons’ three wives symbolize the actual churches that developed out of that church.

765

Up to this point, the subject has been the trials of the people in the church who were called Noah. First to be discussed were their trials involving the contents of their intellect, which are the true ideas that compose faith (verses 6–10). Next were their trials involving the contents of their will, which have to do with the good impulses of charity (verses 11, 12). The purpose of these struggles was to bring about the rebirth of the individual belonging to the church—in other words, the birth of a new church—when the earliest church ended.

This church, as already explained [§§371, 597, 607], had a different character than the earliest church. It was a spiritual religion, which is one whose members are reborn by means of the doctrinal precepts of faith. When these precepts have taken root, they allow for the introduction of conscience, which prevents a person from acting contrary to the truth and goodness that faith embraces. Such people can then receive the gift of charity, which governs their conscience, and this becomes their guide to behavior. These details illustrate the nature of the spiritual person—not one who considers faith without charity to be saving but one who views charity as the essential quality of faith and takes it as a basis for action.

The emergence of such an individual, or such a church, was the end in view, and so attention now turns to this church.

We can also see that this church is now the subject from the repetition of what seems to be the same idea. The present verse says, “On that very day Noah entered the ark, as did Shem and Ham, and Japheth, Noah’s sons, and Noah’s wife and his sons’ three wives with them.” Verse 7 above makes a similar statement, but in these words: “And Noah entered the ark, as did his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.” Because the church is now the subject, the sons are mentioned by name—Shem, Ham, and Japheth. When they are called by name, they symbolize the people of the church. When on the other hand they are referred to as sons, without names, they symbolize the true concepts of faith.

In addition, what was said at verses 8 and 9 about the entry of the animals and birds into the ark is repeated in verses 14, 15, and 16, with variations here to suit and adapt it to the church.

767

The meaning of they entered the ark as the fact that they were saved is established by what has already been said [§§667, 711, 741] about entering the ark. Those saved are people in the church called “Noah” and the rest of the churches that descended and branched off from that one, all of whom form the focus of attention here.

768

The symbolism of Noah as qualities of the church and of Shem, Ham, and Japheth as qualities of the churches that developed out of that church can be seen from the fact that they are not called his sons here, as they were above at verse 7. Instead they are called by their names. When their names appear, they symbolize the people of the church. An individual in the church stands not only for the actual church but also for every trait that characterizes the church. The term person in the church is a comprehensive one embracing every attribute of religion, as was previously noted in connection with the earliest church, which was called “the human” [§§64, 339, 477–479]. The same is true of all other people whose names are given. So Noah and Shem, Ham, and Japheth symbolize all characteristics of the [new] church and of the churches that grew out of it—all such characteristics taken as a whole. This is the Word’s style and manner of speaking.

[2] Where the prophets mention Judah by name, for instance, he usually symbolizes a church that is heavenly, or whatever characterizes such a church. Where Israel is named, he usually symbolizes a church that is spiritual, or whatever characterizes it. Where Jacob is named, he symbolizes the outer church, because in every religious person, the church has an inner aspect and an outer. The inner aspect is where the true church resides, and the outer aspect is what comes out of it; this latter is Jacob.

The situation is different when these people are not mentioned by name.

[3] The reason why this is the case is that when people are named, they call the Lord’s kingdom to mind by representing it. The Lord is the only human, and he is the totality of his kingdom. Since the church is the Lord’s kingdom on earth, the Lord alone is also the totality of the church.

The all-in-all of the church is love, or charity, so a human being (or, what is the same, a person mentioned by name) symbolizes love or charity—that is, the totality of the church. The person’s wife then symbolizes simply the church composed of those qualities, as the wives here do.

What kind of churches Shem, Ham, and Japheth symbolize will be explained below, with the Lord’s divine mercy.

769

The symbolism of Noah’s sons as doctrinal teachings is established by the meaning of sons, dealt with earlier [§§518, 570]. The church could not exist without doctrinal teachings, so the sons are not simply named, but the fact that they were Noah’s sons is added.

770

The symbolism of Noah’s wife as the actual church and of his sons’ three wives with them as the actual churches that developed out of that church can be seen from what was just said. The statement was that when the person of the church is mentioned by name, it means the all-in-all of the church or, as the expression goes, the head of the church. A wife is then the church, as shown earlier (§§252, 253).

Things are otherwise when the Word refers to either man and wife or male and female. The man or male then symbolizes intellectual concerns, or the truth that faith embraces, and the wife or female symbolizes the concerns of the will, or the good that faith urges.

771

Since every expression in the Word comes from the Lord, so that divinity dwells in each, it is clear that not a single word or even a single jot exists there that does not symbolize or suggest something deeper. This holds true for the fact that it mentions three wives here, calls them wives of his sons, and says with them. But revealing what each detail involves would take too long. It is enough merely to give a general picture of the most comprehensive notions involved.

772

Genesis 7:14, 15. They, and every kind of wild animal, and every kind of beast, and every kind of creeping thing creeping on the earth, and every kind of bird, every flying thing, every winged creature. And they entered to Noah in the ark, two each, two each of all flesh that had the breath of life in it.

They symbolizes the people of the church as a whole. Every kind of wild animal symbolizes all spiritual goodness. Every kind of beast symbolizes earthly goodness. Every kind of creeping thing creeping on the earth symbolizes all goodness at the sensory and bodily levels. Every kind of bird symbolizes all spiritual truth; the flying thing, earthly truth; and the winged creature, truth gained through the senses. They entered to Noah in the ark means as before that these things were saved. Two each and two each as before [§747] means pairs. Of all flesh that had the breath of life in it means a newly created being, or the fact that they received new life from the Lord.

773

The symbolism of they as the people of the church as a whole, or every quality displayed by this church, is evident from the fact that it refers to the people just named: Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Although there were four of them, together they form a unit.

Noah, who in general stands for the ancient church, held within him the churches that grew out of the ancient one, as a progenitor or a seed holds such things within it, and this is why they symbolizes the ancient church. All the churches referred to as Shem, Ham, and Japheth, taken together, form a single church, called the ancient church.

774

I have already stated and shown that every kind of wild animal symbolizes all spiritual goodness, every kind of beast all earthly goodness, and the creeping thing creeping on the earth all goodness on the sensory and bodily levels (§§45, 46, 142, 143, 246).

It may at first glance seem wrong to say that a wild animal symbolizes spiritual goodness, but look at the series of subjects. First to be mentioned are they (the people of the church), then the wild animal, the beast, and finally the creeping thing. The wild animal involves something more important and nobler than a beast, because the Hebrew word also means a living being, something with a living soul. In this verse, then, it does not mean a wild animal but a living creature with a living soul, since the word for both is the same.

The symbolism of living creatures, beasts, and creeping things creeping on the earth as aspects of the will has been mentioned and demonstrated before. More evidence appears directly below, where birds are discussed.

775

As all things have their divisions into broad and specific categories, including different kinds of goodness on both the spiritual and earthly planes, and on the resulting sensory and bodily planes, the present verse says every kind for each type. There are so many general categories of spiritual goodness and likewise of spiritual truth that they could never be listed. Still less could the particular varieties composing each general category be listed.

In heaven, all heavenly and spiritual goodness and truth are so carefully distinguished into their genera, and the genera into their species, that only what is perfectly distinct exists there. The forms are so far beyond counting that the number of individual species can be called unlimited. This shows the poverty and near insignificance of human wisdom, which hardly even knows that spiritual goodness and truth exist, let alone what they are.

[2] Earthly goodness and truth emerge and descend from heavenly and spiritual kinds of goodness (and from the truth that springs out of the latter kinds of goodness). Nothing good or true exists on the earthly plane that does not rise out of spiritual goodness, which itself rises out of heavenly goodness. Earthly goodness and truth also depend on the higher levels in order to remain in existence. If the spiritual level withdrew, the earthly level would be nothing.

The facts about the origin of all things are these: Absolutely everything comes from the Lord. The heavenly plane is from him. The spiritual plane comes into existence from him by means of the heavenly plane, as does the earthly plane by means of the spiritual, and the bodily and sensory planes by means of the earthly. Because this is how things come into existence from the Lord, it is also how they remain in existence. As is well known, to continue in existence is constantly to come into existence.

Those who view the rise and genesis of things in any other way—people who worship the material world, for instance, and trace the origin of everything to it—are in the grip of such deadly theories that the phantasms of wild animals in the forest can be described as much more sane. This applies to many individuals who seem to themselves to excel others in wisdom.

776

The symbolism of every kind of bird as all spiritual truth, the flying thing as earthly truth, and the winged creature as truth gained through the senses can be seen from what was said and shown earlier about birds, at §40.

The earliest people compared human thoughts to birds, because that is what thought is like, relative to the activity of the will.

The bird, flying thing, and winged creature mentioned here come one after the other in the same way different levels of mental activity do in humans; we can understand things, reason, and use our physical senses. To overcome all doubt that they symbolize these processes, let me bring forward several more passages from the Word in confirmation. (The passages will also show that animals symbolize just what they were said to.) [2] In David:

You have made him rule over the works of your hands; all things you have put under his feet: the flock and all the herds, and also the animals of the fields, the flying thing in the heavens, and the fish in the sea. (Psalms 8:6, 7, 8)

This speaks of the Lord, describing his rule over us and over the things that are in us. What would governance over animals and birds be, if not this? In the same author:

The fruit tree and all cedars, the wild animal and every beast, the creeping thing, and the flying creature on the wing will give glory to Jehovah’s name. (Psalms 148:9, 10, 13)

The fruit tree is a heavenly person, the cedar is a spiritual person. The wild animal, beast, and creeping thing are their good qualities (as in the current verses) and the flying thing on the wing is their true ideas. With these they can give glory to Jehovah’s name—which a wild animal, beast, creeping thing, or flying creature could never do. Secular writers can use expressions like these as high-flown figures of speech, but the Lord’s Word never uses them that way; it uses them only to symbolize or represent something deeper. [3] In Ezekiel:

The fish of the sea and the bird of the heavens and the wild animal of the field and every creeping thing creeping on the ground and every human who is on the face of the ground will tremble before me. (Ezekiel 38:20)

Obviously the animals and birds here are the kinds of symbols I have described, because what glory would there be for Jehovah in the trembling of fish, birds, and beasts? Can anyone imagine that such wording would be holy if it had no sacred content? In Jeremiah:

I looked and there, not a human! Every bird of the heavens had fled. (Jeremiah 4:25)

This stands for the fact that everything good and true had fled. The human here also stands for the good that comes of love. In the same author:

Those places have been laid waste, so that not a man is passing through, and they do not hear the call of any livestock. From the bird in the heavens to the beast, they have wandered away, they have left. (Jeremiah 9:10)

This too stands for the fact that everything true and good has departed. [4] In the same author:

How long will the land mourn and the grass of all the fields wither? Because of the wickedness of those living in it, the animals and the bird have perished, since they said, “He will not see our latter days.” (Jeremiah 12:4)

The animals stand for goodness and the bird for truth, both of which have perished. In Zephaniah:

I will consume human and animal, I will consume the bird in the heavens and the fish in the sea and stumbling blocks in the godless, and I will cut humanity off from the face of the ground. (Zephaniah 1:3)

The human and animal stand for the things that belong to love and to the good that springs from love. The bird in the heavens and the fish in the sea stand for what belongs to the intellect and so for matters of truth. These are called stumbling blocks because goodness and truth—not animals and birds—are obstacles for the godless. It also says clearly that they are things existing in humanity. In David:

The trees of Jehovah and cedars of Lebanon that he planted, where the flying things nest, receive their fill. (Psalms 104:16, 17)

The trees of Jehovah and cedars of Lebanon stand for spiritual people. The flying things stand for their rational and earthly truth. These kinds of truth are like nests.

[5] In other places, the birds nested in the branches was a common turn of speech symbolizing truth. In Ezekiel, for example:

On a high mountain in Israel I will plant it, and it will lift its branch and make fruit and become a majestic cedar. And every flying creature of every wing will live under it; in the shade of its branches they will live. (Ezekiel 17:23)

This image stands for the church among non-Jews—a spiritual church, which is what the majestic cedar means. The bird of every wing stands for truth of every kind. In the same author:

In its branches nested every bird of the heavens, and under its branches bred every wild animal of the field, and in its shade lived all the great nations. (Ezekiel 31:6)

This concerns Assyria, which is a spiritual church and is called a cedar. The bird of the heavens stands for the truth that church had, and the animals stand for its goodness. [6] In Daniel:

Its branch was beautiful and its fruit plentiful, and nourishment for all was in it. Under it the animal of the field found shade, and in its branches lived the flying creatures of heaven. (Daniel 4:12, 21)

The animal stands for goodness, and the flying creature of the heavens for truth, as anyone can see. What would be the point of saying that birds and animals lived there? Similar meaning lies in the Lord’s words:

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that a person took and threw into the garden; and it grew and turned into a large tree, so that the birds of the sky lived in its branches. (Luke 13:19; Matthew 13:[31,] 32; Mark 4:[31,] 32)

777

This shows that a bird symbolizes spiritual truth; a flying thing, earthly truth; and a winged creature, truth gained through the senses. These are the categories into which truth divides.

Truth gained through the senses—through sight and hearing—is said to have wings because it is the most external kind. Wings carry the same implication when applied to other objects.

778

Since the birds of the heavens symbolize truth in the intellect, and so symbolize thoughts, they also symbolize the opposite, including illusions, or false notions. Because these are a matter of human thought, they too are called birds. An example is the fact that the ungodly would be given as food to the birds of the sky and to the wild animals, that is, to illusions and cravings (Isaiah 18:6; Jeremiah 7:33; 16:4; 19:7; 34:20; Ezekiel 29:5; 39:4). The Lord himself compares fantasies and persuasive lies to birds when he says:

The seed that fell on the hard path was trampled, and the birds of the sky ate it. (Matthew 13:4; Luke 8:5; Mark 4:4, 15)

The birds of the sky mean falsity and only that.

779

The meaning of they entered to Noah in the ark as the fact that these things were saved has been mentioned before [§§667, 711, 741, 748, 767]. The symbolism of two each and two each is pairs; to learn what pairs mean, see Genesis 6:19 above [§672].

780

The fact that of all flesh that had the breath of life in it means a newly created being, or the fact that they received new life from the Lord, is established by the symbolism of flesh as every person in general and a body-centered one in particular. This meaning with its proof was presented earlier [§§574, 661]. So flesh that has the breath of life in it symbolizes an individual reborn, since within such a person’s sense of autonomy lies the Lord’s life, which is the vital force of charity and faith.

None of us is anything but flesh, but when the Lord stirs in us the living quality of charity and faith, our flesh comes to life and becomes spiritual and heavenly. Then we are called a new creature (Mark 16:15) because we have been created anew.

781

Genesis 7:16. And those entering—a male and a female of all flesh—entered as God had commanded him. And Jehovah closed it behind him.

Those entering symbolizes attributes of the people in the church. A male and a female of all flesh entered means that they had every kind of truth and goodness in them. As God had commanded means that they had been prepared to receive such things. And Jehovah closed it behind him means that people were no longer able to communicate with heaven as the people of the heavenly church had.

782

The discussion so far, to verse 15, has centered on the church and its preservation in the people referred to as Noah. It now turns to conditions in the church and a depiction of them. At first the conditions are depicted as being those already explained. Then the nature of those conditions is portrayed. The individual verses and in fact the individual words suggest this church’s particular circumstances.

Because conditions in the church are the present topic, the verse repeats what came just above, and repeats it twice. It says, “And those entering—a male and a female of all flesh—entered,” while the very last verse said, “And they entered to Noah in the ark, two each and two each of all flesh.” Repetition like this in the Word signals the fact that a different state is being discussed. If it did not, the repetition would be completely pointless, as anyone can see.

783

The symbolism of those entering as attributes of the people in the church can be seen from the above.

The meaning of a male and a female of all flesh entered as the fact that they had every kind of truth and goodness in them also follows. The symbolism of male and female as truth and goodness has been stated and demonstrated several times before.

As God had commanded means that they had been prepared to receive such things. This meaning and this identification of the things to be received has already been discussed. For the Lord, to command is to prepare someone and to act.

784

As for the fact that Jehovah closed it behind him means that people were no longer able to communicate with heaven the way the people of the heavenly church had, the case is this:

Circumstances in the earliest church allowed its people to communicate internally with heaven and through heaven with the Lord. They loved the Lord, and people who love the Lord are like angels, the only difference being that they are clothed in a body. Their deeper levels were open, offering unhindered access all the way to the Lord.

This new church, however, was different. Its people believed in rather than loved the Lord, and faith led them into charity toward their fellow humans. They could engage in external communication, but not in internal communication, as the earliest people had. Describing the two kinds of communication, though, would take too long.

We all communicate with heaven—even the sacrilegious—through the angels present with us. Without this, we would not be human. But the degree of intimacy varies from very close to very distant, with an unlimited number of steps in between. Spiritual people are wholly incapable of the kind of contact heavenly people have, because the Lord dwells in love and not so much in faith.

This, then, is the meaning of Jehovah closed it behind him.

[2] Moreover, heaven was never open after that era in the way that it had been for the people of the earliest church. It is true that many people—Moses, Aaron, and others—later talked to spirits and angels, but the method was entirely different. By the Lord’s divine mercy, it will be described below [§5121].

The reason heaven was closed off and remains closed today is a deep secret. Heaven is so tightly shut that people are unaware even that spirits exist, let alone that angels are present with them. They suppose they are completely alone when they are away from companions in this world and thinking privately. The truth is that we are constantly in the company of spirits, who notice and perceive what we are thinking, and what we are intending and scheming. They observe these things as thoroughly and openly as if they stood out for all the world to see. We have no knowledge whatever that this is so, since heaven is so utterly closed to us, but it is positively true.

The reason is that were heaven not sealed off this way in humankind, it would be extremely dangerous for people, since they do not possess faith, much less religious truth, least of all charity. This is also the meaning of the words above at Genesis 3:24 [§§306–310], “Jehovah God threw the humans out and caused guardian beings to live on the east of the Garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword turning itself, to guard the way to the tree of life.” See also what was said in §§301, 302, 303.

785

Genesis 7:17, 18. And the flood was forty days on the earth, and the waters grew and lifted the ark and it rose off the earth. And the water strengthened and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark went on the face of the water.

Forty days symbolizes the length of time the church called Noah lasted. The flood symbolizes the false ideas that still swamped them. The waters grew and lifted the ark and it rose off the earth means that this is how they wavered. The water strengthened and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark went on the face of the water means that this is how their wavering intensified.

786

The symbolism of forty days as the length of time the church called Noah lasted was demonstrated above at verse 4 [§730]. This verse says forty days, that one said forty days and nights, because the symbolism there was the length of time the trials lasted, the nights being times of anxiety.

787

The symbolism of the flood as the false ideas that still swamped the people of that church also follows from earlier statements [§660], because a flood or deluge simply means a flood, or deluge, of falsity.

Above, in verse 6 [§739], a flood of water symbolized trials, as shown there, and that flood was also an inundation of falsity—the falsity that evil spirits stir up in us during our trials. A similar flood is meant here, but not in the context of our trials. Accordingly the present verse mentions only a flood, not a flood of water.

788

The waters grew and lifted the ark and it rose off the earth means that this is how those people wavered. The water strengthened and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark went on the face of the water means that this is how their wavering intensified. The symbolism here will not be apparent until I say what conditions were like in this Noah church.

Noah was not the true ancient church but a kind of progenitor or seed from which that church came, as already pointed out [§773]. Noah and Shem, Ham, and Japheth together constituted the ancient church that came right after the earliest church. All those in the church who were referred to as Noah came from the descendants of the earliest church. Consequently their condition in respect to an evil heredity was almost the same as that of the other descendants, who were destroyed. Because their condition was similar, they could not regenerate and become spiritual in the same way as those who do not inherit such a character. The nature of their heredity was described above, at §310.

[2] Let me explain more clearly how the situation stands. Those—such as Jews—who have descended from Jacob’s seed cannot regenerate in the same way as other races. They maintain a creed hostile to genuine faith, acquired not only from principles adopted in childhood and later confirmed but also from heredity. The fact that heredity contributes can be seen from the consideration that their mentality, their mores, and even their faces differ from those of others and these three attributes (by which they can be recognized) are inherited. So also for their deeper qualities, since custom and facial appearance are signs of what lies within. Consequently, converted Jews waver between truth and falsity more than others do.

The same is true of the first adherents of this church, referred to as Noah, because they came from the stock and seed of the earliest people.

Such vacillation is what the present verses depict, as do later verses that say Noah was a man of the ground, planted a vineyard, drank some of the wine, and became so drunk that he lay naked in the middle of his tent (Genesis 9:20, 21).

I was able to tell how small their numbers were from seeing the people of that church represented in the world of spirits as a tall, slender man dressed in bright white, standing in a cramped room. Yet these were the people who preserved the doctrinal teachings of faith, which they had among them.

789

The details here portray the faltering of the people in this church. First the waters—falsities—grew, then they lifted the ark and it rose off the earth. Next the water strengthened and increased greatly on the earth, and finally the ark went on the face of the water. But describing the different stages of vacillation would be both tedious and useless. It is enough to know they are depicted here. All that needs explaining is the meaning of the phrases it rose off the earth and it went on the face of the water. The symbolism is not evident to anyone who has not learned how we are held back from evil and falsity. Since this is unknown I must explain it briefly.

All people in general, and even those who are regenerate, are such that unless the Lord held them back from evil and falsity they would throw themselves headlong into hell. At any moment that we are not withheld, we rush there precipitately, as I have discovered through various experiences. The horse mentioned in §§187, 188 also represented this.

To be held back in this way is no different than being lifted up or rising, so that the evil and falsity are perceived as being below and the person above. More about such elevation will come later, with the Lord’s divine mercy.

This lifting up or rising is what the ark symbolized in rising off the earth and going on the face of the water.

790

The symbolism of water here and below as falsity is established by the passages dealing with a flood of water that were cited from the Word in the prefatory section of this chapter and at verse 6 [§§705, 739]. The quotations in those two places show that floods of water symbolize times of desolation and trial, which carry the same consequences as false notions, since desolation and trial are nothing but deluges of the falsities stirred up by evil spirits. The symbolism of flood water as falsities comes from the general meaning of water in the Word as something spiritual, that is, as the things we truly understand, grasp rationally, and know about. Because water symbolizes these things, it also symbolizes their opposites, since every falsity, being a matter of thought, is a “fact,” so to speak, and seems capable of being grasped rationally and understood.

The symbolism of water as things that are spiritual can be seen from many places in the Word. In support of its symbolism as falsity, though, I offer the following in addition to previous quotations. [2] In Isaiah:

This people spurned the waters of Shiloah, which go gently. Therefore (look, now!) the Lord is bringing up over them the waters of a river, strong and abundant; and it will come up over all their brooks and go on all their banks. (Isaiah 8:6, 7)

The waters going gently stand for things that are spiritual, waters strong and abundant for things that are false. In the same author:

Doom to a land casting shadow with its wings, a land across the rivers of Cush, that sends ambassadors onto the sea and [puts them] in rattan vessels on the face of the water. Go, speedy envoys, to a nation marked out and trampled, whose land the rivers plunder. (Isaiah 18:1, 2)

Here they stand for the falsities that belong to a “land casting shadow with its wings.” [3] In the same author:

When you cross through the water, I will be with you, and [when you cross] through the rivers, they will not drown you. (Isaiah 43:2)

The water and rivers stand for difficulties and for falsities. In Jeremiah:

What does it matter whether you go to Egypt to drink the waters of the Sihor? And what does it matter whether you go to Assyria to drink the waters of the river? (Jeremiah 2:18)

The waters stand for the falsities produced by crooked reasoning. In the same author:

Who is this who rises like a river, whose waters churn like rivers? Egypt rises like a river, and like rivers its waters churn, and it said, “I will go up; I will cover the land; I will destroy the city and those living in it.” (Jeremiah 46:7, 8)

The waters stand for the falsities produced by crooked reasoning. [4] In Ezekiel:

This is what the Lord Jehovih has said, “When I turn you into a devastated city, like cities that are not inhabited; when I bring up over you an abyss, and many waters cover you, and I make you go down with those going down into the pit . . .” (Ezekiel 26:19, 20)

The waters stand for evil and the falsity it engenders. In Habakkuk:

You trod the sea with your horses, the mud of many waters. (Habakkuk 3:15)

The waters stand for falsity. In John:

The dragon hurled water like a river from its mouth after the woman to cause her to be swallowed up by the stream. (Revelation 12:15, 16)

The water here stands for falsities and lies. In David:

Put out your hands from high up, rescue me and free me from the many waters, from the hand of a foreigner’s children, whose mouth speaks a lie, and their right hand is the right hand of falsity. (Psalms 144:7, 8)

The many waters clearly stand for falsities. A foreigner’s children also symbolize falsities.

791

These verses, then, have dealt with Noah, or in other words, the regenerate people called Noah, who were in the ark and rose above the water. Now comes a description of the earliest church’s descendants caught under the water, or submerged in it.

792

Genesis 7:19, 20. And the water strengthened greatly, greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward the water towered, and it covered the mountains.

The water strengthened greatly, greatly on the earth means that persuasive lies piled up in this way. And all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered means that all the good effects of charity were obliterated. Fifteen cubits upward the water towered, and it covered the mountains means that nothing was left of charity; fifteen symbolizes what is so meager as to be hardly anything.

793

From here to the end of the chapter, the topic being discussed is the pre-Flood people who perished, as can be seen from the individual parts of the description. Anyone alive to the inner meaning can tell instantly what the subject is, even from a single word, and even more easily from the connections among many words. When the topic changes, different words suddenly come into use, or else the previous words are linked together in a new way. The reason for the shift is that spiritual themes have their own special vocabulary and heavenly themes have theirs, or to put it another way, intellectual matters have their own vocabulary and volitional ones theirs. Ruination, for example, is a word that applies to spiritual things, while devastation applies to heavenly things; a city has to do with spiritual things, while a mountain has to do with heavenly things; and so on. The same holds true for the ways that words link together.

No one could help being surprised to learn that in Hebrew it is often sound that distinguishes the two. In words that belong to the spiritual category, the first three vowels [of the Hebrew alphabet] usually predominate. In those that capture heavenly qualities, the last two vowels do.

The changing of topics here can be recognized by such signs, and also by the repetition involved (as discussed previously [§§435, 683, 707, 734, 765, 782]). To be specific, it says again here, “And the water strengthened greatly, greatly on the earth,” as the last verse also said. The fact of a switch can also be recognized from everything that follows.

794

And the water strengthened greatly, greatly on the earth means that persuasive lies piled up in this way, as is established by statements made and evidence offered just above concerning water. They showed that flood waters symbolize falsities. Because the falsity (or the false persuasions) intensified, the current verse says that the water strengthened greatly, greatly, this being a superlative in the original language.

By falsities I mean false premises and false persuasions. These increased tremendously among the pre-Flood people, as remarks above [§§560, 562, 581, 660–661, 705:3, 736] concerning them make clear.

Self-delusion grows tremendously when it taints truth with perverted desires, that is, when it uses truth to justify self-love and materialism. In doing so, it corrupts truth and forces it to cooperate in a thousand different ways. What person is there who has either absorbed or manufactured false principles, without using a plethora of facts at his or her disposal—even from the Word—to confirm them? Is there a heresy in existence that does not seize on this kind of support? And if heresy comes across arguments that do not harmonize, it compels them to yield anyway, explaining and distorting them in a variety of ways until they no longer disagree.

[2] Take those who embrace the premise that faith alone, without the good deeds of charity, brings salvation. Are they not capable of weaving together a whole system of theology out of the Word? And yet they do not care about, they do not pay attention to, they do not even see the Lord’s words that a tree is recognized by its fruit and that a tree not bearing good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 7:16, 17, 18, 19, 20; 12:33). What could be more pleasing than to live by the desires of our flesh and still be saved? To merely know what is true without doing a single scrap of good?

Every perverse yearning that we cultivate goes into making up the life of our will, and every falsity that we adopt as a premise or as a conviction goes into making up the life of our intellect. These two kinds of life combine into one when we merge the doctrinal teachings of faith with our cravings. By this means we each form a kind of personal soul, and the quality of its life remains unchanged after death. As a result, nothing is more important for us than to know what is true. When we know what is true—and know it in such a way that it cannot be perverted—it cannot be infused with corrupt desires and do deadly harm. What should we take more to heart than our eternal life? If we destroy our soul during bodily life, do we not destroy it forever?

795

The meaning of all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered as the fact that all the good effects of charity were obliterated can be seen from the symbolism of mountains among the earliest people.

Among the earliest people, mountains symbolized the Lord, because it was on mountains that they held worship to him. Their reason for doing so was that mountains were the highest points on earth. Consequently mountains symbolized heavenly qualities—love and charity, and so the good effects of love and charity, which are heavenly—and the people also referred to these things as “most high.”

Employing an opposite sense, the Word also refers to those who are conceited—and accordingly to self-love itself—as mountains.

Mountains in the Word symbolize the earliest church too, because they rise so high above the earth and in this way are (in a sense) closer to heaven, the origin of everything.

[2] The symbolism of mountains as the Lord and all the heavenly qualities that come from him (in other words, the good effects of love and charity) is established by the following places in the Word. These passages reveal the particular meanings of mountains, since the way things stand with each and every object depends on the subject at hand. In David:

The mountains will bring peace, as will the hills, in justice. (Psalms 72:3)

The mountains stand for love for the Lord, the hills for neighborly love, of the type the earliest church possessed. Because it possessed this type of love, mountains and hills in the Word symbolize that church as well. In Ezekiel:

“On my holy mountain, on the mountain of Israel’s high ground,” says the Lord Jehovih, “where all the house of Israel—the whole of that house in the land—will serve me . . .” (Ezekiel 20:40)

The holy mountain stands for love for the Lord; the mountain of Israel’s high ground, for charity toward others. In Isaiah:

It will happen in the end of days that the mountain of Jehovah’s house will stand firm, will become the head of the mountains, and will be loftier than the hills. (Isaiah 2:2)

Here they stand for the Lord and so for every heavenly quality. In the same author:

Jehovah Sabaoth will make for all peoples on this mountain a banquet of rich foods. And he will swallow up on this mountain the enveloping layers. (Isaiah 25:6, 7)

The mountain stands for the Lord and so for every heavenly quality. [3] In the same author:

It will be that on every high mountain and on every lofty hill there will be brooks, channels of water. (Isaiah 30:25)

The mountains stand for the good effects of love, the hills for the good effects of charity. Out of these come the true ideas that make up faith, which are the brooks and channels of water. In the same author:

You will have song like the holy observance of a feast at night, and joy of heart like that of one who goes about with a flute to come onto Jehovah’s mountain, toward Israel’s rock. (Isaiah 30:29)

Jehovah’s mountain stands for the Lord in relation to the good that comes of love. Israel’s rock stands for the Lord in relation to the good that comes of charity. In the same author:

Jehovah Sabaoth will come down to wage war on Zion’s mountain and on its hill. (Isaiah 31:4)

The mountain of Zion here and in many other places stands for the Lord and so for every heavenly quality (love), while hills stand for a lesser heavenly quality (charity). [4] In the same author:

Take yourself up onto a high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion. Lift your voice with strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem. (Isaiah 40:9)

Going up onto a high mountain and bringing good news is worshiping the Lord in love and charity, which lie at our deepest level and are therefore described as being highest. (What lies deepest is also referred to as highest.) In the same author:

Let those who live on the crag sing; from the head of the mountains let them shout. (Isaiah 42:11)

Those who live on a crag stand for those who live in charity. Shouting from the head of the mountains stands for worshiping the Lord with love. In the same author:

How gratifying on the mountains are the feet of the one who brings good news, who lets people hear about peace, who brings good news of something good, who lets people hear about salvation. (Isaiah 52:7)

Bringing good news on the mountains stands in a similar way for preaching about the Lord—and worshiping him—from teachings about love and charity. In the same author:

The mountains and hills will ring before you with song, and all the trees of the field will clap the palms of their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)

This stands for worshiping the Lord in love and charity (which are the mountains and hills) and in the faith that grows out of them (which is the trees of the field.) [5] In the same author:

I will turn all my mountains into a road, and my paths will be lifted high. (Isaiah 49:11)

The mountains stand for love and charity, a road and paths for the truth belonging to faith that springs from them. These are said to be lifted high when truth does develop out of love and charity, since these are the deepest entities in us. In the same author:

The one who trusts in me will own the land as an inheritance and will inherit my holy mountain. (Isaiah 57:13)

This stands for the Lord’s kingdom, where there is nothing but love and charity. In the same author:

From Jacob I will produce seed, and from Judah, the heir to my mountains; and the ones I have chosen will own it. (Isaiah 65:9)

The mountains stand for the Lord’s kingdom and for heavenly kinds of goodness. Judah stands for the heavenly church. In the same author:

This is what the High and Exalted One dwelling to eternity has said—and The Holy One is his name: “High and holy I will dwell.” (Isaiah 57:15)

The height mentioned here stands for holiness, which is the reason that mountains, because they stand high above the earth, symbolize the Lord and his holy, heavenly qualities. And this is why the Lord also issued the law from Mount Sinai.

The Lord too was referring to love and charity when he mentioned mountains in speaking about the end of the age, saying that whoever was in Judea should then flee into the mountains (Matthew 24:16; Luke 21:21; Mark 13:14). In this passage, Judea stands for the church after it had been devastated.

796

Since the people of the earliest church held their sacred worship on mountains, the ancient church also carried out ritual sacrifices on mountains and built high places. So too, consequently, did all the representative churches of that era, and even the surrounding nations. Abram’s adherence to this practice can be seen in Genesis 12:8; 22:2. Its use among the Jews before the building of the Temple can be seen in Deuteronomy 27:4, 5, 6, 7; Joshua 8:30; 1 Samuel 9:12, 13, 14, 19; 10:5; 1 Kings 3:2, 3, 4. Its use among other nations can be seen in Deuteronomy 12:2; 2 Kings 17:9, 10, 11. Its use among Jewish idolaters can be seen in Isaiah 57:7; 1 Kings 11:7; 14:23; 22:43; 2 Kings 12:3; 14:4; 15:3, 4, 34, 35; 16:4; 17:9, 10, 11; 21:3; 23:5, 8, 9, 13, 15.

797

From all this it can now be seen what the water that covered the mountains symbolizes: the fact that persuasive lies wiped out all the good effects of charity.

798

The meaning of fifteen cubits upward the water towered, and it covered the mountains, as the fact that nothing was left of charity, and the symbolism of fifteen as what is so meager as to be hardly anything, can be seen from the symbolism of five. This was dealt with above at Genesis 6:15 [§649], where it was shown that according to the Word’s mode of expression, or in its inner meaning, five symbolizes a small amount. And since fifteen is made out of five, symbolizing a little, and ten, symbolizing what remains (as shown above at Genesis 6:3 [§576]), it has to do with the remnant these people possessed, which hardly amounted to anything. The falsities of which people had persuaded themselves were so enormous that they eradicated everything good.

How the case stands with the remnant stored inside people was described earlier [§§562–563, 571]: false premises and especially distorted convictions, as they existed among these pre-Flood people, locked up any surviving traces [of truth and goodness] and shut them away so entirely that they could not be brought out again. If they had been, they would have been falsified immediately. The vital force of delusions is such that it not only rejects everything true and soaks up everything false but also perverts any truth that does come near.

799

Genesis 7:21, 22. And all flesh creeping on the earth passed away—including the bird and the beast and the wild animal and every crawling thing crawling on the earth—and every human. Everything that had the breath of living spirit in its nostrils, of all that was on dry land, died.

All flesh creeping on the earth passed away means that those who belonged to the final generation of the earliest church died out. Including the bird and the beast and the wild animal and every crawling thing crawling on the earth symbolizes their self-deceptions. The bird symbolizes an attachment to falsity, the beast symbolizes corrupt desires, the wild animal symbolizes sensual pleasure, and the crawling thing symbolizes bodily and earthly yearnings. These different impulses are contained within the self-deceptions, and taken together they are called every human. Everything that had the breath of living spirit in its nostrils symbolizes those who were part of the earliest church and had the breath of living spirit in their nostrils—that is, who had lived a life of love and of a faith based on love. Of all that was on dry land symbolizes people who no longer had any of that life. They died means that this life expired.

800

The meaning of all flesh creeping on the earth passed away as the fact that those who belonged to the final generation of the earliest church died out can be seen from later sections that describe their delusions and desires [§§803, 806, 808].

Here for the first time they are called flesh creeping on the earth, because they became obsessed with sensory and bodily matters. The earliest people compared sense impressions and bodily concerns to creeping animals, as noted earlier [§§195–197], so that when the text mentions flesh creeping on the earth, it symbolizes the kind of people who have become entirely absorbed in what is sensory and bodily.

Previous statements and evidence [§574] have shown that flesh symbolizes everyone, when used in a broad sense, and body-centered people, when used in a narrow sense.

801

The portrayal of these pre-Flood people reveals what the literary mode of the earliest people was like and so what the prophetic mode was like. The chapter from here to the end describes those people, telling of their delusions in the current verse and of their appetites in verse 23 below. In other words, it depicts the condition of the ideas in their intellect and then the condition of the impulses in their will.

Although nothing in them was [truly] a matter of understanding or will, the contrary thoughts and impulses they had must still be called such. These include their distorted convictions, which are anything but matters of understanding, since they are the product of thought and of twisted logic; and their cravings, which are anything but a matter of will.

Those people are described, as I was saying, in respect first to their distorted convictions and next to their cravings, which is why the statements of verse 21 here are repeated in verse 23 below, although in a different order.

[2] The prophets used the same manner of expression. Its basis is the existence of two vital forces in us, one belonging to the ideas of the intellect, and the other to the intentions of the will. The two kinds of life force are perfectly distinct from each other. We consist of both, and although they are separate in people today, the one still has an influence on the other and for the most part unites with it. The fact that they unite can be established and illustrated by much supporting evidence, as can the way they unite.

Since we consist of these two sides, then—of intellect and will—and since the one side affects the other, when the Word draws a picture of a human being it depicts each of the two sides separately. This is the reason for the repetition, which would otherwise be a defect.

The same is true with every facet of reality, because different abstract phenomena exactly mirror conditions in the people who experience them. They are attributes of those people because they arise out of them. An abstract phenomenon separated from the person subject to it, or from a substance underlying it, has no reality at all. This is the reason the Word describes things as having two parts, in the manner detailed above. Doing so makes the portrayal of every phenomenon complete.

802

An indication that the present verse is talking about delusions and verse 23 about appetites is that the present verse mentions birds first and then beasts. Birds symbolize different aspects of the things we understand or find logical, while beasts symbolize different aspects of the things we intend. When matters of desire are described, however, as they are below in verse 23, beasts are named first and then birds. This device is used because, as noted, each side influences the other, so that to describe them this way is to give a full description.

803

Including the bird and the beast and the wild animal and every crawling thing crawling on the earth symbolizes their self-deceptions. Birds symbolize an attachment to falsity, the beast symbolizes corrupt desires, the wild animal symbolizes sensual pleasure, the crawling thing crawling symbolizes bodily and earthly yearnings, and these different impulses are contained within the self-deceptions. The symbolism here is established by earlier demonstrations of the meaning of birds and beasts. A treatment of birds appeared at §40 and above at verses 14 and 15 of this chapter [§§776–778]. A treatment of beasts also appeared in the latter place [§774] and at §§45, 46, 142, 143, 246 as well.

Because birds symbolize matters of understanding, reason, and fact, they also symbolize the opposites of these—corrupt reasoning, falsity, and attachment to falsity.

These words portray the self-deceptions of a pre-Flood person in their entirety, specifically the feelings of attachment to falsity, corrupt desires, sensual pleasures, and bodily and earthly yearnings that their self-deceptions carried with them. All these impulses are inherent in a person’s delusions, although no one realizes it. We tend to consider a false premise or conviction an irreducible unit, or else a single generalized concept, but we are very wrong. The situation is completely otherwise. Each of our feelings derives its manifestation and its nature from resources in our intellect and in our will. Our whole being, then, with all that we understand and all that we will, enters into every emotion that we have and in fact into the most detailed, minute aspects of our emotions.

This has become clear to me from a wealth of experience. [2] To mention a single example, in the other life spirits can be recognized by just one of the individual ideas that go into their thinking. The angels even receive from the Lord an ability merely to look at a person and fathom immediately what the person’s character is, without making the slightest mistake. This shows clearly that every one of our ideas, every one of our feelings, and indeed every shred of feeling in us, no matter how small, is an image and portrait of us. To put it another way, each of these contains an element—whether closely or distantly related—of every thought in our intellect and every impetus of our will.

These verses, then, describe the appalling convictions of a pre-Flood person and how they carry with them attachment to falsity, attachment to evil (corrupt desires), sensual pleasure, and bodily and earthly yearnings. All these impulses are inherent in such convictions, in which bodily and earthly yearnings predominate—and not only in those convictions as a whole but in the most detailed, minute aspects of them.

If we realized the extent of the consequences for one false assumption or one false persuasion, we would be horrified. Each is like an effigy of hell. But if we adopt it in all innocence or ignorance, the falsity of it is easily dispelled.

804

The added phrase every human means that these things existed in the people under discussion. It is a general closure that embraces everything before it. Such tags occur in many places.

805

Everything that had the breath of living spirit in its nostrils symbolizes those who were part of the earliest church and had the breath of living spirit in their nostrils—that is, who had lived a life of love and of a faith based on love. This can be seen from what was said earlier at §§96, 97.

Life was what the earliest people meant when they referred to breath in the nostrils. Breath is the vital physical force that corresponds to spiritual things, just as the beating of the heart is the vital physical force that corresponds to heavenly things.

The people spoken of here are the pre-Flood people who had inherited from their ancestors the rudiments of a heavenly quality (although it came to be snuffed out or smothered). That is why it says everything that had the breath of living spirit in its nostrils.

[2] These words also conceal an even deeper meaning, one dealt with in §97. This deeper secret is that the people of the earliest church breathed internally, so that their breathing was harmonious with and similar to the breathing of the angels. More on this later [§§1118–1120, 3892, 7361], with the Lord’s divine mercy. Such respiration varied with all the phases their inner being went through. It changed over time in their descendants, however, up to this final generation, in whom everything angelic died out. When that happened, they forfeited their ability to breathe in unison with the angelic heaven as well. This was the real reason for their extinction, which is why it now says that they passed away and that those with the breath of living spirit in their nostrils died.

[3] From this time, inner breathing ceased—and along with it people’s contact with heaven, and therefore the ability to intuit things in a heavenly way—and external breathing took its place. Since contact with heaven ceased in the process, the people of the ancient church (which was the new church) were no longer capable of a heavenly character, as the earliest people had been, but only a spiritual one. This will be dealt with below, though, the Lord in his divine mercy willing.

806

The conclusions follow logically that of all that was on dry land symbolizes people who no longer had any of that life and that they died means that this life expired. And since the whole living force of love and faith had been eradicated, the term dry land appears.

Dry land is a place without water, that is, where there is no longer anything spiritual, let alone heavenly. The conviction that falsity is true destroys any spiritual or heavenly quality by suffocating it, so to speak, as we can all see from much experience, if we pay attention. Once people have laid hold of an opinion, even if it is utterly false, they stick to it so obstinately that they do not want even to hear anything that contradicts it. They positively refuse to be taught, even if you place the truth before their very eyes. This applies still more strongly to those who treat their misguided opinions with a sort of reverential awe. People who rebuff all truth and pervert what they do allow themselves to hear, suffusing it with their fantasies, are like this.

They are the ones symbolized here by the dry land, which has neither water nor grain on it, as in Ezekiel:

I will turn the rivers into dry ground and sell the land into the hand of the evil and strip the land and its abundance. (Ezekiel 30:12)

Turning the rivers into dry ground stands for a condition in which nothing spiritual remains. And in Jeremiah:

Your land has become dry ground. (Jeremiah 44:22)

Dry ground stands for a ruined and devastated land, where nothing true or good remains.

807

Genesis 7:23. And all substance that was on the face of the ground was obliterated, from human to animal to creeping thing to the bird of the heavens, and they were obliterated from the earth. And Noah alone was left, and what was with him in the ark.

All substance was obliterated symbolizes cravings, which are a product of self-love. That was on the face of the ground symbolizes the descendants of the earliest church. From human to animal to creeping thing to the bird of the heavens symbolizes the nature of their evil. The human is the actual nature, the animal is cravings, the creeping thing sensual pleasure, and the bird of the heavens the falsity that grows out of these. And they were obliterated from the earth sums it up by saying that the earliest church passed away. Noah alone was left, and what was with him in the ark, means that those who made up the new church were kept alive, what was with him in the ark being everything that belonged to the new church.

808

The symbolism of all substance was obliterated as cravings, which are a product of self-love, is established by the next few phrases, which describe the cravings through the creatures that represent them. Substance has to do with matters of the will, because in human beings, everything rises out of the will, that is to say, everything emerges from the will and feeds off it. The will is a person’s real substance, a person’s real self.

The cravings or corrupt desires of the pre-Flood people grew out of self-love. There are two very broad categories of selfish desire; one has to do with self-love, the other with love of worldly gain. We can crave only what we love, so cravings are a matter of love. The pre-Flood people were dominated by self-love and therefore by the appetites connected with it. They loved themselves so intensely that they considered themselves gods, not acknowledging any god higher than themselves. This was their conviction.

809

The symbolism of that was on the face of the ground as the descendants of the earliest church is established by the symbolism of the ground as the church and so as everything that belongs to the church. This has already been detailed [§§386, 566–567]. Since the verse describes substance that was on the face of the ground as being obliterated, the meaning is that the people in the earliest church who were like this were wiped out.

The word ground is used here, but the word earth in verse 21 above, because intellectual traits are never described as being the church; only qualities of the will are. A bare knowledge of faith and reasoning that supports faith does not in the least constitute the church or a member of the church. Charity in the will does. Every essential quality comes from the will. As a result, doctrinal concepts also do not make the church unless they look to charity in their whole and in every part. When they do this, charity becomes the purpose, and the purpose behind a doctrinal concept is what reveals its quality—whether it really embodies the church or not.

The Lord’s church, like his kingdom in the heavens, consists solely of love and charity.

810

From human to animal to creeping thing to the bird of the heavens symbolizes the nature of these people’s evil. The human is the actual nature, the animal is cravings, the creeping thing sensual pleasure, and the bird of the heavens the falsity that grows out of these. This is established by the symbolism of all these things as dealt with above [§§803–804], so there is no need to linger over them.

811

They were obliterated from the earth sums it up by saying that the earliest church passed away. Noah alone was left, and what was with him in the ark, means that those who made up the new church were kept alive, what was with him in the ark being everything that belonged to the new church. These things also need no further explanation, because they are self-evident.

812

Genesis 7:24. And the water strengthened on the earth for one hundred fifty days symbolizes the ending point of the earliest church. One hundred fifty is an ending point and a starting point.

813

The symbolism of these words as the ending point of the earliest church and of one hundred fifty as an ending point and a starting point is not so susceptible to proof from the Word as the meanings of the simpler numbers, which appear over and over. Still it can be deduced from the fact that the number fifteen, dealt with above at verse 20 [§798], symbolizes what is so meager as to be hardly anything. All that much more so the number one hundred fifty, which is a product of fifteen and ten, since the latter symbolizes remaining traces. Multiplying a small amount—a half, quarter, or tenth, for instance—results in an even smaller product, so small finally as to be almost nothing. In consequence, it is a conclusion or ending point. The same number appears again in Genesis 8:3 (“the waters receded at the end of one hundred fifty days”), where the meaning is similar.

We need to view the numbers in the Word quite separately from the literal meaning. They are added simply to spin out the thread of the story found in the letter, as stated and shown before [§§482:1, 755:4, 5]. Where seven occurs, for instance, it means holiness, with no reference whatever to the periods of time and the measurements that it usually quantifies. Angels, who perceive the inner meaning of the Word, know nothing of time and measure, let alone what number is specified. Yet when we read the Word, they fully understand it. Wherever a number comes up, then, they are unable to form any idea of a number but picture instead the phenomenon that the number symbolizes. So by the number here they understand the ending point of the earliest church, and in verse 3 of the next chapter they understand the starting point of the ancient church, which was the new church.

The Hells (Continued):

The Hells of Those Who Spent Their Lives in Hatred, Revenge, and Cruelty

814

There are people who nurse a murderous hatred and therefore meditate revenge, seeking nothing short of their victim’s death and not resting until they have achieved it. Spirits like this are kept in a deep, cadaverous hell—one that reeks with a stench like that given off by corpses. Strange to say, the people there enjoy the stench so much that they prefer it to the most pleasant smells; such is their horrendous nature and the crazy thinking it spawns. The odor described actually wafts from that hell. When the place yawns open—as it rarely does, and then just briefly—so foul a smell pours out that spirits cannot stay in the vicinity.

Some demons, or rather avenging furies, were let out of that hell in order for me to discover what they were like. They infected the air with such poisonous and pestilential fumes that the spirits around me could not remain. At the same time they affected my stomach in such a way that I threw up.

[2] They presented themselves in the form of a young child with a tolerably attractive face and a concealed dagger, whom they sent to me with a flask in hand. From this I learned that they had a taste for murder, either by dagger or poison, under the guise of innocence. The bodies of the spirits themselves were naked and quite black.

Soon, though, they were sent back into their cadaverous-smelling hell, and then I was able to watch the path of their descent. They headed to the left, keeping level with my left temple and going quite a distance without moving downward. Later they did descend, traveling first into a fire that appeared, then into a cloud of fiery smoke like that from a furnace, and directly afterward to a point below the furnace and in front, where many dark and gloomy caves led farther down. Along the way, they were constantly devising evil plots and schemes. Their intended victims were primarily the innocent, whom they targeted without cause. While passing through the fire, they wailed loud and long.

When released from their hell, they take with them a kind of ring that allows others to identify where they come from and what they are like. The ring is set with spikes which are made of something like bronze and which they grip tightly and twist with their hands—a sign that they are this type of spirit and that they are under restraint.

815

Some take so much pleasure in hatred and the revenge it inspires that they are not content simply to kill the body but long to destroy the soul as well, although the Lord redeems the soul. They are lowered though a dark hole toward the bowels of the earth, the depth to which they go being determined by the intensity of their hatred and the vengefulness growing out of it. A dreadful terror and horror then strike them, while they are being held in the grip of their lust for revenge. As that desire grows, they slip even farther down.

Later they are sent to a place beneath Gehenna, where big, terrifying, round-bellied snakes appear, as lifelike as if they actually existed. They torture the vengeful spirits with their bites, which the spirits experience just as vividly as they do the snakes. Spirits feel these sensations—corresponding as they do to the spirits’ lives—as keenly as people living in the body feel bodily sensation.

Meanwhile they live out their dreadful fantasies, wallowing in them for ages, until they no longer know that they were once human. By no other method can the way of life that they acquired from such acts of hatred and revenge be extinguished.

816

The different general kinds of hatred and vengefulness are beyond counting, the specific kinds still more so, and the hell for one kind is not the same as the hell for another. So it is impossible to list each in order. For this reason, let me simply report on some examples I have seen.

One spirit who seemed to be a noble came to me. (Spirits have appeared to me as if in clear daylight, and even more clearly than that, but to my inner eye, since the Lord in his divine mercy has let me interact with them.) As soon as he arrived, he pretended, by sly nodding, to show that he had many things he wanted to share with me, asking whether I was a Christian. I answered yes. He said he was, too, and asked to be alone with me so that he could tell me something privately. “In this life,” I answered, “no one can be alone, the way people on earth think they can. Many other spirits are close by.”

He came nearer anyway, stealing up from behind to the back of my head. I could then tell that he was an assassin. While he was there I felt a stab to the heart and then to the brain—the kind a person could easily die from. But because the Lord was keeping me safe, I was unafraid. What trick he was using I cannot say.

Thinking I was dead, he told some other spirits that he had just come from a murder victim of his, one to whom he had dealt a fatal blow from behind. He claimed a skill at keeping people from knowing what was happening until they fell dead, and from suspecting he was anything but innocent. From this I could tell that he had recently departed life, where he had committed the same kind of crime.

The punishment of such spirits is horrible. After enduring ages of hellish torment, they end up with faces so loathsome, so shockingly deformed, that they are not faces but almost like flax, drained of all color. In other words, these spirits strip themselves of everything human; then everyone who sees them shudders at the sight. Consequently they wander in the shadows like wild animals.

817

A certain spirit from a room in hell that was off to the left side came to me and talked with me. I was allowed to perceive that he was a criminal type.

This is how his misdeeds in the world were exposed: he was sent fairly far down into the underground realm that was in front and a little to the left, and there he began to dig a hole, as people do for burying the dead. This made me suspect that he had committed some fatal deed during bodily life. Next there appeared a bier swathed in black, and soon a man rose off it and approached me. He told me with saintly restraint that he was dead, probably as a result of poisoning by that man. This had been his dying thought, although he did not know whether it was an unfounded suspicion.

When the wicked spirit heard this, he confessed that he had done the deed. Punishment followed his confession. Twice he was rolled into the black grave he had dug and became as black himself in face and body as Egyptian mummies. In this condition, he was lifted up high and carried around in front of spirits and angels, while people shouted, “What a devil!” He also turned cold, so that he belongs among the cold in hell; and he was sent to hell.

818

Under the buttocks is a fearsome hell where the inhabitants seem to attack each other with knives. Like furies they thrust their knives at the chests of others, but the moment they strike, the knife is always taken from them. They are individuals who hated others so much that they burned to murder them viciously. From this they drew their appalling nature.

The hell was opened up (but only slightly, because of their terrible cruelties) for me to see what their savage hatred was like.

819

There is a large, oblong lake to the left, level with the lower parts of the body. Along the front bank, the residents see grotesque snakes of the types that live in standing water, spreading disease on their breath. On the left bank and farther away are seen cannibals eating one another, sinking their teeth into each other’s shoulders. Even farther away on the left appear huge fish, monstrous whales that swallow people down and then spit them out. At the farthest end, on the opposite bank, can be seen the most horribly deformed faces, especially those of old hags, so disfigured that they cannot be described, the owners of the faces running every which way as if insane. On the right-hand bank are people who try to kill each other with instruments of torture, the instruments varying with the different kinds of villainy they have at heart. The middle of the lake is uniformly black, like a stagnant pond.

Several times I saw people being led to this lake, which surprised me. But I learned about the situation from several others who were leaving. They said that the ones arriving were people who cherished against their neighbor a deep-seated hatred that erupted at every opportunity, affording them supreme pleasure. Nothing had delighted them more, I heard, than hauling their fellow creatures up before a judge and having them sentenced to punishment and—if the penalties of law did not prevent it—to execution.

Into such horrors are people’s hatreds and cruelties transformed after life in the body. The fantasies that result seem absolutely real to those people.

820

Those who engaged in robbery or piracy during physical life, love stinking, reeking urine above every other kind of fluid. They also seem to themselves to live among sewage of this kind and in bad-smelling ponds.

One outlaw approached me grinding his teeth. To my surprise I could hear the sound of the grinding as clearly as from a person on earth, even though these criminals do not have teeth. He admitted that he would much rather live in malodorous, urinous dampness than among the purest waters and that the stench of urine was what pleased him. He said that he preferred spending time in vats of urinous liquid to any other kind and that he wanted to make his home there.

821

There are some who maintain an outwardly honest face and honest life to avoid arousing suspicion that they are anything but upright. They eagerly pursue every method of so appearing in order to rise to prominent positions and to get rich without risking their reputation. For this reason they do not act openly. Instead they use agents to strip others of their goods by devious stratagems, not caring in the least whether the families they plunder die of starvation. If it could remain out of sight to the world, they would do the job themselves without a pang of conscience. Still, their character is the same as if they had committed the act themselves. They are covert thieves, and their particular type of hatred involves pride, greed, ruthlessness, and deceit.

[2] When people like this arrive in the other world, they claim to be innocent, saying they have done nothing wrong, since they have never been caught. To demonstrate their blamelessness, they take off their clothes and stand naked, giving witness to their purity. When they are questioned, others perceive exactly what they are like from every word they speak and every thought they think, although they themselves do not realize this is happening.

Every acquaintance they come across in the next life they desire to kill, untroubled by remorse. In their hands they hold an axe and a hammer, while at their feet they seem to have another spirit lying face up, whom they strike. They do not go so far as to spill blood, however, being fearful of death. What is more, they are unable to toss their weapons from their hands, although they try with all their might, in order to keep from being seen for what they are. They do not want the fierceness of their disposition to show in front of spirits and angels.

They occupy a place in the middle distance, under the feet and toward the front.

822

There is a type of hatred toward others that prompts people to enjoy injuring and abusing everyone. The more damage they can inflict, the greater their pleasure. Many of them are from the lowest social strata. However, there are others not of that class who have the same visceral reactions but better superficial manners, having been brought up to live in polite society, and holding legal penalties in due regard.

After death they appear unclothed from the waist up, their hair unkempt. One will rush at another, grab the other’s shoulders in a violent grip, tumble over the person’s head, circle briefly, return, and slug away relentlessly.

Those whom I described as better behaved act similarly but first exchange courtesies, then go around behind the other’s back to attack with their fists. When they see each other face to face, they greet each other and then circle behind again to strike their blows. In this way they preserve appearances.

These spirits are seen on the left at a middling height, some distance away.

823

Whatever we have done during bodily life, and even whatever we have thought, gradually comes back in the other life. When the hostile, spiteful, underhanded actions we have taken return, the individuals we hated and secretly plotted against also appear before us, and appear in an instant. That is how things operate in the next life. (Later sections [§§6893, 7498], by the Lord’s divine mercy, will deal with this kind of presence.) The negative thoughts we have had about the people are also plain to see, since everyone’s thoughts are perceptible. Miserable states result; hidden hatreds erupt openly.

Bad people find that all their misdeeds and thoughts come back with vivid realism in this way, but good people do not. With them, all states of goodness, friendship, and love return, bringing with them the highest pleasure and happiness.

Genesis Chapter 8

The Hells (Continued):

The Hells of Those Who Spent Their Lives in Adultery and Lechery; in Addition, the Hells of Deceivers and Witches

824

Under the heel of the right foot is the hell of those who enjoyed cruelty and also adultery and felt the greatest pleasure of their lives in those two things. It is remarkable that people who were cruel while living in the body also practiced adultery more than any others. Such people live in this hell.

There they inflict cruelties in unspeakable ways. In their imaginations they create [giant] mortarlike vessels (similar to those used for grinding herbs) and pestles, which they use to crush and torture everyone they can. They also conjure up executioners’ broadaxes, or something like them, as well as trephines with which they viciously maul each other—and other grim devices besides.

In that hell are a number of Jews who once treated gentiles in the same cruel ways. Today the hell is still growing, the main additions coming from the so-called Christian world. These “Christians” obtained all the joy of their lives from adultery, and most of them were also abusive.

[2] Sometimes their delight is transformed into the reek of human dung, an odor that pours out copiously when the hell opens. I sensed the smell in the world of spirits and almost passed out. This fecal stench comes and goes in hell. It consists of the inhabitants’ pleasure in adultery, converted into a horrible aroma.

As time passes and they finish a certain amount of time living in such scenes, they are left alone, sitting in pain, and seem to turn into misshapen skeletons, although they remain alive.

825

Level with the soles of the feet, in front and fairly far away, is a hell called Gehenna containing shameless women who centered all their pleasure on committing adultery. They regarded adultery as not just acceptable but honorable and lured the unblemished and innocent into it under various high-minded guises.

A sort of fiery glow appears there, like the one that a large conflagration would cast in the air. There is also a blast of heat, which I was able to feel through the warmth that spread from there to my face. And an odor drifts out that resembles the smell of singed bones and hair.

Sometimes this hell turns into a mass of loathsome snakes that bite the inhabitants. Once bitten they long for death, but they cannot die.

Some women released from the place came to me and said it was hot there. They reported that when they are allowed to approach a certain community of good spirits, the heat turns into intense cold. The temperature, they said, then fluctuates between extremes of blazing heat and freezing cold, which also tormented them miserably.

They have intervals during which they are aroused and aflame with lust; but conditions change for them, as noted.

826

There were some of each sex from the so-called Christian world who during bodily life considered their adulteries not only allowable but even sacred and for this reason contracted group “marriages” (as they so profanely called them) under the appearance of sanctity.

As I watched, they were sent to Gehenna, but when they arrived there, a change occurred. Gehenna’s fiery glimmer, which is red-hot, became white-hot at their approach, and their inability to get along together became perceptible. As a result, that iniquitous troupe of theirs was removed and transferred to an area behind the back—to another world, I heard, where they would sink into the water and then move on to a new Gehenna created for them.

An indescribable sort of hiss could be heard in [the first] Gehenna, but the hissing or whispering there was duller than the sound made by these people who polluted what is holy with their adulteries.

827

There are some men who hide behind a love for marriage and a love for children in order to commit treacherous deeds. Their behavior prevents any suspicion on a husband’s part that they as his guests are anything but chaste, innocent friends. Under such appearances and many others, they commit adultery in relative safety. These people live in a hell under the buttocks and in the filthiest excrement where, because they are among the deceitful, they undergo such devastation that they finally seem to turn into skeletons.

People like this do not even know what conscience is. I talked to them, and they were surprised that anyone might have a conscience or claim that adultery violates it. I told them that for adulterers of their type, who have no compunction, it is as impossible to come into heaven as it is for a fish to rise into the air or for a bird to fly up into the ether. Let them only edge close to heaven and they feel as though they would suffocate. The pleasure they feel turns into a stinking smell. They can only be thrust down into hell. Eventually they come to appear skeletal, with little life left, because this is the kind of life they have obtained for themselves, and when they lose it, only a tiny amount of truly human life remains.

828

There are men who like nothing better than deflowering virgins—that is, who take the greatest pleasure in virgins and in robbing them of their virginity without any thought of marriage or children. When they have stolen the bloom of their virginity, they abandon them in disgust or prostitute them.

Men who have lived this kind of life have contravened the order of nature, of the spirit, and of heaven. They violate not only marriage love, a love held very sacred in heaven, but also innocence, which they wound and murder when they take innocent girls, who could have had the love of marriage instilled in them, and introduce them instead to the life of a whore. (People know that the first blossoming of love is what introduces young women to the chaste love in marriage and unites the minds of married partners.)

Because heaven’s holiness is founded on marriage love and innocence, and these men are inward murderers (as described), in the other life they suffer punishment of the most severe kind. They seem to themselves to be riding a frenzied horse that bucks them up into the air, throwing them off, apparently in danger of their lives; such is the terror that strikes them. Later they see themselves under the belly of the maddened horse and soon seem to go up through the horse’s rump into its stomach. Then suddenly it appears to them as if they are in the belly of a woman, a foul slut, who changes into a huge dragon. There they remain hidden and in pain. This punishment recurs many times over hundreds and thousands of years, until the offenders gain a horror for such desires.

I have heard that their children are worse than others, since they inherit this quality from their fathers. Accordingly, when people of this kind engage in sexual intercourse, it rarely produces offspring, and such babies as are born do not live long.

829

Some during their bodily life think lewdly and turn whatever others say into something indecent, even if the subject is holy, and they continue to do so even into adulthood and old age, when nothing of earthly lust remains to goad them. Neither do they stop thinking and speaking this way in the other world. Since in that world their thoughts are shared generally, and sometimes present themselves in obscene form to the eyes of other spirits, they cause offense.

Their punishment consists in being laid out flat before the spirits they have hurt and spun quickly from left to right like a scroll. Then they are spun crosswise in another position, and then in yet another, stripped naked in the sight of all, or else half-naked (depending on the nature of their debauchery). All the while they suffer shame. Next they are twirled horizontally by their head and feet as if around an axis. Resistance is triggered in them, together with pain, since two forces are acting, one spinning one direction and the other pushing back. So the procedure tears them apart in an agonizing way.

At the end of all this, the individuals have a chance to remove themselves from the gaze of other spirits, and they are filled with shame. Still there are some spirits who test them to see whether they will persist in such behavior. But as long as they continue to feel humiliation and pain, they shy away from it. So they hide, despite the fact that others know just where they are.

This punishment appeared in front, some distance away.

[2] There are also boys, adolescents, and young men who in their youthful folly and lust have taken it as a principle (a horrendous one) that a wife—especially one who is young and beautiful—should not belong to her husband but to themselves and others like them. The only role they leave to the husband is as head of household and educator of the children. In the other life they are distinguished by the childish sound of their voices. They are at the back and fairly high up.

The ones who have hardened themselves in these principles and in actually living their lives by them undergo wretched punishment in the other life. They suffer dislocation and rearticulation of their joints, or having their limbs wrenched in one direction and then the other. The spirits who administer the punishment know how to create the illusion of a body and along with it the physical sensation of pain. The back-and-forth motion and the resistance to it induced in them at the same time tear at them so violently that they seem to themselves to be ripped into minute shreds, with excruciating pain. The process repeats until, struck with horror for a life based on such principles, they abandon their former way of thinking.

830

Some people fool others with great subtlety and craft, presenting a pleasant face and pleasant speech but inwardly concealing poisonous deceit. In this way they captivate others for the purpose of destroying them. Their hell is more forbidding than others’ hells, more forbidding even than the one murderers are in. They seem to themselves to live among snakes, and the more hurtful their plots had been, the more dreadful, poisonous, and numerous appear the snakes that surround and torture them. They have no idea that these are not snakes, the pain and torment they feel being the same. Few will believe this, perhaps, and yet it is true.

These are people who premeditate the frauds they practice, and find the highest pleasure of their life in them.

Dissemblers are chastised in several different ways, according to the nature of their deceit. In general, the communities banish such people rather than tolerate them. Whatever a spirit thinks, those nearby immediately know and perceive it, so they can tell if any duplicity is at work and what kind of duplicity it is. In consequence, after being driven away from society, they end up sitting alone. They then appear to have a broad face, equal in width to four or five others’ faces. They wear a wide, white straw hat and sit like images of death, racked with pain.

There are others who by nature are given to deception, so that they do not act from forethought or under cover of a false appearance. They are recognized instantly, and their thinking is perceived plainly. They even boast about their dishonesty, as if wanting to appear clever. These people do not have the same kind of hell. But more on charlatans later [§§947, 957–960, 1271, 6197], by the Lord’s divine mercy.

831

There are women who lived a life of indulgence, focusing their energies on themselves and the world and centering their whole lives and all the pleasure of life on external decorum. As a result polite society valued them more than others. From practice and habit they learned to behave in socially acceptable ways in order to tap into others’ desires and sensual pleasures. This they did under a pretense of respectability but with the desire to control. Consequently their lives became a sham and a lie. They attended church just as others did, but for no reason except to appear honorable and devout. Furthermore, they lacked any conscience and were very much drawn to immoral and adulterous conduct, so far as it could be kept hidden.

Their thinking remains the same in the next life. What a conscience is they do not know, and they scoff at people who use the word. They get inside others’ feelings, whatever those may be, simulating honesty, piety, mercy, and innocence, and using these as covers for deception. Whenever outward restraints are removed from them, they plunge into the most criminal obscenities.

[2] In the other life, these women become sorceresses or witches, some of whom are called sirens. There they eagerly take up arts unknown in the world. They are like sponges that soak up wicked and cunning methods, for which they have such a talent that they put them directly into practice. The stratagems unknown in this world that they learn there are these:

• They can throw their voices, so that it seems as though the sound were coming from good spirits somewhere else.

• They can seem to be with several people at once, convincing others that they are present almost everywhere.

• They can speak as though they were many people talking simultaneously and in many places at once.

• They can deflect what flows in from good spirits and even from angelic ones and immediately twist it to their own advantage in a variety of ways.

• They can impersonate another by seizing on the person’s patterns of thought and mimicking them.

• They can induce affection for themselves in anyone by worming their way into the actual emotions the person is feeling.

• They can suddenly drop out of sight and turn invisible.

• They can create the appearance of a dazzling white flame—the sign of an angel—around their head, and this in front of a large number of spirits.

• They have different ways of pretending innocence, even causing babies to appear and kissing them.

• And they inspire the people they hate to kill them (since they know they cannot die) and then publicly accuse them of being murderers.

[3] In my case, using consummate skill they dredged up out of my memory everything bad that I had ever thought or done. While I was sleeping, they talked to others exactly as if I were speaking, managing to dupe those spirits; and what they said was false and lewd. They have many other devices as well.

Their nature is so persuasive that not a trace of hesitation can be detected in it. For this reason their ideas are not shared generally, as other spirits’ ideas are. Their eyes are like snakes’ eyes, as people say, turning their unflinching, conscious gaze in every direction.

These witches or sirens are punished severely, some in Gehenna, some surrounded by snakes in a kind of assembly hall. The punishment of some consists in being torn apart and buffeted in various ways, with the greatest pain and anguish. After a while they are ostracized and turn into seeming skeletons from head to toe.

More on this subject follows at the end of the chapter [§§938–946].

Text of Genesis Chapter 8

1. And God remembered Noah, and every wild animal and every beast that was with him in the ark. And God made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

2. And the springs of the abyss and the floodgates of heaven were stopped up, and the downpour from the sky was held back.

3. And the waters receded off the earth, going and coming back, and the waters disappeared at the end of one hundred fifty days.

4. And the ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

5. And the waters were going and disappearing till the tenth month; in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, the heads of the mountains appeared.

6. And it happened at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made.

7. And he sent out a raven, and it went out, going and coming back till the water dried up off the earth.

8. And he sent a dove out from him, to see whether the water might have lessened off the face of the ground.

9. And the dove did not find a resting place for the sole of its foot, and it returned to him, to the ark, because there was water over the face of the whole earth; and he put his hand out and took it and brought it in to himself, into the ark.

10. And he waited yet another seven days and proceeded to send the dove out from the ark.

11. And the dove returned to him at evening time, and look: the torn-off leaf of an olive tree in its mouth! And Noah realized that the water had lessened off the earth.

12. And he waited yet another seven days and sent a dove out, and it never returned to him again.

13. And it happened in the six hundred first year, in the beginning, on the first of the month, that the water drained off the earth; and Noah removed the roof of the ark and looked, and indeed the face of the ground had dried up!

14. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth dried up.

15. And God spoke to Noah, saying,

16. “Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you,

17. every wild animal that is with you, of all flesh, including the bird and the beast and every creeping thing creeping on the earth. Take them out with you, and let them swarm throughout the earth and reproduce and multiply on the earth.”

18. And Noah went out, as did his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him,

19. every wild animal, every creeping thing, and every bird—everything creeping on the earth. By their families they went out of the ark.

20. And Noah built an altar to Jehovah and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

21. And Jehovah smelled a restful smell, and Jehovah said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground on the human being’s account, because what human hearts fabricate is evil from their youth. And I will never again strike every living thing as I have done.

22. Throughout all the days of the earth to come, sowing and reaping and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night will not end.”

Summary

832

Now comes the second series about the people of the new church, who are being called Noah, and about the state they are in from the time following their trials until their rebirth and beyond.

833

The first state after their trials; their vacillation between truth and falsity, which continues until truth begins to appear (verses 1–5).

834

The second state, which has three parts: at first the truth belonging to faith still does not shine clearly, then it does shine out, along with charity, and later the good effects of charity shed a brilliant light (verses 6–14).

835

The third state, when they start acting and thinking in terms of charity; this is the first state the reborn person goes through (verses 15–19).

836

The fourth state, when they act and think in terms of charity; this is the second state for the reborn person (verses 20, 21).

837

Last, this new church, revived as a replacement for the earlier one; a description of it (verses 21, 22).

Inner Meaning

838

The last two chapters spoke of the new church called Noah, or of the people in that church. First it dealt with the preparation they underwent for receiving faith and for receiving charity through faith. Then it dealt with the trials they suffered, and later the way they were protected when the earliest church died out. What comes now is the state they were in following their trials, described in the order in which it developed.

This is also the order in which it develops in every person who is regenerating. The Lord’s Word is such that where it talks about one person it talks about anyone and everyone, with differences according to each individual’s character. This type of meaning is present everywhere in the Word.

839

Genesis 8:1. And God remembered Noah, and every wild animal and every beast that was with him in the ark. And God made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

God remembered symbolizes the end of trial and the beginning of renewal. Noah symbolizes the people of the ancient church, as he did before. Every wild animal and every beast that was with him in the ark symbolizes everything that was in those people. And God made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters subsided, symbolizes putting everything in its proper place.

840

The symbolism of and God remembered as the end of trial and the beginning of renewal can be seen from statements made above and below.

Specifically, God remembers means that he shows mercy. His remembrance is mercy, which is ascribed mainly to the period following struggles, since new light then radiates. As long as our trials continue, we think the Lord is absent, since evil demons disturb us, sometimes to the point where despair almost prevents us from believing God exists at all. But the Lord is closer then than we can possibly believe. When the trouble ends, we find comfort, and then we first believe the Lord is present. That is why God remembered (since it seems as though he remembers) symbolizes the end of struggle and the beginning of renewal.

God and not Jehovah is said to remember because this is still the state before rebirth. When we have been reborn, Jehovah’s name is indeed used, as it is in verses 20 and 21 at the end of the chapter. The reason it is not used here is that faith has not yet united with charity. The point at which we can first be described as regenerate is when we act out of charity. It is in charity that Jehovah is found, not so much in faith before it unites with charity. In the other world, charity is our actual existence and life. Existence itself and life itself is Jehovah, and so until we exist and live, it is not Jehovah but God who is said to be present with us.

841

Noah symbolizes the people of the ancient church, as he did before, and every wild animal and every beast that was with him in the ark symbolizes everything that was in those people. This can be seen from previous remarks about Noah [§466] and about the symbolism of a wild animal and a beast.

A wild animal is understood in two senses in the Word: as those things in us that are living and as those things that are dead. The reason it stands for things that are living is that the Hebrew word means “living thing.” But since the earliest people in their humility recognized themselves as wild animals, the same word also symbolized the things that are dead inside a person.

Here a wild animal symbolizes both what is living and what is lifeless, combined, as they usually are in an individual after struggle. Things that are alive and dead, or things that are the Lord’s and those that are a person’s own, seem so jumbled together that the person barely knows what is true or good. At that stage, however, the Lord reduces everything into order and puts it in its place, as can become clear from what follows.

For the symbolism of the wild animal as those things in us that are alive, see the discussion of Genesis 7:14 above and also in this chapter at verses 17 and 19 [§§774, 908, 916:1]. Its symbolism as things inside us, including those that are dead, can be seen from evidence concerning wild animals and beasts offered several times earlier, as in §§45, 46, 142, 143, 246.

842

The symbolism of and God made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters subsided, as putting everything in its proper place is established by the symbolism of the wind in the Word. The wind is used as a metaphor, a simile, and even a name for all spirits, both good and evil. The original language uses the same word for both spirits and the winds.

During our struggles—which are the waters that subsided, as shown before [§§705, 739, 790]—it is evil spirits that flood in. They crowd in on us with their delusional thinking and stir up the same kind of thinking in us. When something banishes these spirits, or rather the hallucinations they induce, the Word describes the wind (and in fact the east wind) as the agent.

[2] For an individual who is being tested, the circumstances surrounding the end of the struggle’s commotions (or waters) are the same as those for a larger collection of people, as I have learned from much experience. Evil spirits in the world of spirits sometimes form gangs and cause disturbances, but they are dispersed by other groups of spirits that generally approach from the right and so from the east. These groups strike such fear and terror into the evil spirits that they cannot think about anything but running away. Though they had ganged together, they scatter in all directions, and this is the way in which such coalitions of spirits mobbing together for evil purposes are dissolved. The groups of spirits who disperse them by this method are called an east wind. Countless other ways of disbanding them exist, and these too are called east winds. With the Lord’s divine mercy, they will be described below [§§1398, 2128, 4793:5, 7679:1]. When the evil spirits have scattered, and the mob and its agitation are past, a calm or silence occurs.

The case is similar for an individual during times of trial. In those periods, the person is surrounded by a crowd of the same type of spirits as above, and after they have been driven off or dispelled, there is a kind of calm—the first step in putting everything where it belongs.

[3] Before being reduced to order, it is very common for everything to fall into confusion or seeming chaos. This allows things that cling together poorly to separate, and when they have separated, the Lord arranges them in their place.

Nature offers parallels, since in it too each and every thing first falls into some degree of disorder before being put in order. If the skies did not storm, causing unlike elements to scatter, the air would never clear; destructive forces would amass and wreak havoc.

The human body displays the same characteristic. Unless all the components of the blood, whether compound or pure, were continuously and cyclically combined and pumped into a single heart first and mingled there, the fluid component would coagulate in a fatal way. The individual elements would never be distributed to perform their proper functions.

It is the same with a person who is regenerating.

[4] The wind—specifically the east wind—simply symbolizes the dispersal of falsity and evil (or, what is the same, of evil spirits and demons) and the organizing of them that follows. This can be seen in the Word, as, for instance, in Isaiah:

You will disperse them, and the wind will carry them off, and a storm will scatter them. And you will rejoice in Jehovah; in the Holy One of Israel you will glory. (Isaiah 41:16)

The dispersal (of evil) is compared here to a wind and the scattering to a storm. When this occurs, those who are reborn will rejoice in Jehovah. In David:

Look! The monarchs assembled; they passed by together; they saw. So they were stupefied; they were bewildered; they rushed away. Terror seized them there—pain like that of one in labor. With an east wind you will shatter them. (Psalms 48:4, 5, 6, 7)

This describes the terror and confusion that the east wind brings over such spirits. The description stems from things that happen in the world of spirits, because the Word’s inner meaning involves such things. [5] In Jeremiah:

It will make their land something shocking; like an east wind I will scatter them before their enemy. I will turn toward them with my neck and not my face on the day of their disaster. (Jeremiah 18:16, 17)

Here again the east wind stands for the dispersal of falsity. Something similar is represented by the east wind that dried up the Suph Sea to allow the children of Israel to cross, as mentioned in Exodus:

Jehovah drew back the Suph Sea by means of a strong east wind the whole night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided. (Exodus 14:21)

The water of the Suph Sea represented something much like what the waters of the Flood do in the present verse. This can be seen from the fact that the Egyptians, who represented the wicked, drowned, while the children of Israel, who represented the regenerate (as Noah does in the present verse), walked across. The Suph Sea, like the Flood, represented damnation and also times of trial. So the east wind represented the dispersal of the water, that is, the abatement of damnation’s evils or a person’s trials. The parallels can also be seen in the Song of Moses, which he sang after the Israelites had crossed that sea (Exodus 15:1–19), and in Isaiah:

Jehovah will exterminate the tongue of Egypt’s sea and wave his hand over the river in the fierceness of his wind and strike it into seven rivers and make way [for them as they walk] in their shoes. And there will be a path for the survivors of his people who will remain from Assyria, as there was for Israel when he went up from the land of Egypt. (Isaiah 11:15, 16)

The path for the survivors of the people left from Assyria stands for the process of putting things in their proper place.

843

Genesis 8:2. And the springs of the abyss and the floodgates of heaven were stopped up, and the downpour from the sky was held back, means that their trials ended. The springs of the abyss symbolize evils, which belong to the will. The floodgates of heaven symbolize falsities, which belong to the intellect. The rain symbolizes trial itself in general.

844

From here to verse 6 the chapter speaks of the first state the people of this church experienced after their trials. The contents of this verse symbolize the end of those struggles.

Challenges to the intent of their will and to the ideas in their intellect have already been dealt with. The stopping-up of the springs of the abyss symbolizes the end of struggles involving their will, while the stopping-up of the floodgates of heaven symbolizes the end of struggles involving their intellect. These symbolisms have been mentioned and illustrated before at Genesis 7:11 [§§756–757], and the symbolism of rain as trial itself at Genesis 7:12 [§759], so there is no need to spend any more time corroborating them.

845

The reason the springs of the abyss symbolize a testing of the will’s intents and the floodgates of heaven a testing of the intellect’s ideas is as follows.

It is our volitional side that hell drives, and not so much our intellectual side, unless this is saturated with corrupt desires, which come from the will. Evil, which is a matter of will, is what condemns us and drags us down toward hell. Falsity does not do so to the same extent unless coupled with evil (since the one then follows after the other).

The large numbers of people who subscribe to falsity and yet are saved provide evidence for this. Many non-Christians, whose lives have been marked by earthly charity and by mercy, fall into this category, as do Christians whose beliefs have been adopted in simplicity of heart. Ignorance and simplicity themselves excuse such people, since innocence can inhabit those qualities.

[2] The situation is otherwise for people who have hardened themselves in falsity and from this contracted such a dishonest way of life that they deny and reject all truth. Their way of life has to be destroyed before any seed of truth or goodness can be planted in them. It is worse, however, for those who have hardened themselves in falsity on the basis of desire, so that falsity and desire have come to form a single life force. They are the ones who plummet into hell.

This is why trials involving attributes of the will are symbolized by the springs of the abyss, which are the hells, while trials involving attributes of the intellect are symbolized by the floodgates of heaven, which are rain clouds.

846

Genesis 8:3. And the waters receded off the earth, going and coming back, and the waters disappeared at the end of one hundred fifty days.

The waters receded off the earth, going and coming back, symbolizes vacillation between truth and falsity. The waters disappeared at the end of one hundred fifty days means that the trials ended. One hundred fifty days here as before symbolizes an ending and starting point.

847

The symbolism of the waters receded off the earth, going and coming back, as vacillation between truth and falsity is established by earlier statements. I said that the flood water or deluges connected with Noah symbolized times of trial [§§705, 739, 756, 790], and since the subject here is the first state following trials, the waters that receded, going and coming back, can symbolize nothing else but a wavering between truth and falsity.

The nature of this wavering, though, cannot be known without a knowledge of what trials or “temptations” are. The type of struggle determines the type of vacillation afterward. When the trial involves heavenly qualities, the vacillation is between good and evil. When the trial involves spiritual qualities, the vacillation is between truth and falsity. And when the trial is earthly, the vacillation is between the things we crave and their opposites.

[2] There are many kinds of struggle. The general types are heaven-oriented, spiritual, and earthly, and it is important to avoid confusing them. Only those who love the Lord are subject to heaven-oriented trials. Spiritual trials come to those who have charity for their fellow human. Earthly tribulation has nothing to do with the other two kinds, and it is not really a trial, or temptation, but merely anxiety rising out of an attack on earthly kinds of love. The anxiety is stirred by misfortune, illness, or morbid constitution of the blood and the body fluids.

This brief discussion can give some idea of what is involved in our trials: distress and anxiety over things that conflict with what we love. For those who love the Lord, whatever attacks love for the Lord produces deep pain, and this is trial on the heavenly plane. For those who love their neighbor, or in other words, those who feel charity, anything that attacks that love triggers the sting of conscience, and this is spiritual trial. [3] But earthly trials, which many people call temptations (while they refer to the pain they feel as the pangs of conscience), are not temptations, or tests. They are merely an anxiety sparked by an assault on what they love. Examples are times when they worry that they will be, or feel that they have been, deprived of their position, worldly goods, reputation, physical pleasures, bodily life, and so on. Still, these experiences are apt to do some good.

For those who practice earthly charity—and so for all kinds of heretics, non-Christians, and idolaters—temptations or trials are also possible, resulting from attacks on the way they live their faith, which is precious to them. But these are just woes that mimic spiritual crises.

848

When our trials are over, we experience a kind of wavering, and if our trials have been spiritual, it is a vacillation between truth and falsity, as can be seen clearly enough from the fact that trial is the beginning of regeneration.

The whole process of rebirth exists in order for us to receive new life, or rather to receive life at all. It exists in order that from being nonhuman we may become human, or from being dead may become alive. So when our previous way of life, which was no better than animal life, breaks down in times of trouble, we cannot help faltering between truth and falsity after the trouble has passed. Truth belongs to the new life, falsity to the old. Unless the earlier way of life is destroyed and this uncertainty takes hold, spiritual seed cannot possibly be sown in us, since there is no soil for it.

[2] When disintegration of the prior life is complete, on the other hand, and such hesitation takes its place, we are left with almost no idea what is true or good. We are so unsure that we scarcely know whether anything is true. For instance, we can wonder whether we are capable of doing the good that charity urges (or good works, as people call them) under our own power, when the exercise of our powers involves a sense of merit. Our minds are so cloudy and dark at this point that if someone says that people cannot do any good or earn any merit on their own or under their own power, that all good comes from the Lord and all the credit is the Lord’s, we can only sit there stupefied. It is the same with all other religious questions. Yet slowly, bit by bit, light begins to pierce the murk or darkness we live in.

[3] Regeneration is exactly like human development. When babies are born, they live in great mental darkness, knowing almost nothing, so at that stage general impressions enter their minds first. By degrees, as specifics are introduced into the general ideas, those ideas grow more distinct, and still more distinct when the specifics acquire even greater detail. In this way, the particular sheds light on the general, allowing a person to see not only that such things exist but also of what quality they are. The case is the same with everyone emerging from spiritual trial.

Conditions are similar for those in the other life who, since they had held false notions, go through the process of devastation.

This state is called vacillation and is portrayed here by the waters that receded, going and coming back.

849

Clearly it now follows that the waters disappeared at the end of one hundred fifty days means that the trials ended. The symbolism of one hundred fifty days as an ending and starting point is established by the things said about this number above at Genesis 7:24 [§813]. Here it is an ending point for vacillation and a starting point for new life.

850

Genesis 8:4. And the ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

The ark came to rest symbolizes rebirth. The seventh month symbolizes holiness. The seventeenth day of the month symbolizes something new. The mountains of Ararat symbolize a bit of light.

851

The symbolism of the ark came to rest as rebirth can be seen from this, that the ark symbolizes the people of this church, and everything in the ark symbolizes what those people had inside them, as shown frequently above [§§602, 638–658, 667–681, 713–726, 740–751, 764–784, 811]. When the ark is said to have come to rest, then, the meaning is that the same people were regenerating.

The literal story line does indeed seem to suggest that the settling of the ark symbolizes an end to the wavering (discussed at the last verse) that followed their trials. The wavering, however, which is doubt and confusion about truth and goodness, does not end here but lasts a long time, as will also become clear below.

This shows that the inner sense always has some other implication; and since that implication is unknown, let me reveal it here. After spiritual people have endured tribulation, they too become the Lord’s rest, just as the heavenly person does, and they also become a seventh thing—not the seventh day, as the heavenly person does, but the seventh month. Concerning the heavenly person as the Lord’s Sabbath rest and as the seventh day, see §§84–88. Since there is a difference between heavenly and spiritual people, though, the original language uses a word meaning “Sabbath” for the heavenly person’s repose and another, from which the name Noah comes and which more strictly means “rest,” for the spiritual person’s repose.

852

The symbolism of the seventh month as holiness is abundantly clear from §§84–87, 395, 716 above, where this is demonstrated. The holiness implied here parallels what Genesis 2:3 said about the person of heavenly character: that the seventh day was consecrated because God rested on it.

853

The symbolism of the seventeenth day as something new can be seen from remarks and supporting evidence concerning the number seventeen at Genesis 7:11, §755, where it symbolizes a beginning. Every beginning is something new.

854

The symbolism of the mountains of Ararat as a bit of light is established by the symbolism of a mountain as the good that comes of love and charity (§795) and of Ararat as a bit of light—the light that a regenerate person enjoys.

The new glimmer—the first glimmer—that comes to the regenerate individual never rises out of a knowledge of faith’s truth but out of charity. Faith’s truths are like rays of light; love, or charity, is like a flame. The enlightenment of one who is regenerating does not radiate from the truth belonging to faith but from charity. The truths themselves are the rays that beam from it. So one can see that the mountains of Ararat symbolize this kind of light.

Such light is the first to shine after a time of struggle, and because it is the first, it is dim and is called a bit of light, not full light.

855

These explanations show what the elements of the current verse mean on an inner plane: the spiritual person embodies a holy restfulness that results from the new glimmer of understanding radiated by charity. The angels perceive these details in all their amazing variety, arranged in a delightful pattern. If we could possess ourselves of just one idea like theirs, thousands and thousands of other insights along manifold lines would enter into it and touch our hearts. Those thoughts are completely beyond description. Such is the Lord’s Word throughout its inner meaning, even though it looks like an unpolished history in its literal meaning—as does the current verse (despite the symbolism given): The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

856

Genesis 8:5. And the waters were going and disappearing till the tenth month; in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, the heads of the mountains appeared.

The waters were going and disappearing means that falsity began to be dispersed. The tenth month symbolizes the truth belonging to the remnant. On the first of the month the heads of the mountains appeared symbolizes religious truth that then began to be visible.

857

The meaning of the waters were going and disappearing as the fact that falsity began to be dispersed can be seen from the words themselves. It can also be seen from the remarks just above explaining verse 3, which says that the waters receded, going and coming back, where the present verse says that the waters were going and disappearing. Both phrases symbolize vacillation between truth and falsity, but the meaning here is that such vacillation lessened.

To waver after a period of trial, as I said [§849], is not to know what is true; but as the wavering gradually ends, the light of truth appears. The reason for the darkness is that as long as we are at this stage, our inner self—that is, the Lord working through our inner self—cannot act on the outer self. The inner self holds the remnant described earlier [§§561, 661:2], which is a desire for goodness and for the truth it leads to. The outer self contains cravings and the falsity they lead to. Until these outer attributes are overcome and eliminated, no channel lies open for goodness and truth coming from the inner self, that is, from the Lord through the inner self.

[2] An additional purpose of our trials, then, is to subdue our external qualities and make them obedient to inner qualities. Anyone can see this by considering that as soon as our interests are attacked and crushed, the way they are by misfortune, sickness, and mental illness, our cravings start to shut down. As they shut down, we start talking devoutly. But the minute we return to our previous condition, the outer self takes over and we barely think about religious subjects. Something similar happens in the last hour of death, when our bodily drives begin to die away.

From this everyone can see what the inner self and outer self are, what the remnant is, and how the cravings and sensual pleasures of the outer self block the Lord from operating through the inner being. By the same token it is easy to see what else is accomplished by our struggles or inward pangs, called the gnawings of conscience: subordination of the outer self to the inner. Obedience in the outer self is simply a state in which cravings and consequent falsities do not obstruct, resist, or smother the desire for goodness and truth. An end to perverse longings and misguided thinking is what the going and disappearing of the waters depicts here.

858

The symbolism of the tenth month as the truth belonging to the remnant is established by the symbolism of ten as a remnant (§576) and by what was said just above about the remnant in the inner self.

859

The symbolism of on the first of the month the heads of the mountains appeared as religious truth that then began to be visible is established by the symbolism of mountains as the good effects of love and charity (§795). The heads start to show when we are being reborn and given a conscience and, through conscience, charity.

Those who think they see mountaintops, or religious truth, from any other perspective than that of a loving, charitable goodness are completely mistaken. Otherwise, Jews and blasphemous gentiles would also be able to see the truth, even though they lack such goodness.

The mountaintops are the first points of light to appear.

860

From this it is also possible to see that all regeneration advances from evening to morning, as Genesis 1 says six times in discussing a person’s rebirth. Verses 2 and 3 here portray the evening, verses 4 and 5 the morning. The emergence of the mountaintops depicts the first light or dawn of this state.

861

Genesis 8:6. And it happened at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made.

It happened at the end of forty days symbolizes the time that the previous state lasted and the point at which the next commenced. Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made symbolizes the second state, when religious truth appeared to them.

862

The symbolism of it happened at the end of forty days as the time that the previous state lasted and the point at which the next commenced is established by the symbolism of forty. In a passage that, referring to times of trial, mentions forty days and forty nights, forty is a symbol for the length that times of trial last (§730). Here, because the subject is the state that follows struggles, it says forty days but not nights. The reason the text speaks only of days is that charity now begins to appear. The Word compares charity to the day and calls it day, while the early faith that is not yet very tightly bound up with charity it compares to the night, and calls night. An example is Genesis 1:16; and there are other passages.

Another reason that the Word refers to faith as night is that it obtains its light from charity, as the moon does from the sun. So the Word compares faith to the moon and calls it a moon, and it compares love, or charity, to the sun and calls it the sun.

Forty days, and the length of time they symbolize, relate both to what comes before and to what comes after, which is why it says at the end of forty days. In this way, they symbolize the duration of the previous state and the commencement of the state presently under discussion.

Now begins a description of the second state following periods of struggle for the people in this church.

863

Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made symbolizes the second state, when religious truth appeared to them. This can be seen from the final words of the last verse (saying that the heads of the mountains appeared) and their meaning; from the symbolism of a window; and from the fact that this is the first moment of light. A window, dealt with above at §655, symbolizes the intellectual side of things and consequently religious truth, which is the same thing.

As for the intellectual realm or the religious truth that the window symbolizes, I must make the same remark as before [§§854, 859]: No religious truth is at all possible unless it develops out of the goodness that goes with love or with charity, just as nothing truly belongs to the intellect unless it rises out of something in the will. If you take away volition, there is no comprehension, as demonstrated several times already [§§112, 585, 590, 628]. So if you take away charity, there is no faith.

But since the human will is undiluted greed, the Lord made a miraculous provision to prevent us from plunging the contents of the intellect—religious truth—into our selfish desires. He divided what belongs to the intellect from our will by the specific means of conscience, which he infuses with charity. Without this miraculous act of providence, no one could ever have been saved.

864

Genesis 8:7. And he sent out a raven, and it went out, going and coming back till the water dried up on the earth.

He sent out a raven, and it went out, going and coming back, means that falsity still troubled them. The raven symbolizes falsity. Going and coming back symbolizes the stage they were in, which fluctuated in just this way. Till the water dried up on the earth symbolizes apparently getting rid of falsity.

865

The meaning of he sent out a raven, and it went out, going and coming back, as the fact that falsity still troubled them can be seen from the symbolism of a raven and of going and coming back, discussed below.

This describes the second state following times of trial for a person who is regenerating. In it, the truths that faith espouses, representing the first points of light, start to appear. Conditions are such that falsity constantly interferes, making the period resemble dawn with its half-light, which overlaps the lingering dark of night. That is why it is symbolized by a raven here.

In spiritual people, especially before they have been reborn, falsity is like dense patches of cloud, because they cannot learn any religious truth except from information that the Word reveals, and the Word states everything in a general way. Generalities are nothing but splotches of cloud, since every general statement embraces thousands upon thousands of individual concepts and every individual concept embraces thousands upon thousands of particulars. The details making up the individual concepts are what shed light on the general ideas. Such details are never revealed to humankind, both because they cannot be described and because we cannot grasp them and so cannot acknowledge or believe them. They run contrary to the illusions of our senses, which we surrender to and do not easily allow to be destroyed.

[2] The case is entirely different with heavenly people, who receive perception from the Lord. It is possible to introduce the individual concepts and the particulars of those concepts to them. For example, it is possible to instill in them the idea that true marriage involves one husband and one wife, that it represents the heavenly marriage, and that such a marriage therefore can hold heavenly happiness within it, which the marriage between one man and many wives never can. Spiritual people who have learned this from the Lord’s Word yield to it, so they accept as a matter of conscience that polygamous marriage is a sin. Beyond this their knowledge does not extend. Heavenly people, though, perceive a thousand arguments confirming it and shudder at the idea of contracting marriage with multiple partners.

Since spiritual people possess only general knowledge, and this is what forms their conscience, and since the general teachings of the Word are adapted to sensory illusions, clearly numberless misconceptions attach themselves to such teachings and seep in among them. These misconceptions cannot be done away with. They are symbolized by the raven that went out, going and coming back.

866

The symbolism of the raven as falsity is established in general by explanations and illustrations above regarding birds [§§40, 745, 776, 803], showing that they symbolize matters of understanding, reason, and fact, and the opposites of these, which are rationalization and falsity. The Word depicts both the positive and negative types in the different species of bird. Birds that are gentle, pretty, and clean portray true ways of understanding, but birds that are fierce, ugly, and unclean portray false ones, depending on the specific type of truth or falsity. Thick, dense falsity is depicted by owls and ravens—by owls because they inhabit the dark of night, by ravens because they are black. In Isaiah, for instance:

Owl and raven will live there. (Isaiah 34:11)

These words occur in a passage that speaks of the Jewish church as containing sheer falsity, which the owl and raven depict.

867

The symbolism of going and coming back as the stage they were in, which fluctuated in just this way, can be seen from the falsities that plague people during the first and second stages after their trials. As false ideas then flit through the mind, they depart and return, for the reason given above: the person can and does learn only the most comprehensive generalizations. These generalizations give entry to some very fanciful notions that arise from a bodily, sensory, and worldly source, and that do not harmonize with the truth taught by faith.

868

The symbolism of till the water dried up on the earth as apparently getting rid of falsity can be seen from the circumstances a person faces when being reborn.

Everyone today believes that the evil and falsity we have in us is wholly dispelled and abolished when we regenerate, so that when our rebirth is complete, nothing evil or false remains. People suppose we are then pure and righteous, as if we had been washed and rinsed with water. But this belief is absolutely false. Not a single evil or falsity is so thoroughly dispelled as to be abolished. Everything we inherited at infancy and everything we acquired through our actions remains, so that even when we have become regenerate we consist of unrelieved evil and falsity. Souls after death go through experiences that demonstrate this fact to them.

The same thing is also clear enough from the consideration that we have no goodness or truth whatever except from the Lord and that all our vices and distortions come from our selfhood. If people—or spirits, or even angels—were left on their own for even the smallest moment, they would make a spontaneous rush for hell. For this reason the Word says that heaven is not pure [Job 15:15]. The angels acknowledge this, and no one who fails to acknowledge it can be among them. The Lord’s mercy alone frees them from hell, indeed removes them from hell and keeps them from voluntarily plunging right back in.

Angels perceive plainly that the Lord keeps them from running headlong into hell. Good spirits do too, up to a point. But evil spirits, like people on earth, do not believe it, although they have been shown many times. A description of my experiences on this subject will appear below, by the Lord’s divine mercy.

[2] The human condition, then, is such that we can never banish anything evil or false so completely as to eliminate it, since evil and falsity make up those aspects of life that are all our own. Because of this, when the Lord uses times of trouble to regenerate us, in his divine mercy he subdues our evil and falsity to the point where they look dead, although they are not; they are merely so well conquered that they cannot stand up to the goodness and truth the Lord gives us.

Through our times of trouble the Lord also gives us a new capacity for receiving goodness and truth. He endows us with conceptions of what is good and true, and feelings of affection for it, and whatever is evil and false can then be bent in that direction. He also introduces into our general ideas (as described above [§848:3]) more specific ones, and into these the most specific, which are hidden to us and of which we are totally unaware, since they lie beyond the reach of our comprehension and perception. This subconscious knowledge serves as a reservoir or container into which the Lord can pour neighborly love, which itself holds the innocence he can instill.

These things, when mixed together in marvelous balance in a person, spirit, or angel, can present an image of a rainbow, which is why a rainbow was used as the sign of the pact mentioned in Genesis 9:12, 13, 14, 15, 16. For more on this, with the Lord’s divine mercy, see there [§§1036–1056].

When we have come into this form, we are called regenerate. Everything evil and false in us remains, but then everything good and true is also preserved. Bad people find that all the forms of evil and falsity they had indulged in during bodily life return in exactly the same form in the next life, where they turn into the hallucinations and punishments of hell. Good people in the next life, though, recall all the states marked by goodness and truth that they had experienced—states of friendship, love for others, and innocence—along with the attendant joys and pleasures, now increased and multiplied beyond measure.

This, then, is the apparent eradication of falsity symbolized by the drying up of the water.

869

Genesis 8:8. And he sent a dove out from him, to see whether the water had lessened off the face of the ground.

The dove symbolizes the truth and goodness of faith in one who is being reborn. He sent a dove out from him to see symbolizes the right conditions for taking in faith’s truth and goodness. Whether the water had lessened symbolizes falsities that get in the way. The face of the ground is things that people in the church have in them. The word ground is used because this is the first stage a person goes through in becoming a church.

870

The symbolism of a dove or pigeon as the truth and goodness of faith in one who is being reborn can be seen from the symbolism of a dove in the Word—especially the one that settled on Jesus when he was baptized, as told in Matthew:

After he was baptized, Jesus went up immediately out of the water, and here, the heavens opened! And he saw God’s spirit coming down like a dove and lighting on him. (Matthew 3:16, 17; told also in John 1:32; Luke 3:21, 22; Mark 1:10, 11)

The dove simply symbolizes the holy quality of faith, while baptism itself symbolizes rebirth. So in relation to the new church that was to arise, it symbolizes faith’s truth and goodness, which the people of that church receive through the Lord’s regeneration of them.

[2] The use of pigeon chicks and turtledoves as sacrifices and burnt offerings in the Jewish religion represented and involved similar things. This can be seen in the individual passages that speak of those offerings: Leviticus 1:14–end; 5:7–10; 12:6; 14:21, 22; 15:14, 15, 29, 30; Numbers 6:10, 11; Luke 2:22, 23, 24. Anyone can grasp that they symbolized such things, for the simple reason that they had to have represented something. If not, the gesture would be hollow rather than divine in any way. The church’s outward motions are lifeless; all their life comes from within, and what is within comes from the Lord.

[3] A dove’s general symbolism as the use of the intellect for religion can also be seen in the prophets, as in Hosea:

Ephraim will be like a simpleminded pigeon: no heart. They called Egypt; they left for Assyria. (Hosea 7:11)

In the same author:

Ephraim will quake like fowl from Egypt and a dove from the land of Assyria. (Hosea 11:11)

In these verses, Ephraim stands for a person endowed with understanding, Egypt for a knowledgeable person, Assyria for a logical one, and the dove or pigeon for everything having to do with the intellectual side of religion. The passages are about the spiritual church’s rebirth. In David:

Jehovah, do not hand the turtledove’s soul over to the wild animal. (Psalms 74:19)

The wild animal stands for those who have no love for their neighbor; the soul of a turtledove, for a life of faith.

See the remarks and evidence above at §§40, 776, [777, 778] in respect to birds, showing that they symbolize matters of understanding. Tame, pretty, clean, and useful birds symbolize ideas in the intellect that are true and good, while rapacious, ugly, unclean, and useless ones symbolize the opposite—that is, ideas that are false—as does the raven, here set opposite the dove.

871

The symbolism of he sent a dove out from him to see as the right conditions for taking in faith’s truth and goodness becomes clear from the series of ideas. It can also be deduced from the ensuing treatment of the three stages of regeneration that follow times of trial for the people being discussed. The three times the dove was sent out symbolize those three stages.

The words here most directly involve an examination of those people, since it says that Noah sent the dove out from him to see specifically (as comes next) whether the water might have lessened. The question posed by these words was whether falsity was still so overwhelming that they could not accept the truth and goodness of faith. But the Lord has no use for investigation, since he knows absolutely everything, so at a deeper level, the words symbolize not an examination but prevailing conditions. Here they mean the first stage, when falsity still got in the way, as symbolized by the words whether the water had lessened.

872

The face of the ground is what people in the church have in them, the word ground being used because this is a person’s first stage in becoming a church. This can be seen from the symbolism of the ground (dealt with before [§§386, 566]) as people in the church, who are referred to as the ground when the seed of faith’s truth and goodness can be sown in them. Prior to that they are referred to as the land, or the earth. The first chapter of Genesis, for instance, speaking of a time before people have developed a heavenly character, uses land to describe them, but the second chapter, dealing with a time when they have become heavenly, uses ground and field to describe them. Something similar occurs in the present chapter.

The words land (or earth) and ground by themselves indicate what the symbolic meaning on the inner plane is, not just here but throughout the Word.

In an overall sense, the ground symbolizes the church; and because it symbolizes the church, it also symbolizes the people who belong to the church, since, as noted before [§82], every individual in the church is a church.

873

Genesis 8:9. And the dove did not find a resting place for the sole of its foot, and it returned to him, to the ark, because there was water over the face of the whole earth; and he put his hand out and took it and brought it in to himself, into the ark.

The dove did not find a resting place for the sole of its foot means that none of faith’s goodness or truth could root itself. It returned to him, to the ark, symbolizes goodness and truth that seemed to be religious in those people. Because there was water over the face of the earth means that falsity was still overflowing. He put his hand out symbolizes their personal power. And took it and brought it to himself, into the ark, means that they did good and thought about truth under their own direction.

874

This scene depicts the first stage of regeneration following trial for the people of this church, a stage common to everyone who is being reborn: we imagine that we are doing good deeds and thinking true thoughts under our own power. Because we still cannot see clearly at all, the Lord lets us think this way.

Still, none of the good we do and none of the truth we contemplate while holding this opinion (a mistaken one) is the kind of goodness or truth that makes a part of faith. Nothing that we produce from ourselves can be good, because it is from ourselves—an impure and very unclean source. From an impure and unclean source nothing good can spring, because we are always thinking about how deserving and righteous we are. Some people, as the Lord teaches in Luke 18:9–14, go further and despise others in comparison with themselves. Others do other things just as bad. Self-centered desires add themselves to the mixture, making the exterior look good, although the interior is filthy.

As a consequence, the good that we do at this stage is not the good that belongs to faith. It is the same with the truth that we think. Even if the idea we adopt is absolutely true and is in itself a valid religious concept, nonetheless as long as we adopt it for selfish reasons, it has no religious good within it. Any truth, in order to be theologically true, has to have the good of faith from the Lord within it. That is when it first becomes good and true.

875

The meaning of the dove did not find a resting place for the sole of its foot as the fact that none of faith’s goodness or truth could root itself can be seen from this: a dove symbolizes religious truth, and a resting place for the sole of the foot means becoming rooted. The reason it could not root itself comes up later: falsity was still overflowing. But no one can understand how the situation stands without learning how a spiritual person is reborn.

[2] Spiritual people have to have seeds of knowledge planted in their memory—knowledge of what faith is, drawn from the Lord’s Word or from doctrinal precepts distilled out of it. (The ancient church acquired this knowledge from what had been revealed to the earliest church.) From the memory, their minds then need to be supplied with material for the intellect; but as long as they are awash in falsity, religious truth cannot take root, no matter how densely it has been sown. Such truth clings only to the surface, or memory, and the soil does not become suitable until falsity has been driven away so that it no longer appears, as noted before [§§842:4–5, 868:2].

[3] For spiritual people, the ground itself is prepared in the intellectual part of the mind. When preparation is complete, the Lord instills the goodness of charity and then a conscience. Conscience becomes the basis for the person’s actions, or in other words, the channel through which the Lord puts into effect the goodness and truth connected with faith.

In this way, the Lord divides the workings of the intellect in a spiritual person from those of the will so that they never coalesce. If they did, it would necessarily destroy the person forever. [4] In the people of the earliest church the two did converge, as they also do in heavenly angels; but in the people of this church they did not, nor do they in spiritual people generally.

It does look as though the neighborly good that they do comes from their will, but this is just an appearance and an illusion. All the neighborly good they do is the Lord’s alone and comes through conscience rather than will. If the Lord allowed us to act from our own will one tiny bit, we would do evil instead of good, and we would do it out of hatred, vengefulness, and cruelty.

[5] The situation is similar in regard to the truth that spiritual people think and talk about. If they did not think and speak from conscience, and so from some good quality belonging to the Lord, they could never think or speak truth, except the way the Devil’s horde does when impersonating angels of light.

These things are quite obvious in the other life.

This explanation shows how regeneration proceeds and what it means for spiritual people: a separation of the intellectual part of the mind from the volitional part by means of conscience. The Lord forms the conscience in their intellectual part, and the deeds that come out of it seem to come from their will, although they really come from the Lord.

876

The symbolism of it returned to him, to the ark, as goodness and truth that seemed to be religious can be seen from statements above [§874] and just below.

Liberation is symbolized on an inner level not by the dove’s return to the ark but by its being sent from the ark and not returning, as indicated by what follows. Verse 12, for instance, says that Noah sent the dove out and it never returned to him again. Verses 15 and 16 say that he himself was ordered to leave the ark, and verse 18, that he did.

The ark symbolizes the circumstances of these people before rebirth. Under such circumstances they were captives or prisoners, beset on all sides by evil and falsity, or by the flood waters. So returning to Noah, to the ark, signals the relapse of goodness and truth (as meant by the dove) into that condition.

Anything good we intend to do when motivated by self-interest comes back to us, because it focuses on us; we want the world or the angels to see what we are doing, or we desire to earn a place in heaven, or we hope to be the greatest in heaven. Those are the urges inherent in self-interest and in every idea connected with it, however convincing the outer appearance of religious goodness and truth. The goodness and truth that faith embraces is good and true inside, from the very core; that is, the goodness and truth of faith comes entirely from the Lord by way of our deepest levels. When it comes instead from ourselves, or depends on our merits, it is dirty on the inside although apparently clean on the outside, just like a foul-smelling prostitute with a beautiful-looking face or like an Ethiopian person, or rather an Egyptian mummy, dressed in white clothing.

877

The symbolism of there was water over the face of the earth as the fact that falsity was still overflowing is established by the symbolism of flood water as falsity. This symbolism has been proved satisfactorily before [§§739, 757, 790, 842], so that the meaning is clear from the words themselves.

878

He put his hand out symbolizes their personal power, and he took it and brought it in to himself, into the ark, means that they did good and thought about truth under their own direction. This can be seen from the symbolism of a hand as power and so here as the personal power that they exercised. Putting out one’s hand, taking a dove, and bringing it in to oneself is laying claim to the truth meant by the dove and using it for one’s own purposes.

The symbolism of a hand as power, authority, and the arrogant self-assurance these impart, is established by many scriptural passages, such as this one from Isaiah:

I will exact punishment on the fruit of the bloated heart of Assyria’s king because he said, “In the power of my hand have I acted, and in my wisdom, because I have understanding.” (Isaiah 10:12, 13)

The hand obviously stands for personal power, to which Assyria’s king attributed his success; hence the punishment inflicted on him. In the same author:

Moab will stretch out its hands in its own midst—as a swimmer stretches them out to swim—and [Jehovah] will lay their arrogance low, together with the floodgates of their hands. (Isaiah 25:11)

The hands stand for personal power resulting from a sense of superiority to others and so from arrogance. [2] In the same author:

Their residents, their hand shortened, have felt panic and shame. (Isaiah 37:27)

Having shortened hands stands for lacking any power. In the same author:

Will the clay say to its potter, “What are you doing?” or will your work say, “[My maker] has no hands”? (Isaiah 45:9)

Not having hands stands for not having any power. In Ezekiel:

The monarch will mourn and the chieftain will be clothed in shock, and the hands of the people of the land will be uneasy. (Ezekiel 7:27)

The hands stand for various kinds of power. In Micah:

Doom to those who contemplate wickedness and practice evil on their beds, because they do it in the morning light, and because their hand is as a god. (Micah 2:1)

Their hand stands for their personal power, which they trust in as their god. In Zechariah:

Doom to shepherds who are good for nothing, abandoning the flock! A sword against their arm and against their right-hand eye! Their arm will utterly shrivel and their right-hand eye go utterly dark. (Zechariah 11:17)

[3] Because a hand symbolizes different kinds of power, the Word frequently calls humanity’s evil ways and false thinking the works of their hands. Evil grows out of selfishness in our will, and falsity out of selfishness in our intellect. This fact becomes clear from the nature of human selfhood [or autonomy], which is unremitting evil and falsity. For a description of human selfhood in these terms, see above at §§39, 41, 141, 150, 154, 210, 215.

Since hands in general mean power, the Word many times attributes hands to Jehovah, or the Lord, and in those places, on an inner level, hands mean omnipotence. In Isaiah, for instance:

Jehovah, your hand is lifted high. (Isaiah 26:11)

Here the hand stands for divine power. In the same author:

Jehovah stretches out his hand, they are all consumed. (Isaiah 31:3)

Again it stands for divine power. In the same author:

Concerning the work of my hands do you command me? My hands spread out the heavens, and to their whole army I gave commands! (Isaiah 45:11, 12)

Again it stands for divine power.

The Word frequently refers to regenerate people as the work of Jehovah’s hands. In the same author:

My hand founded the earth, and my right hand measured the heavens by palm-breadths. (Isaiah 48:13)

The hand and the right hand stand for omnipotence. [4] In the same author:

Is my hand shortened, so that redemption fails; or do I not have in me the power to rescue? (Isaiah 50:2)

This stands for divine power. In Jeremiah:

You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt by signs and portents, and by a strong hand, and by an outstretched arm. (Jeremiah 32:17, 21)

This stands for divine power, and verse 17 uses the word power where verse 21 uses hand. The saying that the people of Israel were brought out of Egypt by a strong hand and an outstretched arm comes up repeatedly [Deuteronomy 4:34; 5:15; 7:19; 26:8; Psalms 136:11–12]. In Ezekiel:

This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: “On the day when I chose Israel and raised my hand to the seed of the house of Jacob and became known to them in the land of Egypt, I raised my hand to them to bring them out of the land of Egypt.” (Ezekiel 20:5, 6, 23)

In Moses:

Israel saw the massive hand that Jehovah used against the Egyptians. (Exodus 14:31)

[5] These passages now make it quite clear that a hand symbolizes power. In fact the symbolism was so strong that a hand also came to serve as a representation of power. This is visible in the miracles performed in Egypt, when Moses was commanded to stretch out his staff or his hand in order to accomplish a given result. For example:

Moses stretched out his hand and hail fell on Egypt. (Exodus 9:22)

Moses stretched out his hand and darkness fell. (Exodus 10:21, 22)

Moses stretched out his hand and staff over the Suph Sea and it dried up. And he stretched out his hand and it returned to its place. (Exodus 14:21, 27)

No clear-thinking person can believe that there was any power in Moses’ hand or staff. Rather, since the act of lifting and stretching out a hand symbolized divine power, it had become representative [of that power] in the Jewish religion. [6] The instance in which Joshua extended a javelin was similar:

Jehovah said, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, because I will deliver it into your hand.” When Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand, they came into the city and seized it, and Joshua did not draw back the hand with which he had stretched out the javelin until he had exterminated all the residents of Ai. (Joshua 8:18, 19, 26)

This shows what the case was with the representative acts and objects that formed the external ritual of the Jewish religion. It also shows what the Word is like, in that the particulars of its outward meaning do not seem as if they would be representative of the Lord and his kingdom. This applies to the examples here of times when leaders stretched their hands out, and to all other details as well. Their representative nature will never be clear as long as our minds cling exclusively to the literal narrative.

The same evidence indicates how far the Jews fell away from a true understanding of the Word and the rituals of their religion, since they identified worship with outward forms alone. They went so far as to ascribe power to Moses’ staff and Joshua’s javelin, when in reality these were no more powerful than a piece of wood. It was because those objects symbolized the Lord’s omnipotence, and because heaven viewed them this way, that signs and wonders occurred when those men stretched out a hand or a staff as ordered. The same is true of the fact that when Moses raised his hands on top of the hill, Joshua won, and when he dropped them Joshua lost, which led others to support his hands (Exodus 17:9–13).

[7] The situation was similar when one person, seeking to transfer power, laid hands on another to consecrate that other, as the people did to the Levites (Numbers 8:9, 10, 12) and as Moses did to Joshua when Joshua was to take his place (Numbers 27:18, 23). This is the source of modern rites of ordination and benediction that involve the laying on of hands.

The extent to which a hand symbolized and represented power can be seen from the stories of Uzzah and Jeroboam, which the Word tells in the following way.

Concerning Uzzah: Uzzah put (his hand) out onto the ark of God, grasped it, and died for doing so (2 Samuel 6:6, 7). The ark represented the Lord and so represented everything that was sacred and heavenly. Uzzah’s “putting it out” onto the ark represented his own, independent power, or human autonomy. Because human autonomy is profane, the word hand does not appear in the text (although it is implied) to prevent the angels from being aware that anything so profane touched something holy. And since he put it out, he died.

[8] Concerning Jeroboam: It happened that when he heard the word that the man of God had shouted in denunciation of the altar, Jeroboam put his hand out from the altar, saying, “Seize him!” And his hand that he had put out in denunciation of the man shriveled up, and he could not draw it back to himself. He said to the man of God, “Please entreat Jehovah your God to restore my hand to me.” And the man of God entreated Jehovah, and his hand was restored to him and became as it had been before (1 Kings 13:4, 5, 6).

Here again putting out a hand symbolizes a person’s own, independent power or autonomy, which is profane. Jeroboam wanted to violate what was holy by putting his hand out toward the man of God, so his hand shriveled, but since he was an idolater and incapable of profaning anything, as noted earlier [§§303, 408, 661:1], his hand was restored.

The symbolism and representation of a hand as power can be deduced from objects in the world of spirits that have a representative meaning. Sometimes an arm becomes visible there—a bare arm, possessing such tremendous strength that it could crush bone and pound one’s deepest marrow more or less into oblivion. The arm strikes so much terror into the inhabitants that their hearts turn to water. And it actually does have the strength that it seems to have.

879

Genesis 8:10, 11. And he waited yet another seven days and proceeded to send the dove out from the ark. And the dove returned to him at evening time, and look: the torn-off leaf of an olive tree in its mouth! And Noah realized that the water had lessened off the earth.

He waited another seven days symbolizes the start of the second stage of regeneration. Seven days symbolizes holiness, since the current subject is charity. And he proceeded to send the dove out from the ark symbolizes the right conditions for taking in the goodness and truth of faith. And the dove returned to him at evening time means that goodness and truth began to show just a little bit. Evening time resembles conditions during the half-light that precedes morning. And look: the torn-off leaf of an olive tree in its mouth, symbolizes a very small quantity of religious truth. The leaf means truth, an olive tree means the good that charity inspires, torn off means that this is the source of religious truth, and in its mouth means that it became visible. And Noah realized that the water had lessened off the earth means that these things were now possible because falsity was not so overpowering that it got in the way, as it had previously.

880

The symbolism of he waited another seven days as the start of the second stage of regeneration can be seen from this: the clause describes the interval between the first stage (discussed just above in verses 8 and 9) and the second (discussed here in verses 10 and 11). To weave its story, the text uses the words he waited to stand for the interval.

The facts with respect to the second stage of rebirth can be seen to some extent from what was stated and shown concerning the first stage, in which religious truth could not yet put down roots because falsity was getting in the way. Religious truth first takes root when we begin to acknowledge and believe it. Until then, it has no roots. The things that we hear from the Word and hold in our memory are no more than seeds sown there.

Roots, however, do not develop until we receive and welcome charitable goodness. The goodness embraced by faith, that is, the good urged by charity, is what gives root to the truth taught by faith. The situation is like that of seed cast on the earth while winter still holds sway and the earth remains frozen. The seed lies there, but it does not grow roots. As soon as the warming sun of early spring thaws the ground, though, the seed begins to develop roots, at first growing them inside and then extending them into the earth. So it is with the planting of spiritual seed; no roots grow until the goodness of charity warms it. Then it first develops roots internally and afterward sends them out.

[2] We have three parallel, unified layers within us: earthly, spiritual, and heavenly. Our earthly level receives no life at all except from the spiritual; our spiritual level receives no life at all except from the heavenly; and our heavenly level receives life from the Lord alone, who is life itself.

To offer a somewhat fuller picture, our earthly level is a reservoir that holds spiritual qualities, or a container into which they are poured; and our spiritual level is a reservoir that holds heavenly qualities, or a container into which they are poured. Through our heavenly level, we receive life from the Lord. This is what influx is. The heavenly aspect is everything good connected with faith or (in a spiritual person) the goodness connected with charity. The spiritual aspect is truth, which definitely does not become a part of our faith unless it has inside it the goodness that belongs to faith, or the goodness of charity, which in turn has within it life itself from the Lord.

To present a still clearer view of what is entailed, our earthly dimension involves carrying out a work of charity by means of our physical body, whether in deed or word. But this dimension in itself is dead. It has no life except from the spiritual dimension lying behind the work; and the spiritual dimension has no life except from the heavenly dimension, which comes from the Lord. Because of him a deed is called good; nothing is good unless it comes from the Lord.

[3] This being the case, everyone can see that in any charitable deed, the act itself is just a function of the material body; whatever vitality it possesses comes from the religious truth that underlies it. Furthermore, religious truth is itself just a lifeless entity; anything alive in it comes from religious goodness. Religious goodness, again, has no life except from the Lord alone, who is goodness itself and life itself.

This demonstrates why heavenly angels are unwilling to hear about faith, still less about good deeds (see §202), because they trace the origin of each to love. They act on their faith out of love, and even the good works of faith are something they do out of love, so that for them, both the works and the faith vanish and only love and the good that comes of it remain. Within their love the Lord is present.

Because these angels have such heavenly ideas, they are kept separate from the angels described as spiritual. Their way of thinking and consequent manner of speech is much harder to grasp than the spiritual angels’ thought and speech.

881

Seven symbolizes holiness, since the current subject is charity. This is established by the symbolism of seven as discussed earlier at §§395 and 716. Another reason the text inserts seven here is to link everything into the story, because seven and seven days in the inner meaning adds a kind of sanctity, a quality this second stage has from its heavenly aspect, that is, from charity.

882

The symbolism of and he proceeded to send the dove out from the ark as the right conditions for taking in the goodness and truth of faith can be deduced from statements made at verse 8 [§871], where the words are almost the same. A difference is that verse 8 says he sent the dove out from himself. The reason for the difference is also given there: The people under discussion were at that time putting truth and goodness into action under their own direction—they believed they were exercising their own, independent powers—which is doing so from oneself.

883

The dove returned to him at evening time means that goodness and truth began to show just a little bit, evening time resembling conditions during the half-light that precedes morning. This can be seen from the things said above at verse 9 and from the reference here to evening time. Concerning evening, see the statements made at Genesis 1 [§22], which says six times that there was evening and there was morning. Evening is a term connected with regeneration, specifically with the phase when we are still living in shadow, or when not much light at all shines inside us as yet. The actual morning is portrayed in verse 13 by “he removed the roof of the ark and looked.”

The fact that [in the original language the word for] evening meant the half-light before morning explains the frequent references to evening in the Jewish religion. It also explains why their Sabbaths and feast days began in the evening and why Aaron was commanded to light the sacred lamp at evening (Exodus 27:[20,] 21).

884

And look: the torn-off leaf of an olive tree in its mouth, symbolizes a very small quantity of religious truth. The leaf means truth, an olive tree means the goodness that charity inspires, torn off means that this is the source of religious truth, and in its mouth means that it became visible. This can be seen from the symbolism of an olive tree, and it shines out from the words themselves. The fact that it was only a leaf indicates the meagerness of the amount.

885

The symbolism of a leaf as truth is established by numerous passages in the Word comparing us to, or actually calling us, trees. In those places, fruit symbolizes the good espoused by charity and a leaf the truth to which it leads (and charity and truth also function the same way fruit and leaves do). In Ezekiel, for example:

Beside the river, on its bank, on this side and that, grows every food tree, whose leaf does not fall and whose fruit is not used up; month by month it is reborn, because its waters are going out from the sanctuary. And its fruit will serve as food, and its leaf, as medicine. (Ezekiel 47:12; Revelation 22:2)

The tree stands for the people of a church that embodies the Lord’s kingdom. The fruit stands for the good that results from love and charity, and the leaf, for the truth that develops out of it. That truth is used for the instruction and regeneration of the human race, which is why the leaf is said to serve as medicine. In the same author:

Will he not tear out its roots and cut down its fruit, and it will wither? All the torn-off [leaves] of its new growth will wither. (Ezekiel 17:9)

This is about a devastated grapevine (church), of which the fruit (goodness) and what is torn off the new growth (truth) will wither in this way. [2] In Jeremiah:

Blessed is the man who trusts in Jehovah. He will be like a tree planted by the water. His leaf will be green; in a year of shortage, he will not worry. And he will not leave off making fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7, 8)

The green leaf stands for the truth that composes faith and so for the faith itself that springs from charity. David has similar words in Psalms 1:3. In the same prophet:

There are no grapes on the grapevine and no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf has fallen off. (Jeremiah 8:13)

Grapes on the vine stand for spiritual goodness, and figs on the fig tree for earthly goodness. The leaf stands for truth, which falls off in this way. Isaiah 34:4 is parallel. Something similar is meant by the fig tree that Jesus saw and on which he found nothing but leaves, so that it withered (Matthew 21:[19,] 20; Mark 11:13, 14). The fig tree in this case specifically refers to the Jewish church, in which there was no longer any earthly goodness. The doctrinal precepts of faith (or truth) preserved among them are the leaves. A church that has been devastated is such that it knows the truth but does not want to understand it. The same applies to people who say they know the truth, or the tenets of religion, yet possess none of charity’s goodness. They are only fig leaves, and they wither.

886

The symbolism of an olive tree as the goodness that charity inspires can be seen from the scriptural symbolism not only of an olive tree but of oil as well.

Olive oil was used along with perfumes to anoint priests and kings and also as fuel for lamps. (For the former, see Exodus 30:24, [25]; for the latter, Exodus 27:20.) The reason for using olive oil in anointings and in lamps was that it represented every heavenly quality and consequently all the good effects of love and charity. The oil is the very essence of a tree, virtually its soul, just as the heavenly dimension or goodness of love and charity is the very essence or soul of faith. That is the source of its representation.

Many passages in the Word can confirm that oil symbolizes the heavenly aspect or goodness of love and charity, but since the present verse mentions the olive tree, let me offer a few passages that demonstrate the meaning of the olive tree alone. In Jeremiah:

“An olive tree green and beautiful with shapely fruit” is the name Jehovah had given you. (Jeremiah 11:16)

The name applies to the earliest church, which was heavenly (and which served as a basis or foundation for the Jewish church). As a result, everything in that church that had a representative function looked toward heavenly qualities and, through heavenly qualities, to the Lord. [2] In Hosea:

Its branches will spread, and its honor will resemble an olive tree, and it will have a scent like Lebanon’s. (Hosea 14:6)

Here the subject is the planting of a church whose honor is the olive tree, or in other words, the goodness that comes of love and charity. A scent like Lebanon’s is a devotion to the religious truth that rises out of that goodness. Lebanon is an allusion to cedars, which symbolize spiritual entities, or in other words, religious truth. In Zechariah:

There were two olive trees next to the lampstand, one to the right of the oil dish and one on the left of it. These are the two offspring of pristine oil, standing next to the Lord of the whole earth. (Zechariah 4:3, 11, 14)

The two olive trees stand for what is heavenly and what is spiritual, and so for the love that characterizes the heavenly church and the charity that characterizes the spiritual. These churches stand at the Lord’s right and left hands. The lampstand symbolizes the Lord, just as it represented him in the Jewish church. The lamps symbolize heavenly attributes that yield spiritual attributes, just as a flame yields rays of light, or illumination. [3] In David:

Your wife is like a fruitful grapevine at the sides of your house; your children are like the saplings of olive trees. (Psalms 128:3)

The “wife like a grapevine” stands for the spiritual church. The children stand for true concepts that make up faith, which are called olive tree saplings because they grow out of charitable goodness. In Isaiah:

Gleanings will be left in it, like what is shaken off the olive tree—two or three fruits at the crown of the branch. (Isaiah 17:6)

This is about the remnant inside us. Olive trees stand for a heavenly remnant. In Micah:

You will tread the olive (but not anoint yourself with oil) and the juice in the grapes (but not drink wine). (Micah 6:15)

And in Moses:

You will plant and cultivate vineyards but not drink wine; you will have olive trees within all your borders but not anoint yourself with oil. (Deuteronomy 28:39, 40)

These passages describe an ample supply of doctrinal teachings about the goodness and truth inherent in faith, which these people’s character nonetheless caused them to reject.

All of these places show that a leaf symbolizes religious truth and an olive tree symbolizes charitable goodness. They also show the meaning of the olive leaf carried in the dove’s mouth to be similar: that the people of the ancient church were now able to see a small amount of religious truth springing out of the goodness that charity inspires.

887

The meaning of the water had lessened off the earth is that these things were now possible because falsity was not so overpowering that it got in the way. This is established by the symbolism of the same words above in verse 8 [§871].

Regarding the fact that in the second stage (the stage referred to by this verse) falsity was not so overpowering that it got in the way, as it had previously, the situation is this: All the falsity we latch on to stays with us; as already mentioned [§868], not one false idea is obliterated. But when we are being reborn, true ideas are sown in us, and the Lord bends our false thinking in the direction of those ideas. Then falsity seems to have been dispelled, and it is the goodness he gives us as a gift that accomplishes this.

888

Genesis 8:12. And he waited yet another seven days and sent the dove out, and it never returned to him again.

He waited another seven days symbolizes the beginning of the third stage. Seven days symbolizes holiness. And sent the dove out symbolizes the right conditions for receiving the goodness and truth of faith. The dove did not return to him again symbolizes a liberated state.

889

The symbolism of he waited another seven days as the beginning of the third stage and of seven days as holiness is established by remarks concerning the second stage just above [§§880–881], where similar words occur.

890

The symbolism of and sent the dove out as the right conditions for receiving the goodness and truth of faith is likewise established by things said above at verse 10 [§882]. The words are the same and so is the meaning, except that the subject there is the second stage and here it is the third.

The third stage is depicted in the dove’s not returning, Noah’s removal of the ark’s roof, and his eventual departure from the ark because the face of the ground, and the earth, had dried up.

891

The symbolism of the dove did not return to him again as a liberated state follows logically. It also follows from the consideration that the dove—religious truth, or the truth of faith—like the other birds, the animals, and Noah, was no longer trapped in the ark by the flood water. As long as it stayed on the ark, buffeted by the flood water (falsity), its state was one of slavery, of captivity or imprisonment. This state, along with the state of trial, is portrayed above in Genesis 7:17, which said that the waters grew and lifted the ark and the ark rose off the earth. It is portrayed in Genesis 7:18 as well, which said that the water strengthened and the ark went on the face of the water. Its state of freedom is depicted in the fact that not only Noah but everything else with him too went out of the ark (which occurs later in the present chapter, verses 16, 17, 18, 19). The first of them all to leave was the dove, that is, religious truth that grows out of goodness, because all freedom comes from the goodness connected with faith, that is, from a love for what is good.

892

We first come into a state of freedom after we have regenerated; until then, we are in a state of slavery. Enslavement occurs when cravings and falsity rule over us; freedom results when a fondness for what is good and true takes charge. As long as we are enslaved, we have no perception of the actual state of affairs. The first perception dawns when we come into freedom.

In a state of slavery, when cravings and falsity take control, those of us under their yoke think we are enjoying freedom; but this is grossly untrue. At such a time, we are carried away by the pleasure that our vices and the indulgence of them brings us, or in other words, by the pleasure that selfish kinds of love bring us. Since it is pleasure that engrosses us, we see it as freedom.

Whenever some specific passion leads us, no matter what direction it goes, if we follow it, we consider it a liberating thing. But it is devilish spirits—whose company we keep and whose stampede we join—that sweep us along. This we consider the epitome of freedom. In fact we believe life would become positively miserable and even end if we were deprived of such a condition. It is not merely that we know of no other kind of life; we also receive the impression that no one can make it into heaven except through misfortune, poverty, and renunciation of pleasure. But this is untrue, as I have learned from much experience, which I will describe later, the Lord in his divine mercy willing.

[2] We never come into a free condition until we have regenerated and until the Lord leads us by means of a love for what is good and true. Once we arrive there, we are able to see and perceive for the first time what liberty is, because we then realize what life is and what true pleasure in life and happiness are. Up to that time, we do not even know what goodness is, and occasionally we refer to the height of evil as the greatest good. When people who enjoy a state of freedom given by the Lord observe a life of perverted desire and false thinking, and particularly when they sense it, they are as horrified as if they saw hell gaping open before their very eyes.

As most people today have absolutely no idea what a life of freedom is, let me offer this brief definition: freedom, or a life of freedom, is solely and simply being led by the Lord.

Many things come up, however, that make it impossible for people to believe that this kind of life is a free one. For one thing, we suffer times of trial (whose whole purpose is to deliver us from the tyranny of diabolical spirits). For another, we recognize nothing as pleasing and good but the attainment of our selfish and worldly desires. In addition, we form false opinions about all facets of heavenly life. For these reasons, explanations are less effective as educational tools than reports of actual experience are. Let me relate such experiences at a future point, then, by the Lord’s divine mercy [§§2870–2893].

893

Genesis 8:13. And it happened in the six hundred first year, in the beginning, on the first of the month, that the water drained off the earth; and Noah removed the roof of the ark and looked, and indeed the face of the ground had dried up!

It happened in the six hundred first year symbolizes an ending point. In the beginning, on the first of the month, symbolizes a starting point. The water drained off the earth means that falsity did not appear at that time. And Noah removed the roof of the ark and looked symbolizes the light of religious truth, once falsity had been removed—truth that they acknowledged and believed. And indeed the face of the ground had dried up symbolizes the process of rebirth.

[2] The symbolism of it happened in the six hundred first year as an ending point is established by the symbolism of six hundred, given at Genesis 7:6, §737. Six hundred symbolizes a beginning and specifically, in that verse, the beginning of a time of trial. Its end is designated by the same number after a whole year has passed (so that it happened at the end of a year). That is the reason for adding in the beginning, on the first of the month, which symbolizes a starting point.

The Word designates any whole period by a day, week, month, or year, even if that period is a century or a millennium. An example is the “day” in Genesis 1, meaning the time it took a person in the earliest church to be reborn. On an inner plane, a day and a year just stand as symbols for a span of time, and since they are symbols for a span of time, they symbolize a state, so that a year throughout the Word is taken to stand for a time and a state. In Isaiah, for instance:

. . . to proclaim a year of good pleasure for Jehovah and a day of vengeance for our God, to comfort all who mourn. (Isaiah 61:2)

This is about the Lord’s Coming. In the same author:

The day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed had come. (Isaiah 63:4)

Here too the day and year stand for a time and a state. In Habakkuk:

Jehovah, in the middle of the years, bring your work to life; in the middle of the years, please make it known. (Habakkuk 3:2)

The years stand for a time and a state. In David:

God, you are he, and your years are not used up. (Psalms 102:27)

The years stand for spans of time and for the fact that God is timeless. Likewise in the present verse the year of the Flood in no way means a year as such but a stretch of time lasting an undetermined number of years, and at the same time, a state. See previous discussions of years in §§482, 487, 488, 493.

894

The symbolism of in the beginning, on the first of the month, as a starting point is now evident.

Additional implications of these words are too deep to describe. The important thing is that the time it takes to regenerate is not fixed, in such a way that we can say, “Now I have finished.” The states of evil and falsity that each of us has inside are beyond counting. They exist not only as individual states but also as multilayered composites and need to be dispelled to the point where they no longer appear, as already noted [§719]. In some of our states we can be described as more perfect, but in countless others we cannot. In the other life, those who were reborn during bodily life and who lived lives of faith in the Lord and charity toward their neighbor are constantly being perfected.

895

The meaning of the water drained off the earth as the fact that falsity did not appear at that time can be seen from earlier statements [§§857, 868, 887]. Specifically it means that in the people of this church, falsity was siphoned away from the contents of their will. The earth here symbolizes human will, which is nothing but corrupt desire, and that is why it says that the water drained off the earth. The ground in us, as I have said [§875:3], is in our intellectual part, where truth is sown. By no means does “ground” exist in our volitional part, which in spiritual people is separate from the intellectual part. That is why the statement that the face of the ground had dried up comes later in the verse.

With the people of the earliest church, the “ground” was in their volitional part, and the Lord sowed it with the seed of goodness. As a result, they were able to recognize and perceive truth from the viewpoint of goodness, or in other words, to acquire faith from love. If the same thing happened today, it would necessarily destroy us forever, because our will is completely perverted.

[2] What happens when seed is sown on the will side, and what when it is sown on the intellectual side, can be seen from this: The people of the earliest church received revelations that initiated them into a perception of goodness and truth from the time they were very small. Because the seed was sown on their will side, they perceived innumerable things without further instruction; the Lord gave them the ability to look at one general concept and recognize particular ideas and individual details. These we now have to learn before we can know them, and yet we are hardly able to see even one in a thousand.

People in a spiritual church recognize only what they learn and so what they know about, remember, and believe to be true. In fact if they learn falsity, and it becomes stamped on their minds as truth, they believe it. They cannot help perceiving it as true because they are persuaded it is so. Those who have a conscience hear a kind of inner voice, but the voice does no more than tell them a thing is true because it is what they have heard and learned. This standard forms their conscience, as can be seen from people with misguided consciences.

896

Noah removed the roof of the ark and looked symbolizes the light of religious truth, once falsity had been removed—truth that they acknowledged and believed. This can be seen from the symbolism of removing the roof as taking away whatever blocks the light. Since the ark symbolizes the people of the ancient church who were regenerating, the roof cannot symbolize anything but what blocked them from seeing heaven [or the sky], that is, the light. What got in the way was falsity. This is why it says that they looked, or saw. In the Word, seeing symbolizes understanding and believing. Here it means that they acknowledged the truth and put their faith in it.

Knowing the truth, acknowledging it, and believing it are three entirely different things. Knowledge is the first step of rebirth, acknowledgment is the second, and belief is the third. The differences among knowing, acknowledging, and believing can be seen from the fact that the worst people are capable of knowing without acknowledging; take Jews, for instance, and those who try to destroy the teachings of the church with their specious arguments. The faithless, moreover, are capable of acknowledging as well as knowing and, in some moods, of preaching, confirming doctrine, and persuading others of its truth, all with great zeal. But they cannot put faith in it if they are not believers. [2] Those who have faith know, acknowledge, and believe. They have charity and they have conscience. So faith can by no means be attributed to anyone—no one can be said to believe—except one who possesses these traits. This, then, is to be regenerate.

Mere knowledge of the elements of faith is a matter of memory and does not involve the rational mind’s assent. Acknowledgment of the tenets of faith requires some assent on the part of the rational mind—a state of mind produced by certain considerations, with a view to certain ends. The possession of faith, though, is a function of conscience, that is, of the Lord working through conscience.

This reality can best be seen in the inhabitants of the other world. Many of those who merely know the truth are in hell. The same goes for those who acknowledge it, since their acknowledgment in earthly life came only in certain moods, as stated. In the next life, when they realize that the things they preached, taught, and convinced others of are actually true, they are quite amazed. They acknowledge those things only when reminded that they had preached them. But everyone who truly believed is in heaven.

897

Since the subject here is regenerate people in the ancient church, looking [or seeing] symbolizes acknowledging and believing. This symbolism can be seen in the Word. In Isaiah, for instance:

You have not looked to its maker, and the one who formed it from long ago you have not seen. (Isaiah 22:11)

This is about the city of Zion. Not seeing the one who formed it from long ago is failing to acknowledge him, still less to put faith in him. In the same author:

Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and smear over their eyes, to prevent them from seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears and understanding in their heart and turning and being healed. (Isaiah 6:9, 10)

Seeing with the eyes stands for acknowledging and believing. In the same author:

The people walking in darkness have seen great light. (Isaiah 9:2)

This is about nations that had received the faith. It is like the current verse where it says “he removed the roof and saw.” In the same author:

On that day, the deaf will hear the words of the Book, and out of the darkness and out of the shadows the eyes of the blind will see. (Isaiah 29:18)

This is about the conversion of the nations to the faith. Seeing stands for embracing the faith. In the same author:

You who are deaf, listen! And you who are blind, look and see! (Isaiah 42:18)

The meaning is similar. [2] In Ezekiel:

. . . who have eyes to see and do not see, who have ears to hear and do not hear, because they are a rebellious house. (Ezekiel 12:2)

These words mean, “who are able to understand, acknowledge, and believe, but do not wish to.”

The representation of the Lord by the bronze serpent in the wilderness provides clear evidence that seeing symbolizes believing, since everyone who looked at it was cured. Moses describes it this way:

“Put the snake on a pole, and it will happen that all who have been bitten and see it will live.” It happened that if a snake bit a man and he looked at the bronze snake, he lived. (Numbers 21:8, 9)

From this everyone can see that looking or seeing symbolizes faith. What could seeing in this passage be if not an act representing faith in the Lord?

Another conclusion from this is that on an inner level, Jacob’s firstborn—Reuben, whose name comes from a word for seeing—symbolizes faith. See earlier remarks concerning the church’s firstborns at §§352 and 367.

898

The symbolism of and indeed the face of the ground had dried up as the process of rebirth is established by the meaning of the ground as people in the church, dealt with frequently in earlier sections [§§386, 566, 872]. The face of the ground is said to have dried up when falsity no longer appears.

899

Genesis 8:14. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth dried up.

The second month symbolizes all the stages that precede rebirth. The twenty-seventh day symbolizes holiness. The earth dried up means that they were reborn. These words are the conclusion to the verses above and the beginning of all that follows.

900

The symbolism of the second month as all the stages that precede rebirth can be seen from the symbolism of two in the Word. Two symbolizes the same thing as six, which is the fighting and hard work that come before rebirth. So here it means all the stages we go through before becoming regenerate.

The longest and shortest intervals in the Word are generally split in three or in seven and are called days, weeks, months, years, or “ages.” Three and seven are holy; two and six, being just one less, are not holy but relatively profane, as shown before (§720).

Three and seven also mean something sacrosanct, each because of its connection with the Last Judgment, predicted as coming on the third or else the seventh day. Every person—both collectively and individually—has a last judgment when the Lord comes. There was a last judgment when the Lord came into the world. There will be a last judgment when he enters into his glory. There is a last judgment when he comes individually to each person. There is also a last judgment for each person who dies. This last judgment is the third day and the seventh day, which is holy for those who have lived good lives but unholy for those who have lived evil lives. Consequently, a third day and a seventh is predicted for those judged worthy of death and for those judged worthy of life, so that the numbers symbolize what is unholy for those with a verdict of death but what is holy for those with a verdict of life.

Two and six, the numbers just before three and seven, bear a relationship to them and symbolize in general every preceding stage. This is the meaning of the numbers two and six, and the meaning adapts to the subject at hand and to whatever the subject applies to, which the numbers describe.

All of this will become clearer from the discussion of the number twenty-seven in the next section.

901

The symbolism of the twenty-seventh day as holiness is established by this: The number is the product of three multiplied by itself twice; three times three is nine, and nine times three is twenty-seven, so that three is dominant in the number. This is how the earliest people calculated their numbers, and they understood them purely as standing for some quality.

The fact that three symbolizes the same thing as seven can be seen from remarks in the previous section. The secret reason is that the Lord rose again on the third day. The Lord’s resurrection in itself involves everything that is sacred and entails the resurrection of all people. That is why the Jewish religion came to use this number in a representative way and why it is a holy number in the Word. The situation resembles that in heaven, where there are no numbers; a generalized and reverent idea of the Lord’s resurrection and of his arrival in the world replaces the numbers three and seven there.

[2] The symbolism of three and seven as holiness is established by the following passages in the Word. In Moses:

Those touching a dead body will be unclean seven days. They shall atone for themselves in this matter on the third day, and on the seventh day they will be clean. And if they have not atoned for themselves on the third day, then on the seventh day they will not be clean. Those who touch one stabbed by a sword, or a dead body, or a human bone, or a grave will be unclean seven days. A clean person shall spatter [water] on the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and the clean one will expiate the unclean on the seventh day. The unclean shall wash their clothes and rinse with water and will be clean in the evening. (Numbers 19:11, 12, 16, 19)

It is quite clear that these things are representative, in other words, that the outward circumstances symbolize something internal. This is true, for instance, of the uncleanliness ascribed to one who had touched a dead body, a victim of stabbing, a human bone, or a grave. All these things on an inner level symbolize a person’s own propensities, which are dead and profane. The same is also true of the fact that they were to wash with water and would then be clean in the evening. So the third and seventh days were representative too, symbolizing holiness, since on those days the person would achieve atonement and would therefore be clean.

[3] The same applies to those who returned from battle against the Midianites, of whom it says,

Camp outside the camp seven days, every one of you who has killed a soul and every one who has touched a victim of stabbing. You shall atone for yourselves on the third day and on the seventh day. (Numbers 31:19)

Had this been mere ritual, neither the third day nor the seventh would have represented or symbolized holiness and atonement. They would have been something dead, like a result without means and a means without a purpose, or to put it another way, like a result separated from a means separated from its purpose. So it would not have been the least bit divine.

The coming of the Lord to Mount Sinai clearly indicates that the third day represented and therefore symbolized something holy. These are the commandments concerning that event:

Jehovah said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, [telling them] to wash their clothes and be ready for the third day, because on the third day, Jehovah will come down, in the eyes of all the people, onto Mount Sinai.” (Exodus 19:10, 11, 15, 16)

[4] Joshua’s passage across the Jordan on the third day suggests the same thing. It is described this way:

Joshua commanded, “Pass through the middle of the camp and command the people, saying, ‘Get provisions ready for yourselves, because in three days you are crossing this Jordan, to come in to inherit the land.’” (Joshua 1:11; 3:2)

The crossing of the Jordan represented the entrance of the children of Israel—regenerate people, that is—into the Lord’s kingdom. Joshua, who led them in, represented the Lord himself, and it occurred on the third day.

Since the third day like the seventh was holy, the third year was set up as a “year of tithes,” and the people then behaved in a godly way by doing charitable work (Deuteronomy 26:12 and following verses). Tithes represented the remnant in us, which is holy because it is the Lord’s alone.

Jonah’s three days and three nights in the fish’s belly (Jonah 1:17) obviously represented the Lord’s burial and resurrection on the third day (Matthew 12:40).

[5] The symbolism of three as this kind of sanctity can also be seen in the prophets, as in Hosea:

Jehovah will bring us to life after two days; on the third day he will revive us, so that we may live before him. (Hosea 6:2)

Here too the third day plainly stands for the Lord’s coming and his resurrection. In Zechariah:

It will come about in all the earth that two parts in it will be cut off, will die, and a third will be left in it. And I will lead the third part through fire, and smelt them as silver is smelted, and test them as gold is tested. (Zechariah 13:8, [9])

The third part, or the number three, here again stands for holiness. One third involves the same thing as three, as does a third of a third, which comes up in the current verse, since three is a third of a third of twenty-seven.

902

The meaning of the earth dried up as the fact that they were reborn can be seen from the things said earlier at verses 7 and 13 [§§868, 895:1, 898] about the drying up of the water, the earth, and the face of the ground.

903

Genesis 8:15, 16. And God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.”

God spoke to Noah symbolizes the Lord’s presence with the people of this church. Going out of the ark symbolizes liberty. You and your wife symbolizes the church. Your sons and your sons’ wives with you symbolizes truth and a goodness bound up with truth in those people.

904

The symbolism of God spoke to Noah as the Lord’s presence with the people of this church can be seen from the Word’s inner meaning.

The Lord talks to every individual, because anything good or true that a person wills or thinks comes from the Lord. We each have at least two evil spirits and two angels with us. The evil spirits stir up our evils, but the angels inspire goodness and truth. Everything good or true that the angels inspire in us is the Lord’s, so the Lord is constantly talking to us. He talks very differently, though, to one person than to another. With those who allow themselves to be swept up by evil spirits, the Lord speaks like one absent or far away, so that he can barely be said to speak at all. But with those whom he leads, the Lord speaks more directly. The fact that no one can ever think anything good or true except by the Lord’s power makes this sufficiently clear.

[2] The degree of love we feel for our neighbor and of faith we have determines the extent to which the Lord can be described as present with us. The Lord is present in neighborly love because he is present in everything good, but he is not as present in so-called faith devoid of love. Faith without love and charity is a detached or disconnected thing. Wherever there is union, there must be a uniting medium, and the only uniting medium is love and charity.

Anyone can see this by considering that the Lord shows mercy to everyone, loves everyone, and wants to make everyone happy forever. As a result, those who lack sufficient love to have mercy on others, love them, and want to make them happy cannot unite with the Lord, because they are unlike him and are anything but his image. To gaze at the Lord through the lens of supposed faith and yet hate others is not only to stand far removed from the Lord, it is also to put a deep, hellish gulf between yourself and the Lord, a gulf you will fall into if you try to approach him. Hatred for other people is that intervening, hellish chasm.

[3] The Lord’s presence with us first becomes possible when we love our neighbor. Within love is the Lord, and so far as we have love, the Lord is present. Moreover, so far as the Lord is present, he talks to us. We are unaware that it is not our own thinking, but not a single idea, not a single particle of an idea, originates in us. Whatever is evil and false we acquire from hell, through evil spirits, and whatever is good and true we acquire from the Lord, through angels. This is influx. It endows us with life and creates the link between our soul and our body.

These things suggest what it means that God spoke to Noah. Saying something to a person (as he does in Genesis 1:29; 3:13, 14, 17; 4:6, 9, 15; 6:13; 7:1) is different from speaking to someone. Speaking to Noah, here, is being present, because the current subject is the person reborn, who has received the gift of charitable feeling.

905

The symbolism of going out of the ark as liberty can be seen from earlier statements [§891] and from the thread of the story itself, with its pattern of connections.

The time that Noah spent in the ark, surrounded by flood water, symbolized being in captivity—that is, being tossed about by evil and falsity or, what amounts to the same thing, by the evil spirits who spark our spiritual battles. From this it follows that leaving the ark symbolizes liberty.

The Lord’s presence involves liberty; the one is a consequence of the other. The more present the Lord is, the freer we are. In other words, the more we love goodness and truth, the more freely we act. That is the nature of the Lord’s influence, coming by way of angels.

Hell’s influence, on the other hand, coming by way of evil spirits, brings with it the forceful effort to dominate. Those spirits connive at nothing else than to put us so completely under their yoke that we become nothing and they become everything. When they are everything, then we are one of them—and hardly even one of them, but like a nobody in their eyes. So when the Lord delivers us from their control and removes their yoke, a battle begins. And when we have been delivered—reborn—the Lord leads us so gently by means of angels that it is anything but a yoke, anything but domination. Through pleasure and happiness we are led and loved and esteemed. This is what the Lord teaches in Matthew:

My yoke is mild and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:30)

The situation is quite the opposite among evil spirits, who consider us worthless, as I said, and would torture us every second if they could. This I know from a great deal of experience that I will relate further on, with the Lord’s divine mercy.

906

The symbolism of you and your wife as the church can again be seen from the series of ideas, as can the symbolism of your sons and sons’ wives with you as truth, and a goodness bound up with truth, in those people. The symbolism of you as people in the church is obvious, and the symbolism of a wife as the church, of sons as truth, and of sons’ wives as the goodness bound up with truth has been shown many times before [§§668, 742, 769–770]. So there is no need to tarry over it here.

907

Genesis 8:17. “. . . every wild animal that is with you, of all flesh, including the bird and the beast and every creeping thing creeping on the earth. Take them out with you, and let them swarm throughout the earth and reproduce and multiply on the earth.”

Every wild animal that is with you, of all flesh, symbolizes everything that was alive in the people of this church. The bird here as before symbolizes the ideas in their intellect. The beast symbolizes the urges of their will. Both of these belong to the inner self. Every creeping thing creeping on the earth symbolizes the corresponding attributes in the outer self. Take them out with you symbolizes the level of freedom they had. And let them swarm throughout the earth symbolizes the way the inner self acts on the outer. Let them reproduce symbolizes increases in goodness. Let them multiply symbolizes increases in truth. On the earth means in the outer self.

908

The symbolism of every wild animal that is with you, of all flesh, as everything that was alive in the people of this church can be seen from this: The wild animal refers to a quality in Noah, or in other words, in the people of this church, now that they had regenerated. And it plainly looks ahead to the bird, beast, and creeping thing, since it says, “every wild animal that is with you, of all flesh, including the bird and the beast and every creeping thing creeping on the earth.”

The word for wild animal in the original language strictly means life or a living thing, yet in the Word it means not only a living thing but also a relatively nonliving thing: a wild animal. (You can see why those who do not grasp the Word’s inner sense will sometimes be at a loss as to its meaning.) The reason the word means both living and nonliving is that the people of the earliest church, in humbling themselves before the Lord, confessed that they were nonliving, were not even good animals but wild beasts. They knew intimately that this is what humans are, viewed in themselves or as independent creatures. So the same word means both a living thing and a wild animal.

[2] The meaning of a wild animal as a living thing is evident in David:

Your wild animal will live in it [God’s inheritance]. You will strengthen the wretched person with your goodness, God. (Psalms 68:9, 10)

The wild animal, because it will live in God’s inheritance, simply means a regenerate person and consequently, as here, a living quality in such a person. In the same author:

Every wild animal of the forest is mine, the beasts on a thousand mountains. I know every bird of the mountains, and the wild animal of my field is with me. (Psalms 50:10, 11)

The wild animal of the field “with me,” that is, with God, also stands for a regenerate person and so for the living qualities in that person. In Ezekiel:

In its branches nested every bird of the heavens, and under its branches bred every wild animal of the field. (Ezekiel 31:6)

This passage describes the spiritual church as a plant, so the phrase stands for the living qualities in the people of that church. In Hosea:

I will strike a pact on that day with the wild animal of the field and with the bird in the heavens. (Hosea 2:18)

This is about people regenerating, with whom a pact will be struck. So strong is the meaning of a wild animal as a living thing that even the guardian beings or angels seen by Ezekiel are called four “wild animals” (Ezekiel 1:5, 13, 14, 15, 19; 10:15).

[3] The fact that a wild animal in the Word is taken in the opposite sense of a nonliving thing, or a savage creature, can be seen in many places. Let these alone serve for proof. In David:

Do not hand the soul of your turtledove over to the wild animal. (Psalms 74:19)

In Zephaniah:

The city became a wasteland, a lair for the wild animal. (Zephaniah 2:15)

In Ezekiel:

They will no longer be plunder for the nations, and the wild animal of the land will not eat them. (Ezekiel 34:28)

In the same author:

On its wreckage will live every bird of the heavens, and among its branches will stand every wild animal of the field. (Ezekiel 31:13)

In Hosea:

I will devour them there like a lion; the wild animal of the field will rip them apart. (Hosea 13:8)

In Ezekiel:

. . . given to the wild animal of the land and to the bird in the heavens as food . . . (Ezekiel 29:5)

This phrase recurs often.

The Jews stuck exclusively to the literal meaning, understanding a wild animal as a wild animal and a bird as a bird, unwilling to see (much less acknowledge) any deeper content in the Word or to learn about it. As a result, they were so cruel, so feral, that they found pleasure in refusing to bury enemies killed in battle, leaving the bodies out to be eaten by the birds and wild animals. This also demonstrates clearly what a wild animal a human being is.

909

The bird symbolizes the ideas in their intellect and the beast the urges of their will, which belong to the inner self, while every creeping thing creeping on the earth symbolizes the corresponding attributes in their outer self. These things are established by the symbolism of a bird as discussed previously at §§40 and 776 and of a beast as discussed at §§45, 46, 142, 143, 246. The fact that a creeping thing creeping on the earth symbolizes the corresponding aspects of the outer self follows naturally, because the creeping thing creeping is a reference to both the bird (intellectual traits) and the beast (traits of the will).

The earliest people called sensory information and physical pleasure creeping things creeping because they are just like creeping things creeping on the earth. The same people also compared the human body to the earth or to the ground, and even called it earth or ground, as here, where the earth just means our outer self.

911

This is how it happens that a creeping thing creeping symbolizes the corresponding attributes in their outer self: In a person reborn, external traits respond to internal values, which is to say that they are obedient to them. Our outward aspects are reduced to obedience when we regenerate, and then we become an image of heaven. But until we have been reborn, external considerations overpower spiritual and heavenly ones, and then we are an image of hell.

The proper order is for heavenly concerns to govern spiritual ones and through these to govern earthly ones and through these, finally, to govern bodily ones. But when bodily and earthly demands control spiritual and heavenly ones, the hierarchy is destroyed, and when it is destroyed, we are an image of hell. For this reason, the Lord restores the proper order through regeneration. Once it has been restored, we become an image of heaven. This is the way the Lord draws us out of hell, and this is the way he lifts us up to heaven.

[2] Let me explain briefly how the correspondence of the outer self with the inner then stands. Everyone who has regenerated is a kind of miniature heaven, or a model or image of the whole of heaven—which is why the Word also calls our inner being a heaven. Things in heaven are structured in such a way that the Lord governs spiritual elements through heavenly ones and earthly elements through spiritual ones. So he governs all of heaven as a single individual, and heaven accordingly is also called the “universal human.” The scheme is the same for every person within heaven. When we reflect this hierarchy, we are each a miniature heaven or, to put it another way, a kingdom of the Lord, since we have the Lord’s kingdom inside us. Then external traits correspond to—that is, they obey—internal values in us just as they do in heaven. In the three heavens, which together present the image of a single person, spirits form the outer self, angelic spirits an intermediate self, and angels the inner self (§459).

[3] The case is the opposite for those who locate life exclusively in bodily desires, or in other words, in cravings, physical pleasures, appetites, and indulgence of the senses. These are people who find nothing enjoyable unless it feeds their love for themselves and for worldly advantages, which is the same as feeding their hatred toward anyone who does not cater to and serve them. Because these people’s bodily and earthly drives take precedence over spiritual and heavenly ones, not only do their outward attributes fail to correspond or obey, they even put up total opposition. The proper hierarchy is utterly destroyed, and since it is utterly destroyed, those people can only be images of hell.

912

The symbolism of take them out with you as the level of freedom they had can be seen from the discussion above at verse 15 [§905] showing that going out of the ark symbolizes liberty.

913

And let them swarm throughout the earth symbolizes the way the inner self acts on the outer, let them reproduce symbolizes increases in goodness, let them multiply symbolizes increases in truth, and on the earth means in the outer self. All this can be seen from the general line of reasoning. It can also be seen from earlier remarks and illustrations [§§43, 55] concerning the symbolism of reproducing and multiplying, showing that the Word uses the former in connection with good and the latter in connection with truth. The symbolism of the earth as the outer self was likewise demonstrated earlier [§§16, 82]. Consequently there is no need to spend time proving these things.

The present verse speaks of the way the inner self acts on the outer after we have regenerated, revealing that good first reproduces itself and truth first multiplies when the outer self is reduced into correspondence or obedience. It can never happen before that, because bodily desires rebel against goodness, and sense impressions rebel against truth. The former snuff out love for goodness, and the latter extinguish love for truth.

Good reproduces and truth multiplies in the outer self—good reproducing itself in our feelings, and truth multiplying in our memory. The outer self throughout which good and truth swarm and on which they reproduce and multiply is here called the earth.

914

Genesis 8:18, 19. And Noah and his sons went out, as did his wife and his sons’ wives with him, every wild animal, every creeping thing, and every bird—everything creeping on the earth. By their families they went out of the ark.

Noah and his sons means the people of the ancient church. Went out means came into being. His wife and his sons’ wives with him means the church itself. Every wild animal and every creeping thing symbolize good things in them—the wild animal, good things in the inner self, and the creeping thing, good things in the outer self. And every bird, everything creeping on the earth, symbolizes truth—the bird, truth in the inner self, and the thing creeping on the earth, truth in the outer self. By their families means pairs. They went out of the ark means, as above, that they all came into being; and at the same time it symbolizes a condition of freedom.

915

Noah and his sons means the people of the ancient church, went out means came into being, and his wife and his sons’ wives means the church itself. This meaning is indicated by the story line, which suggests that the ancient church therefore came into existence, since these words are final ones, summing up all that came before.

When the Word describes the church, it uses either the phrase man and wife or the phrase a human and his wife. When it uses man and wife, the man symbolizes an element of the intellect, or something true, while the wife symbolizes an element of the will, or something good. When it uses a human and his wife, the human symbolizes the good that love embraces, or love, while the wife symbolizes the truth that faith espouses, or faith. So the human symbolizes the core quality of the church, while the wife symbolizes the church itself. This comes up over and over in the Word.

Since up to this point the text has been speaking of the formation of a new church upon the death of the earliest church, Noah and his sons here symbolize the people of the ancient church, while his wife and his sons’ wives with him symbolize the church itself. For this reason, the order of the phrases here differs from that of verse 16, which says, “Go out, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.” This links you with wife, and sons with sons’ wives, so that you and sons symbolize truth, while your wife and your sons’ wives symbolize good. In the current verse, though, the order is not the same, for the reason (as stated) that he and his sons symbolizes the people of the church while his wife and his sons’ wives symbolizes the church itself. The clause is a conclusion to all that came before.

It was not Noah who constituted the ancient church but his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, as noted before [§§773, 788]. In a sense, there were three churches that formed this ancient church, about which I will say more below, by the Lord’s divine mercy. These churches came forward as if born from a single church—the one called Noah. That is why the present verse says Noah and his sons and then his wife and his sons’ wives.

916

Every wild animal and every creeping thing symbolize good things in them—the wild animal, good things in the inner self, and the creeping thing, good things in the outer self. In addition, every bird, everything creeping on the earth symbolizes truth—the bird, truth in the inner self, and the thing creeping on the earth, truth in the outer self. This is established by the statements and explanations at the previous verse [Genesis 8:17] concerning the wild animal, the bird, and the creeping thing creeping. (That verse referred to a creeping thing creeping because it symbolized both the goodness and the truth in the outer self.)

Because these words sum up the preceding verses, they include this addendum about the church, specifically about its goodness and truth, and the phrase indicates what kind of church it was: a spiritual one. It also shows that it became the kind of church that placed its chief emphasis on charity, or goodness, which is why the verse mentions the wild animal and creeping thing first and the bird and thing creeping afterward.

[2] A church is called spiritual when it acts from charity, or from the good that charity urges, and never when it claims to have faith without charity. Under those circumstances, it is not even a church. After all, what do the church’s teachings about faith deal with if not charity? And why would the church teach anything about faith if not to have its teachings carried out? To know and think as faith teaches cannot have any reality; doing what faith teaches—this alone exists. A spiritual church first becomes a church when it acts as bidden by charity, charity being the true teaching of faith. To put it another way, this is when a person in the church first becomes a church. Consider: what is a commandment? It does not order us to know a precept but to live by what it says. This is when we first have the Lord’s kingdom inside us, because the Lord’s kingdom consists solely in mutual love and the happiness it brings.

[3] There are some who divide faith from charity and believe that the source of salvation is faith—a faith that is devoid of the good deeds urged by charity. They are followers of Cain, who kill their brother Abel, that is, charity. They are also like birds circling over a corpse, because such a faith is a bird and the corpse is a person who lacks charity. They scrape together a pseudo-conscience that tells them they can behave like devils, hate and persecute their neighbor, spend their whole lives in adultery, and yet be saved, as is extremely familiar in the Christian world. What could be sweeter to us than to hear and persuade ourselves that we can be saved, even if we live like a savage beast? Even non-Christians see that this is false, and many of them shudder at Christian teachings when they observe how Christians live. Another conclusion to be drawn is that nowhere do people live in a more despicable way than in the Christian world.

917

The fact that by their families means pairs can be seen from previous statements about the entry of the clean animals seven by seven and of the unclean animals two by two (Genesis 7:2, 3, 15). The current verse, however, says that they went out by families. It says families and not seven at a time or two at a time because at this point the Lord has brought all elements into such good order that they represent families.

In a regenerate person, virtues and truths (or the attributes of charity and so the attributes of faith) relate to each other in such a way that they all regard each other as blood relatives and kin. That is to say, they regard each other as belonging to families that spring from the same stock or the same progenitor. The situation resembles that in heaven (§685). This is how the Lord organizes our positive qualities and true ideas.

The specific meaning here is that each and every form of good looks at its related truth as being united in marriage with itself. The way charity in general views faith is the same way that a single good impulse in particular always views a single truth.

A general rule is not general unless it emerges from specific cases. It is from the specific cases that the general rule has its existence and from them that it is described as general. The situation is the same in each of us; whatever we are like generally, we are like in every smallest detail of our feelings and thoughts. These form our constituent parts; these make us what we are as a whole. So when people have been reborn, they become the same in the most minute respects as they are overall.

918

The fact that going out of the ark also involves a condition of freedom can be seen from remarks just above at verse 16 about going out of the ark [§905].

The nature of a spiritual person’s freedom is indicated by the fact that the Lord governs such people through conscience. Those whose conscience governs them, or who act in accord with their conscience, act freely. Nothing repels them more than violating their conscience. Acting against conscience is hell to them; obeying conscience is heaven. From this anyone can see that the latter is freeing.

The Lord governs spiritual people through a conscience that shows them what is good and true. This conscience, as noted [§§310:2, 393, 875:3], is formed in the intellectual part of their mind and so is separate from the contents of their will. Since conscience is totally separate from the urges of our will, we obviously can never do anything good on our own. And since all religious truth comes from religious good, we obviously never think anything true on our own, only under the Lord’s power. The appearance that we do it on our own is only an appearance. Moreover, as this is how things work, a person who is truly spiritual also acknowledges and believes it.

From this it stands to reason that the spiritual person’s conscience is a gift from the Lord, that it is like a new will, and therefore that the person who has been created anew is supplied with a new will and from this a new intellect.

919

Genesis 8:20. And Noah built an altar to Jehovah and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Noah built an altar to Jehovah symbolizes the practice of representing the Lord. He took of every clean animal and of every clean bird symbolizes the good effects of charity and [the true ideas] of faith. And offered burnt offerings on the altar symbolizes all the worship growing out of these things.

920

This verse depicts the worship of the ancient church in general, using the images of an altar and a burnt offering, which were the main elements in all representative worship. First, however, I need to tell what the worship of the earliest church was like and how people came to worship the Lord in a representative manner.

The people of the earliest church had no other kind of worship than internal worship—the kind of worship in heaven. In that church, heaven communicated with humankind in such a way as to form a single unit with it. The method of communication was perception, which is discussed frequently above. So because the people of that church were angelic and had depth, they did not care about superficial bodily or worldly things, although they were, of course, aware of them. In the individual objects of the senses, rather, they perceived something divine and heavenly.

When they saw a tall mountain, for example, they did not picture a mountain but perceived the idea of height, and the idea of height led them to the idea of heaven and the Lord. This is how it came about that the Lord was said to live on the heights, that he was called the Highest One and Most Exalted, and that worship of him was later held on mountains.

It was the same with all other phenomena. When they thought of morning, for instance, they did not think of the early hours of the day but of the quality of heaven, which is like the morning or dawn in a person’s mind. So they called the Lord the morning, the east, and the dawn. Likewise when they perceived a tree with its fruit and leaves, they ignored these details, seeing in them instead the representation of a human being—love and charity being the fruit, and faith, the leaves. As a result they not only compared members of the church to a tree (and to a whole paradise), and character traits to the fruit and leaves, but also called them such.

This is what people who have a heavenly, angelic way of thinking are like.

[2] Everyone is capable of realizing that our general viewpoint governs all our specific perceptions, including, of course, all our sense impressions, whether acquired through our eyes or ears. In fact we lack any interest in the objects of our senses unless they make part of that overall picture. To those whose hearts are glad, for instance, everything they hear or see appears cheerful and smiling. But to the depressed, everything they see or hear seems grim and melancholy. The same is true in all other cases as well, because our general mood pervades everything and causes us to see and hear everything within the context of our overall mood. Nothing outside that context is even visible but is virtually absent or irrelevant.

The situation was the same with the people of the earliest church. Whatever they saw with their eyes had a heavenly character for them. So for them, absolutely everything seemed alive. This indicates what their worship of God was like: internal and not at all external.

[3] When the church deteriorated, as it did in succeeding generations, and that perception, that communication with heaven, began to die out, the situation started to change. People were no longer perceiving anything of heaven in the objects of their senses as earlier generations had, but only things of the world, and the less perception they had left, the more this tendency increased. At last their final inheritors, who lived just before the Flood, saw nothing but what was worldly, physical, and earthly in those objects.

By this means, heaven was separated from humankind and ceased to communicate with it, except in a very remote way. A line of contact with hell then opened for humanity, and this became the source of their general perspective, which in turn is the source of all particular notions, as has been noted. After that, when the suggestion of something heavenly came up, they discounted it, until finally they did not even want to admit that anything spiritual or heavenly existed. So humankind’s condition turned upside down.

[4] Since the Lord foresaw that this was what the human condition would become, he arranged for religious teachings to remain preserved and available, so that from them people could learn what was heavenly and what was spiritual. Those teachings, obtained from the people of the earliest church, were gathered by the individuals known as Cain and as Enoch, who have already been discussed. This is why it is said of Cain that a mark was put on him to prevent his murder, and of Enoch that God took him. See the treatment of these details at Genesis 4:15, §§392, 394, and at Genesis 5:24 [§521].

These doctrinal formulations consisted exclusively in symbolic language and so in what seem to be enigmatic sayings, telling what was meant by things found on earth, such as mountains (symbolizing heavenly attributes and the Lord), the morning and the east (again heavenly attributes and the Lord), different kinds of trees and their fruits (people and their heavenly qualities), and so on.

In such things did their articles of doctrine consist, and they were gathered together out of the signs and symbols of the earliest church. In consequence, their writing exhibited the same character. Since what they admired for its antiquity (and felt they could discern) in that literature was the divine and heavenly component, they were allowed to establish for themselves a form of worship based on similar features. That was the inspiration for their worship on mountains, in groves, and among the trees; for their open-air sculpture; and for the altars and burnt offerings that eventually became the main features of all worship.

The people of the ancient church initiated this worship, and from them it spread to their descendants and to all the surrounding nations, as did many other aspects of their worship. This will be discussed later [§§1238, 1241, 2180:4], the Lord in his divine mercy willing.

921

The symbolism of Noah built an altar to Jehovah as the practice of representing the Lord can be seen from the things just now said.

All the ritual of the ancient church represented the Lord, as did the ritual of the Jewish religion. But the chief item representing him came to be the altar, along with the burnt offering. Because it was clean animals and birds that were offered, the representation matched the symbolism involved, clean animals meaning the good effects of charity, and clean birds, the true ideas of faith. When the people of the ancient church offered up such creatures, it meant symbolically that the gifts they offered the Lord consisted of these attributes. Nothing else can be offered to the Lord that is pleasing to him.

Their descendants, however, like the surrounding nations and the Jews too, corrupted the practice, not realizing that it had any symbolic meaning and viewing all worship as an external affair.

[2] The fact that the altar was the main object to represent the Lord can also be seen from this: Before the establishment of any other kind of ritual, before construction of the ark, before the building of the Temple, there were altars, even among non-Jewish nations.

We see that when Abram came to the mountain on the east of Bethel, he constructed an altar and called on Jehovah’s name (Genesis 12:8). He was ordered to offer Isaac up as a burnt offering on an altar (Genesis 22:2, 9). Jacob built an altar at Luz, which is Bethel (Genesis 35:6, 7). And Moses built an altar at the foot of Mount Sinai and offered a sacrifice (Exodus 24:4, 5, 6). This was before the establishment of the sacrifices and before the construction of the ark, around which they later conducted their worship in the wilderness.

By the same token, we know about the existence of altars among non-Jewish nations from the story of Balaam, who told Balak to build seven altars and prepare seven heads of cattle and seven rams (Numbers 23:1–7, 15–18, 29, 30). And it was decreed that those nations’ altars should be destroyed (for instance, Deuteronomy 7:5; Judges 2:2). So the use of altars and sacrifices in the worship of God was not an innovation on the part of the Jews.

In fact before people knew anything about slaughtering cattle and the smaller livestock on altars, they were building them as memorials.

[3] The symbolism of altars as the practice of representing the Lord, and of burnt offerings as the resulting worship of him, is clearly evident in the prophets. One example is Moses’ prophecy concerning the tribe of Levi, to whom the priesthood was assigned:

They will teach your judgments to Jacob and your law to Israel. They will put incense in your nostrils and a whole [burnt offering] on your altar. (Deuteronomy 33:10)

This is about the totality of worship. “They will teach your judgments to Jacob and your law to Israel” stands for inner worship. “They will put incense in your nostrils and a ‘whole [burnt offering]’ on your altar” stands for outward worship that corresponds to inward worship. So the verse stands for the totality of worship. In Isaiah:

On that day, humanity will look to its maker, and its eyes will regard the Holy One of Israel; and it will not look to altars, the work of its hands. (Isaiah 17:7, 8)

Looking to altars plainly stands for representative worship in general, which was to be abolished. In the same author:

On that day there will be an altar to Jehovah in the middle of the land of Egypt and a pillar to Jehovah by its border. (Isaiah 19:19)

Here too the altar stands for external worship. [4] In Jeremiah:

The Lord has deserted his altar, has despised his sanctuary. (Lamentations 2:7)

The altar stands for representative worship, which became idolatrous. In Hosea:

Ephraim multiplied altars for sinning; it had altars for sinning. (Hosea 8:11)

The altars stand for every act of representative worship cut off from its inner meaning and so for idolatrous practices. In the same author:

The lofty places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. Thorn and thistle will climb over their altars. (Hosea 10:8)

Again the altars stand for idolatrous worship. In Amos:

On the day that I exact punishment on Israel for its transgressions, I will also bring punishment on the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar will be chopped off. (Amos 3:14)

Once more the altars stand for representative practices that became idolatrous. [5] In David:

They will bring me to your holy mountain and to your dwelling places, and I will go in to God’s altar, to God, my happiness and joy. (Psalms 43:3, 4)

The altar obviously stands for the Lord. So the construction of an altar in the ancient and Jewish churches stood for the practice of representing the Lord.

Since the principal means for carrying out worship of the Lord were burnt offerings and sacrifices and these were consequently the principal symbols for representative worship, it stands to reason that the altar symbolized representative worship itself.

922

The symbolism of he took of every clean animal and of every clean bird as the good effects of charity and the true ideas of faith has been demonstrated before. The symbolism of an animal as the good effects of charity was shown in §§45, 46, 142, 143, 246 and of a bird as the true ideas of faith in §§40, 776.

Cattle, lambs and goats, and turtledoves or pigeon chicks were used in burnt offerings (Leviticus 1:2–17; Numbers 15:2–15; 28:1–end). These animals were clean, and each of them symbolized some particular attribute of heaven. Since they had a symbolic meaning in the ancient church and a representative meaning in the subsequent churches, it can be deduced that burnt offerings and sacrifices were nothing but representations of inner worship. It can also be deduced that when separated from internal worship, they were idolatrous.

Anyone of sound reason can see this. What is an altar but a heap of stone? What is a burnt offering or sacrifice but the slaughter of an animal? If it is divine worship, it must represent something heavenly that the worshipers know about and acknowledge and that inspires them to worship the One whom they are representing. [2] The only person who can fail to realize that these things represented the Lord is one who absolutely refuses to develop any understanding of the Lord.

The lens through which the One represented is to be seen, acknowledged, and believed is that of inner qualities, namely, charity and the faith that springs from it. This is quite evident in the prophets, as in Jeremiah:

Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, has said, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the meat. I did not speak to your ancestors or command them (on the day when I brought them out of the land of Egypt) concerning the matters of burnt offering and sacrifice, but this word I commanded them, saying ‘Obey my voice and I will become your God.’” (Jeremiah 7:21, 22, 23)

Hearing or obeying a voice is obeying the law, which has to do entirely with the one and only commandment, that they were to love God above all and their neighbor as themselves because the law and the prophets consist in this (Matthew 22:37–40; 7:12). In David:

Jehovah, sacrifice and gift you have not wished for, burnt offering and sin sacrifice you have not sought. I have desired to do your will, my God, and your law is in the middle of my belly. (Psalms 40:6, 8)

[3] In Samuel, when Samuel said to Saul,

Does Jehovah take as much satisfaction in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obedience to Jehovah’s voice? Look: obedience is better than sacrifice, attentiveness than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)

Micah tells what obeying his voice is:

Am I to meet Jehovah with burnt offerings, with calves that are offspring of a year? Will Jehovah take satisfaction in thousands of rams, in myriads of rivers of oil? He has pointed out to you, friend, what is good; and what is Jehovah requiring of you but to carry out judgment and the love of mercy and to be humble walking with your God? (Micah 6:6, 7, 8)

These are the things that burnt offerings and sacrifices of clean animals and birds symbolize. In Amos:

If you offer me your burnt offerings and gifts, I will not accept them, and the peace offering of your fattened animals I will not regard. Let judgment flow like the water and justice like a mighty river. (Amos 5:22, 24)

Judgment is truth and justice is goodness, both of them flowing from charity, which is the burnt offerings and sacrifices of the inner self. In Hosea:

Mercy I wish for and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)

These passages show what quality sacrifices and burnt offerings have where there is no charity or faith. They also show that clean animals and clean birds symbolized and therefore represented the good effects of charity and [the true ideas] of faith.

923

The symbolism of and he offered burnt offerings on the altar as all the worship growing out of these things is evident from what has been said so far. Burnt offerings were the main element in the worship of the representative church, as were sacrifices later on, which will be discussed below [§§2165:3, 2177:1–4, 2180, 3880:8–9], by the Lord’s divine mercy.

The fact that burnt offerings symbolize all representative worship as a whole can also be seen in the prophets, as in David:

Jehovah will send your help from his sanctuary, and from Zion he will sustain you. He will remember all your gifts and make your burnt offering fat. (Psalms 20:2, 3)

And in Isaiah:

All who keep the Sabbath and avoid profaning it—I will bring them to my holy mountain. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will bring great pleasure on my altar. (Isaiah 56:6, 7)

The burnt offerings and sacrifices stand for all worship. Burnt offerings stand for worship from love, sacrifices for worship from the faith that comes of love.

Internal attributes are described here by external actions, as they so often are in the prophets.

924

Genesis 8:21. And Jehovah smelled a restful smell, and Jehovah said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground on the human being’s account, because what human hearts fabricate is evil from their youth. And I will never again strike every living thing as I have done.”

Jehovah smelled a restful smell means that worship rising out of those things was pleasing to the Lord. And Jehovah said in his heart means that it would no longer happen this way. I will never again curse the ground means that humanity would no longer turn its back in this way. On the human being’s account means in the way people among the earliest church’s descendants had done. Because what human hearts fabricate is evil from their youth means that the volitional side of the human mind is completely evil. I will never again strike every living thing as I have done means that people could no longer destroy themselves in this way.

925

Jehovah smelled a restful smell means that worship rising out of those things—in other words, worship inspired by charity and by the faith that comes of charity, as symbolized by the burnt offering—was pleasing to the Lord. This meaning was mentioned at the previous verse [§922:2–3].

The Word often says that Jehovah smelled a restful smell, chiefly from burnt offerings, and in each of those places it symbolizes something pleasing or welcome. Passages describing him as smelling a restful smell include the following: From burnt offerings, Exodus 29:18, 25, 41; Leviticus 1:9, 13, 17; 23:12, 13, 18; Numbers 28:6, 8, 13; 29:2, 6, 8, 13, 36. From other kinds of sacrifice, Leviticus 2:2, 9; 6:15, 21; 8:21, 28; Numbers 15:3, 7, 13. Both are referred to as fire offerings that served as a restful smell for Jehovah, meaning that love and charity were the source. In the Word, fire and fire offerings associated with the Lord and with worship of him symbolize love.

Bread has a similar meaning, so that representative worship employing burnt offerings and sacrifices is also called the bread of a fire offering to Jehovah that served as a restful smell (Leviticus 3:11, 16).

[2] A smell symbolizes something pleasing and welcome, as a result of which the Jewish religion also used it to represent something pleasing and attributed the smelling of it to Jehovah, or the Lord. This is because the good embraced by charity and the truth espoused by a faith that stems from charity correspond to pleasant, agreeable smells.

Auras in the heaven of spirits and angels can demonstrate that this correspondence does exist and can show what its nature is like. In that world, auras of love and faith exist, and the inhabitants perceive them distinctly. The auras are such that when a good spirit or an angel or a community of good spirits or angels comes on the scene, others immediately discern (if the Lord pleases) what kind of love and faith the spirit, angel, or community has. They can tell this from a distance, and the perception grows stronger at close quarters. It is incredible yet absolutely true: this is how communication and perception in the other life work. When the Lord pleases, then, there is no need to probe extensively to find out what a soul or spirit is like, since it can be recognized at the person’s first approach.

These auras have their counterpart in earthly aromas. The correspondence between the two is clear from this, that in the world of spirits, when it pleases the Lord, auras of love and faith are manifestly embodied in clouds of sweet, pleasant fragrances and are manifestly perceived there.

[3] This explains why a restful smell symbolizes something pleasing, why the Jewish religion came to use fragrances in a representative way, and why they saw Jehovah, or the Lord, as sensing the restful smell.

A restful smell is a peaceful smell, or in other words, the pleasing quality of peace. Peace enfolds in a single embrace each and every facet of the Lord’s kingdom, because the state of the Lord’s kingdom is a state of peace. All the happy states that result from love for the Lord and faith in him emerge in a state of peace.

What has just been said shows not only how the case stands with representative worship but also why the Jewish religion used incense, for which an altar was provided in front of the veil and the appeasement cover [of the ark]. The same discussion shows why offerings of frankincense had a place among their sacrifices, and also why they used so many fragrant extracts in their incense, frankincense, and anointing oil. So it demonstrates that in the Word a restful odor, the burning of incense, and perfumes all symbolize the heavenly characteristics of love, and the spiritual characteristics of faith derived from them—in general, anything pleasing that develops out of them. [4] In Ezekiel, for example:

On my holy mountain, on the mountain of Israel’s high ground, there all the house of Israel—the whole of that house in the land—will serve me; there I will accept them. And there I will seek your raised offerings and the first fruits of your gifts in all your consecrations; because of the restful smell I will accept you. (Ezekiel 20:40, 41)

The restful smell applies to the burnt offerings and gifts, that is, to worship inspired by charity and the faith that comes of charity, this worship being what the burnt offerings and gifts symbolize. Such worship is accordingly “accepted,” which is what the scent means. In Amos:

I have hated, I have spurned your feasts, and I will not smell [the incense of] your holidays, because if you offer me your burnt offerings and gifts, they will not be accepted. (Amos 5:21, 22)

Here the smell explicitly means something pleasing or acceptable. Of Isaac’s blessing on Jacob instead of Esau we read:

When Jacob had stepped close, and Isaac had kissed him and smelled the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, “See: the smell of my son, like the smell of a field that Jehovah has blessed.” (Genesis 27:26, 27)

The smell of the clothing symbolizes earthly goodness and truth, which is pleasing because it harmonizes with heavenly and spiritual goodness and truth. Its pleasing quality is expressed as the smell of a field.

926

The meaning of Jehovah said in his heart as the fact that it would no longer happen this way will be seen from what follows.

When Jehovah is spoken of as saying, it means only that a thing happens or does not happen in this way (or that it is to happen or not to happen in this way). After all, nothing else can be said about Jehovah than “He is.”

Actions or traits that passages in the Word often attribute to Jehovah are mentioned for the sake of those whose minds cannot grasp anything beyond ordinary human experience. That is why the literal sense has the nature that it does. The simple at heart can learn from the appearances with which we all live. They hardly venture beyond what their senses reveal to them, so the Word speaks at their level of understanding. Such is the case here with the statement that Jehovah said something in his heart.

927

I will never again curse the ground on the human being’s account means that humanity would no longer turn its back in the way people among the earliest church’s descendants had done. This can be seen from earlier statements about the posterity of the earliest church. For the inner-level symbolism of cursing as turning away, see above (§§223, 245).

[2] The situation here and in what follows can also be seen from previous descriptions comparing the earliest church’s later generations, which perished, with the new church called Noah. (That situation includes the fact that people no longer turned their backs, as members of the earliest church had done, and that they were no longer able to destroy themselves.) As noted in those places [§§310:1, 398, 640, 875:4], the will and intellect of people in the earliest church constituted a single mind. For them, in other words, love was planted in the volitional side, and at the same time so was faith, which filled the second part of the mind, or the intellectual side. Their descendants consequently inherited a will and an intellect that formed a single unit. So when self-love and the mad desires that it spawns started to take over their volitional side, displacing love for the Lord and charity toward their neighbor, it totally corrupted not only the volitional side, or the will, but at the same time the intellectual part, or the intellect. The corruption intensified when the final generation merged falsity with their cravings and by this means became Nephilim. Having become Nephilim, they could not be salvaged, because their mind on both its sides—that is, their whole mind—was destroyed.

[3] But since the Lord foresaw this, he also provided that humankind should be rehabilitated. The means would be an ability to reform and regenerate the second or intellectual part of their mind and to receive in it the seed of a new will. The new will is conscience, through which the Lord puts into action the good urges of love or charity and the true ideas of faith.

In this way, by the Lord’s divine mercy, humankind was restored.

These are the things symbolized in the current verse by I will never again curse the ground on the human being’s account, because what human hearts fabricate is evil from their youth. And I will not strike every living thing again as I have done.

928

The meaning of what human hearts fabricate is evil from their youth as the fact that the volitional side of the human mind is completely evil is established by the statements just above; what the heart fabricates has no other meaning.

We think that we have a will to do good, but we are wholly mistaken. When we do good, it is not our will but a new will that is the Lord’s—and so the Lord himself—that moves us to do so. By the same token, when we think and speak what is true, the source is a new intellectual capacity coming out of the new will and so the Lord again. People who have been reborn are entirely new people, formed by the Lord, so they are said to be created anew.

929

The meaning of I will not strike every living thing again as I have done as the fact that people could no longer destroy themselves in this way now stands out clearly.

This is the situation: When we have regenerated, we are held back from the evil and falsity that are in us. Under those circumstances, we are conscious only of doing and thinking what is good and true on our own, but this is an appearance, an illusion. It is the result of being held back from evil and falsity, and held back with great force. What is more, since we are withheld from evil and falsity, we cannot destroy ourselves. If we were given leeway or left on our own to even a slight extent, we would plunge into all possible evil and falsity.

930

Genesis 8:22. “Throughout all the days of the earth to come, sowing and reaping and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night will not end.”

Throughout all the days of the earth to come symbolizes all time. Sowing and reaping symbolizes the regenerating person and so the church. Cold and heat symbolizes the condition of a person who is regenerating, which is cold and hot toward the acceptance of faith and charity; cold symbolizes no faith or charity but heat symbolizes faith and charity. Summer and winter symbolizes the condition of an already-regenerate person in respect to new movements of the will, which alternate the way summer and winter do. Day and night symbolizes the condition of this same regenerate person in respect to concepts in the intellect, which alternate the way day and night do. They will not end is the fact that this will happen throughout all time.

931

The symbolism of throughout all the days of the earth to come as all time, is established by the symbolism of a day as the times; see §§23, 487, 488, 493. So a day of the earth here is all time, as long as the earth lasts—that is to say, as long as an inhabitant remains on the planet. Inhabitants first come to an end when the church ceases to exist, because when the church is gone, humankind loses contact with heaven, and when that contact ends, every earth-dweller dies out.

The church is like a person’s heart and lungs, as already mentioned. As long we have a heart that is sound, and lungs, too, we are alive. The same is true of the church in relation to the universal human, which is the whole of heaven. That is why the present verse says, “Throughout all the days of the earth, sowing and reaping and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night will not end.”

This also indicates that the planet will not last forever but will have its end as well, since it says, “throughout all the days of the earth,” that is, as long as the earth exists.

[2] People believe, though, that the end of the earth is the same as the Last Judgment mentioned in the Word, where the culmination of the age, the day of divine visitation, and the Last Judgment are dealt with. They are wrong. A last judgment comes to every church when it goes through the process of devastation, which is the stage at which there is no longer any faith in it.

The earliest church had its last judgment when it perished, as it did among its final descendants, just before the Flood. The Jewish church had its last judgment when the Lord came into the world. A last judgment has yet to come, too, when the Lord comes into his glory. Not that the earth and the world will then be destroyed but that the church will. Afterward, however, the Lord always brings a new church back to life. So at the time of the Flood, he raised up the ancient church, and at the time of his Coming, he raised up the early [Christian] church among non-Jews. It will be the same when the Lord comes into his glory.

This is also what “the new heaven and the new earth” means [Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; Revelation 21:1]. [3] The case resembles that of every regenerate person, who becomes a part of the church—becomes a church, in fact—after being created anew. The inner self of such people is called a new heaven and their outer self a new earth.

In addition, every individual also has a last judgment at death, because at that time, depending on how we behaved in the body, we receive a verdict of either death or life.

An indication that the end of the age, the cataclysm, and the Last Judgment have no other meaning and therefore do not imply the world’s obliteration is clear from the Lord’s words in Luke:

On that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. Two will be grinding together; one will be taken and the other left. Two will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. (Luke 17:34, 35, 36)

The last stage is called the night here because there will be no faith, that is, no charity. It says that some people will be left, which clearly indicates that the world will not be annihilated at that time.

932

The symbolism of sowing and reaping as the regenerating person, and so the church, needs no confirmation from the Word because it occurs so many times. Not only is a field—and consequently the sowing of it—used as a metaphor and simile for a person, but seed is used in the same way for the Lord’s Word, and the produce or harvest, for the effect it has. Everyone understands this meaning because its appearance in the Word has made it common in everyday speech.

The general subject here is humankind as a whole and the fact that the time will never come when there are no seeds being planted in us by the Lord, whether we are inside or outside the church, that is, whether we know the Lord’s Word or not. Without seed planted by the Lord, no one can do a whit of good. [2] Even among non-Christians, every charitable kindness is seed from the Lord. The good that non-Christians do is not a result of the true faith, as it can be among people inside the church, but it can become so. Non-Christians usually live a life of charity in the world, and when those who do so are instructed by angels in the other life, they embrace and welcome the teachings of true faith and the faith that comes of charity much more easily than Christians. More about this later [§§1032–1033, 2589–2605, 2861:1, 3263:2], with the Lord’s divine mercy.

The specific subject here is the regenerating individual and the fact that the church will never cease to exist in at least one place on earth. That is what “throughout all the days of the earth there will be sowing and reaping” means.

The fact that there will always be sowing and reaping, or that the church will always exist, connects with the message of the last verse: that people could no longer destroy themselves in the way the final generation of the earliest church had done.

933

Cold and heat symbolizes the condition of a person who is regenerating, which is cold and hot toward the acceptance of faith and charity; cold symbolizes no faith or charity, but heat symbolizes [faith and] charity. This can be seen from the symbolism of cold and heat in the Word, which uses the terms to describe a person who is regenerating, or one who has regenerated, or the church. It can also be seen from the context above and below, which deals with the church. The last verse said that people could no longer destroy themselves in the same way. The present verse says that the church will always exist, first depicting what happens when it comes into existence—that is, when a person is reborn as a church—and soon after discussing the nature of a person who has already become regenerate. So it deals with every phase that people in the church pass through.

[2] There is only one really good way to see that when we are regenerating we go through these phases of cold and heat, or of faith and charity absent and present. That is through experience and through reflection on our experience. Few people regenerate, though, and few if any of those who regenerate can or do reflect on the state of their regeneration. So let me say a few words about it.

When we are being reborn, we receive life from the Lord, since up till then we cannot be said to have been alive. A life focused on the world and the body is not really life; only a life that is heavenly and spiritual is real. We receive real life from the Lord through regeneration, and since before that time we lack any life, we alternate between no life and true life—that is, between no faith or charity and some faith and charity. Here, cold symbolizes a lack of faith and charity, and heat, the presence of some faith and charity.

[3] This is the situation: Whenever we are caught up in bodily and worldly concerns, we experience a lack of faith and charity, or coldness. At such times our bodily and worldly interests—and so our self-interest—are active. As long as we are wrapped up in them, we are devoid of or distant from belief and neighborly love, so that we do not even think about heavenly and spiritual matters. The reason for the disconnection is that a heavenly focus and a bodily focus can never coexist in us, since the human will is lost beyond recall. When our bodily desires and the urges of our will stop agitating and fall quiet, though, the Lord works through our inner self, and we then come into faith and charity, which are called “heat” here. When we return to a bodily focus, we go back into the cold, and when the body and everything connected with it fade away almost to the point of vanishing, we regain the warmth, and so on in cycles. Such is the human condition—heavenly and spiritual values cannot coexist with bodily and worldly values in us but must alternate with them.

These are the things that take place in every regenerating person, lasting just as long as the process of regeneration does. There is no other way for us to be reborn, or in other words, from being dead to come alive, for the reason already given: our will is lost beyond recall. This will is entirely separate from the new will that we receive from the Lord and that is the Lord’s, not ours.

All this now indicates what cold and heat symbolize here.

[4] Anyone who has been reborn can see from experience that this is how the matter stands. That is to say, when bodily and worldly considerations absorb us, we are absent and distant from internal ones. Not only do we fail to think at all about them but we also sense a kind of chill inside us. When bodily and worldly demands quiet down, on the other hand, we come under the influence of faith and charity.

Such an individual can also see from experience that these two phases alternate. So when bodily and worldly concerns start to overflow and try to dominate, we enter a period of distress and trial. The crisis lasts until we have been reduced to a state in which our outer self obeys our inner self—an obedience that is utterly impossible except when the outer self grows still and almost vanishes.

The final inheritors of the earliest church could not be reborn since, as noted [§§310:1, 398, 640, 875:4, 927:2], intellectual capacities and volitional capacities formed one mind in them. So they could not detach the ideas in their intellect from the urges of their will and therefore could not cycle back and forth between heavenly and spiritual pursuits on the one hand and bodily and worldly pursuits on the other. Instead they felt perpetual coldness toward the things of heaven and perpetual warmth for the objects of their desire, so that for them no alternation was possible.

934

The symbolism of cold as no love (that is, no charity) or faith, and of heat or fire as love (or charity) and faith, is attested by the following passages in the Word. In John, when he addressed the church of Laodicea:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. If only you were cold or hot! But since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15, 16)

Being cold stands for having no charity, and being hot, for having a wealth of it. In Isaiah:

This is what Jehovah has said: “I will rest and watch in my established position, like a sheen of heat on the light, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” (Isaiah 18:4)

This passage is about planting a new church. The heat on the light and the heat of harvest stand for love and charity. In the same author:

Jehovah’s fire is on Zion and his furnace is in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 31:9)

Fire stands for love. In respect to the guardian beings that Ezekiel saw:

What the living creatures looked like: Their appearance was like burning embers of fire, like the appearance of lamps. The fire was moving along among the living creatures, and it had brilliance, and from the fire went out lightning. (Ezekiel 1:13)

[2] And in the same author, describing the Lord:

Above the expanse that was over the head of the guardian beings was a seeming appearance of sapphire stone, like a throne. And on the likeness of a throne was what looked like the appearance of a person on it, high above. And I saw the seeming form of a fiery ember, like the form of fire, within him all around, from the appearance of his hips and up; and from the appearance of his hips and down I saw the seeming appearance of fire, which had a brilliance all around. (Ezekiel 1:26, 27; 8:2)

The fire stands for love. In Daniel:

The Ancient One sat; his throne was fiery flames, its wheels a burning fire. A river of fire was pouring forth and going out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were waiting on him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before him. (Daniel 7:9, 10)

The fire stands for the Lord’s love. In Zechariah:

“I will be to them,” says Jehovah, “a wall of fire all around.” (Zechariah 2:5)

This is about a new Jerusalem. In David:

Jehovah makes the spirits his angels, the flaming fire his attendants. (Psalms 104:4)

The flaming fire stands for something heavenly and at the same time spiritual.

[3] Since fire symbolized love, it also came to be used for representing the Lord, as is evident from the fire on the altar of burnt offering, which was never put out (Leviticus 6:9, 12, 13), representing the Lord’s mercy. That is why Aaron had to burn incense with fire taken from the altar of burnt offering before he could go in to approach the appeasement cover (Leviticus 16:12, 13, 14). Furthermore, in order to symbolize the Lord’s acceptance of the worship, fire was sent down from heaven and consumed the burnt offerings (Leviticus 9:24, for instance, and elsewhere).

In the Word, fire also symbolizes self-love and its craving, with which heavenly love cannot harmonize. That is why two of Aaron’s sons were devoured by fire for using foreign fire in their sacrificial burning (Leviticus 10:1, 2). Foreign fire is the totality of self-love and love of worldly gain, as well as all the cravings that accompany those loves.

Besides, ungodly individuals experience heavenly love in no other way than as a burning, consuming fire. For this reason, the Word describes the Lord as a consuming fire. The fire on Mount Sinai that represented the Lord’s love or mercy, for instance, was perceived by the people as a devouring fire, which is why they told Moses not to make them listen to Jehovah God’s voice or look at the huge fire or they would die (Deuteronomy 18:16). This is what the Lord’s love or mercy looks like to people inflamed with self-love and materialism.

935

The things already said about cold and heat establish the symbolism of and summer and winter as the condition of an already-regenerate person in respect to new movements of the will, which alternate the way summer and winter do. The two extremes for people undergoing the process of regeneration are like cold and heat, but for people who have regenerated they are like summer and winter.

The clue to the fact that the previous phrase describes a regenerating person and the present phrase a regenerate one is that the previous phrase mentions cold first and heat second, while the present phrase mentions summer first and winter second. People who are regenerating start with cold, that is, with no faith or charity, but when they have been reborn they start with charity.

[2] Regenerate people go back and forth between having no charity at one time and some charity at another. This is clear to see because everyone, even a person reborn, has nothing but evil inside; all goodness is the Lord’s alone. Since the regenerate have nothing but evil inside, they cannot help seesawing, living now in a kind of summer (in charity) and now in winter (no charity). These cycles exist to bring them into increasing perfection and so into increasing happiness.

Regenerate people go through these cycles not only while they are living in the body but also when they come into the other life. Without alternations that resemble those of summer and winter in matters of the will, and day and night in matters of the intellect, the regenerate would never be perfected or made happier. Their ups and downs in the other world, though, are like the summertime and wintertime changes that occur in temperate zones, and like the daytime and nighttime changes that occur in the spring.

[3] The prophets too portray these phases in terms of summer and winter, day and night, as in Zechariah:

And it will happen on that day that living water will go out from Jerusalem, part of it to the eastern sea and part of it to the western sea; in summer and in winter it will happen. (Zechariah 14:8)

This concerns a new Jerusalem, or the Lord’s kingdom in heaven and on earth, and conditions in each, which are described as summer and winter. In David:

God, yours is the day, yours also the night. You prepared the light and the sun. You set up all the boundaries of the earth. You formed summer and winter. (Psalms 74:16, 17)

These things involve similar meanings. Likewise in Jeremiah the fact that neither the compact with the day nor the compact with the night was to be nullified, so that daytime and night would occur at their times (Jeremiah 33:20).

936

The symbolism of day and night as the condition of this same regenerate person in respect to concepts in the intellect, which alternate the way day and night do, is established by statements just above.

Summer and winter have to do with the contents of the will because of the warmth and cold involved, since matters of the will grow warm or cold. But day and night have to do with the contents of the intellect because of the light and dark involved, since matters of the intellect exist in light or darkness.

Because the statements made here are self-evident, they need no confirmation from similar passages in the Word.

937

The above also shows what the Lord’s Word is like in its inner meaning. In its literal sense it seems so unsophisticated that we necessarily see it as speaking only of sowing and reaping, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, when in reality these details involve secrets that were known to the ancient or spiritual church. The actual, literal words act in just this way—as extremely ordinary containers, so to speak, whose finer details hold heavenly secrets in such great number and of such great importance that not one millionth of them could ever be fully explored. When angels look with the Lord’s eyes at those common, everyday words, drawn from an earthly vocabulary, they can see the whole process of regeneration and also the condition of both a regenerating and a regenerate person, in all their boundless variety. Humankind, on the other hand, sees hardly anything.

The Hells (Continued): Misers’ Hells, the Foul Jerusalem and Outlaws in the Wilderness, and the Feces-Laden Hells of Those Who Have Pursued Sensual Pleasure Alone

938

Of all people, misers are the vilest and think the least about life after death, the soul, and the inner being. They do not even know what heaven is. This is because of all people they do the least to elevate their thinking, which they completely saturate and drench with bodily and earthly preoccupations. The result is that when they enter the other world, for a long time they fail to realize that they are spirits, remaining firmly convinced instead that they are still in the body.

Their thoughts, dragged down to the bodily and earthly level by their greed, turn into dreadful hallucinations. Strange to say, but true, in the next life the grossly avaricious seem to themselves to live in cellars where their money is stored and where they are overrun with rats. Despite the rats, they do not leave until they grow unbearably tired of the situation, at which point they finally emerge from these tombs of theirs.

939

Evidence that the ideas composing the thoughts of sordid misers turn into sordid hallucinations can be seen in their hell, which is deep down under the feet. Out of it wafts a cloud of steam, like the steam from pigs being skinned in a trough. That is where misers’ houses are. The people who go there are dark-looking at first, but when they have their hair scraped off, as pigs do, they seem to themselves and to each other to grow lighter in color. But the process still leaves a mark indicating that this is their nature, no matter where they go.

A dark-looking spirit who had not yet been shunted into his own hell (because he was to stay longer in the world of spirits) was sent down to that locale. He was not very miserly, but even so, while he lived he had harbored a malicious envy of others’ wealth. When he arrived, the misers there ran away, saying that since he was dark, he was a robber and so would kill them. Misers flee such people in tremendous fear for their lives. Finally they discovered that he was not that lawless and told him that, if he wanted to turn lighter, all he had to do was to be stripped of his hair, as was happening to the pigs right there in plain view, and then his color would grow lighter. But he did not want this. He was taken up among the spirits.

940

This hell is where most of the Jews who had been appallingly greedy go. When they come near other spirits, the stench of rats announces their presence.

Speaking of Jews, let me tell how wretched their condition is after death—at least the condition of those who had been rapacious and despised others in comparison with themselves (from the inborn arrogance of their belief that they alone were the chosen people). Let me also say something about their cities and about some outlaws in the wilderness.

During bodily life they had dreamed up and proved to their own satisfaction the idea that they were destined to arrive in Jerusalem—in the Holy Land there—and possess it, unwilling to see that the New Jerusalem means the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens and on the earth. When they reach the next life, their delusion causes them to see a city that is to the left of Gehenna and a little out in front of it, which they enter in a mob. The city is full of putrid-smelling mud, though, and for this reason is called the foul Jerusalem. There they run around through the streets, ankle deep in muck and mud, complaining and howling.

(With their eyes they see cities, and streets too. Such things are represented to them as in clear daylight. I myself have seen cities several times.)

[2] I observed one rather shadowy spirit coming from this foul Jerusalem. A kind of gate opened. There were some wandering stars around him, especially on his left. (Wandering stars around a spirit symbolize falsity in the world of spirits; the case is different with stars that do not wander.) He came up and attached himself from above to my left ear, which he seemed to touch with his mouth in order to speak with me. He did not talk in a clearly audible voice, as others do, but inwardly, to himself, though still in such a way that I could hear and understand it.

He said that he was a Jewish rabbi and that he had lived in that muddy city for a long time. “The streets you have to go on there,” he said, “are nothing but muck and mud. And there’s nothing to eat but mud.”

“Since you’re a spirit, why should you want to eat?” I asked.

“I do eat,” he said, “and when I want to eat, no one offers me anything but mud. So I complain bitterly.

“What’s to be done, then?” he went on to ask. “I can’t find Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob.”

I told him a few things about the patriarchs. “There’s no point in looking for them,” I added. “If you do find them, they won’t be able to help you at all.” And I said some other, rather hard-to-grasp things. “You should not be looking for anyone but the Lord alone,” I went on. “He’s the Messiah, whom the Jews despised during their lives. He rules the whole of heaven and all the earth without anyone else’s help.”

“Where is he?” the rabbi anxiously asked me several times.

“You find him everywhere,” I said, “and he hears and knows everyone.” But then some other Jewish spirits dragged him away.

941

There is another city on the right of Gehenna too, or between Gehenna and the lake, where the better Jews seem to themselves to live. But the city changes for them as their fantasies change. At one point it turns into a collection of small towns, at another into a lake, and at another back into a city. The residents have a fear of robbers, but as long as they are in the city they are safe.

Between the two cities is a kind of triangular space dark with shadows. That is the home of the outlaws, who are Jews but of the worst kind. Anyone they come across they torture cruelly. The Jews are so terrified of these outlaws that they call them “Lord,” and they call the wilderness the outlaws live in “the [Holy] Land.”

To keep those who enter the city on the right-hand side safe from the bandits, a good spirit stands at one corner of the city limits and welcomes arrivals. When they reach the spirit, they bow down to the ground and enter at the spirit’s feet. That is the ritual they go through to get into the city.

One spirit came up to me quite suddenly. “Where did you come from?” I asked.

“I ran in terror from the thieves, because they kill people, and chop, roast, and boil them,” was the answer. “Where can I be safe?”

“What place, what land are you from?” I asked.

Out of fear, the spirit did not dare to answer more than, “The land is the Lord’s.” (As noted, they call the wilderness the [Holy] Land and the thieves Lord).

[2] Then some of these outlaws came up, and they were very dark. They had deep voices, like giants’ voices, and wherever they make an appearance they inflict an amazingly palpable fear and horror. I asked who they were. They said they were looking for goods to loot. “Where do you expect to pile your loot?” I asked. “Don’t you know that you’re spirits and can’t make off with loot or pile it up? Such are the delusions of the evil!”

“We live in the wilderness, looking for plunder,” they answered, “and we torture the people we run into.” While they were with me they finally admitted that they were spirits, but they still could not be persuaded to believe they were not living in their bodies.

There are Jews who wander around in this way, making talk about indiscriminately murdering, chopping, roasting, and boiling others, even if the victims are Jews or friends of theirs. This has allowed others to recognize their character, despite the fact that they dare not divulge it in the world.

942

Not far from the foul Jerusalem is yet another city called Gehenna’s Judgment. This is the home of people who claim heaven for themselves on the strength of their own righteousness and who condemn others for not living out the same fantasies.

Between this city and Gehenna appears a kind of bridge, pretty enough, of a dingy, grayish color, where there is a dark-looking spirit they fear, who keeps them from crossing. On the other side of the bridge, you see, appears Gehenna.

943

There are some for whom sensory pleasure was their sole aim during bodily life. The only thing they loved was indulging in luxury and living on delicacies and rich food. They focused entirely on themselves and the material world, considered divine things worthless, and lacked faith and charity. After death they are at first brought into the same kind of life they had in the world. There is a place out in front, to the left, and down a little, which offers unending fun, games, dancing, feasting, and conversation. This is where they go, and while there they are completely unaware that they are not in the world.

But the scene changes. In a little while they descend into a hell below the buttocks, a hell of mere excrement. The kind of pleasure just described, which belongs strictly to the body, turns into excrement in the other life. I have seen people there carting dung and complaining bitterly.

944

There are some women who have risen from a sordid and lowly condition to become rich. Vain as a result, they have dedicated themselves to pleasure and to a lazy, pampered life, reclining like queens on cushions, sitting at table to feast, and caring for nothing. When they come together in the other life, they go at each other in a shocking fashion, punching, scratching, pulling each other’s hair, and turning into furies.

945

This is not the case, however, with women who have been born into the creature comforts and pleasures of life and have been brought up to these advantages since infancy—queens, for instance, and other nobility, and the rich too. Although they live a life of sensual gratification, luxury, and grandeur, as long as they also live one of faith in the Lord and charity toward their neighbor they are among the happy in the next life.

To forswear life’s pleasures, power, and wealth in order to earn heaven through one’s suffering is wrong. What is meant in the Word is to think of pleasures, power, and wealth as nothing compared to the Lord, and the life of the world as nothing compared to the life of heaven [Matthew 19:21–24; Mark 10:21–25; Luke 18:22–25].

946

I talked with some spirits about the prospect that few will believe all these things can happen in the other world. People have no conception of life after death, except for a vague, general notion, which is no conception at all, and they harden themselves in this notion by the fact that they cannot see a soul or spirit with their eyes. Furthermore, although scholars affirm that the soul or spirit exists, they get bogged down in inventing technical terms that dim—no, extinguish—any understanding of the subject. Because of this, and because they focus on themselves and worldly advantages and rarely on the common good or heaven, scholars have even less belief than sense-oriented people do.

The spirits I was talking to were amazed that humankind could be this way despite knowing that nature itself, in each of its kingdoms, provides so many varied wonders of which people are unaware. Take just the human inner ear, for example; a whole book could be filled with astounding and unheard-of facts about it, and everyone trusts those facts. But say anything about the spiritual world, which gives rise to each and every detail of nature’s kingdoms, and hardly anyone believes it. The reason, as noted, is people’s confirmed prejudice that the spiritual world is nothing because they do not see it.

Biographical Note

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) was born Emanuel Swedberg (or Svedberg) in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 29, 1688 (Julian calendar). He was the third of the nine children of Jesper Swedberg (1653–1735) and Sara Behm (1666–1696). At the age of eight he lost his mother. After the death of his only older brother ten days later, he became the oldest living son. In 1697 his father married Sara Bergia (1666–1720), who developed great affection for Emanuel and left him a significant inheritance. His father, a Lutheran clergyman, later became a celebrated and controversial bishop, whose diocese included the Swedish churches in Pennsylvania and in London, England.

After studying at the University of Uppsala (1699–1709), Emanuel journeyed to England, Holland, France, and Germany (1710–1715) to study and work with leading scientists in western Europe. Upon his return he apprenticed as an engineer under the brilliant Swedish inventor Christopher Polhem (1661–1751). He gained favor with Sweden’s King Charles XII (1682–1718), who gave him a salaried position as an overseer of Sweden’s mining industry (1716–1747). Although he was engaged, he never married.

After the death of Charles XII, Emanuel was ennobled by Queen Ulrika Eleonora (1688–1741), and his last name was changed to Swedenborg (or Svedenborg). This change in status gave him a seat in the Swedish House of Nobles, where he remained an active participant in the Swedish government throughout his life.

A member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, he devoted himself to studies that culminated in a number of publications, most notably a comprehensive three-volume work on natural philosophy and metallurgy (1734) that brought him recognition across Europe as a scientist. After 1734 he redirected his research and publishing to a study of anatomy in search of the interface between the soul and body, making several significant discoveries in physiology.

From 1743 to 1745 he entered a transitional phase that resulted in a shift of his main focus from science to theology. Throughout the rest of his life he maintained that this shift was brought about by Jesus Christ, who appeared to him, called him to a new mission, and opened his perception to a permanent dual consciousness of this life and the life after death.

He devoted the last decades of his life to studying Scripture and publishing eighteen theological titles that draw on the Bible, reasoning, and his own spiritual experiences. These works present a Christian theology with unique perspectives on the nature of God, the spiritual world, the Bible, the human mind, and the path to salvation.

Swedenborg died in London on March 29, 1772, at the age of eighty-four.

Table of Contents

Translator’s Preface

Works Cited in the Translator’s Preface

Selected List of Editions of Secrets of Heaven

Conventions Used in This Work

[Author’s Table of Contents]

Genesis Chapter 1

§§1–5 / [The Essential Nature of the Word]

Text of Genesis Chapter 1

§§6–13 / Summary of Genesis 1

§§14–63 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 1

§§64–66 / [Content and Mode in the Word]

Genesis Chapter 2

§§67–72 / [Secrets of the Other Life]

Text of Genesis Chapter 2:1–17

§§73–80 / Summary of Genesis 2:1–17

§§81–130 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 2:1–17

Text of Genesis Chapter 2:18–25

§§131–136 / Summary of Genesis 2:18–25

§§137–165 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 2:18–25

§§166–167 / [Representations of Inner Meaning]

§§168–181 / Our Resurrection from Death and Entry into Eternal Life

Genesis Chapter 3

§§182–189 / Our Entry, Once Revived, into Eternal Life (Continued)

Text of Genesis Chapter 3:1–13

§§190–193 / Summary of Genesis 3:1–13

§§194–233 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 3:1–13

Text of Genesis Chapter 3:14–19

§§234–240 / Summary of Genesis 3:14–19

§§241–279 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 3:14–19

Text of Genesis Chapter 3:20–24

§§280–285 / Summary of Genesis 3:20–24

§§286–313 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 3:20–24

§§314–319 / Our Entry into Eternal Life (Continued)

Genesis Chapter 4

§§320–323 / What the Life of the Soul or Spirit Is Like

Text of Genesis Chapter 4

§§324–336 / Summary of Genesis 4

§§337–442 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 4

§§443–448 / Several Examples from Spirits of Opinions They Adopted during Their Physical Lives Concerning the Soul or Spirit

Genesis Chapter 5

§§449–459 / Heaven and Heavenly Joy

Text of Genesis Chapter 5

§§460–467 / Summary of Genesis 5

§§468–536 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 5

§§537–546 / Heaven and Heavenly Joy (Continued)

Genesis Chapter 6

§§547–553 / Heaven and Heavenly Joy [Continued]

Text of Genesis Chapter 6:1–8

§§554–559 / Summary of Genesis 6:1–8

§§560–598 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 6:1–8

Text of Genesis Chapter 6:9–22

§§599–604 / Summary of Genesis 6:9–22

§§605–683 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 6:9–22

§§684–691 / The Communities That Make Up Heaven

Genesis Chapter 7

§§692–700 / Hell

Text of Genesis Chapter 7

§§701–704 / Summary of Genesis 7

§§705–813 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 7

§§814–823 / The Hells (Continued): The Hells of Those Who Spent Their Lives in Hatred, Revenge, and Cruelty

Genesis Chapter 8

§§824–831 / The Hells (Continued): The Hells of Those Who Spent Their Lives in Adultery and Lechery; in Addition, the Hells of Deceivers and Witches

Text of Genesis Chapter 8

§§832–837 / Summary of Genesis 8

§§838–937 / Inner Meaning of Genesis 8

§§938–946 / The Hells (Continued): Misers’ Hells, the Foul Jerusalem and Outlaws in the Wilderness, and the Feces-Laden Hells of Those Who Have Pursued Sensual Pleasure Alone

Biographical Note