Swedenborg Arcana Caelestia Vol. I (1750)

25. To "expand the earth" and "extend the heavens" is a common expression among the prophets when they speak of the regeneration of man. For example, in Isaiah: "Thus says Jehovah, your Redeemer, and your Former from the womb: I, Jehovah, make all things, extending the heavens alone, and expanding the earth by Myself" (44:24). Likewise, when it is spoken openly of the coming of the Lord: "He does not break the bruised reed, and He does not extinguish the smoking flax; He brings forth judgment to truth." This means He does not break false beliefs, nor extinguish desires, but turns them toward truth and good. Thus it follows: "God Jehovah creates the heavens, and extends them; He expands the earth and its productions, gives soul to the people upon it, and spirit to those who walk in it" (42:3, 4, 5). This occurs in several other places as well.

26. Vers. 8. And it was evening, and it was morning, the second day: Regarding what "evening," "morning," and "day" signify, see the previous notes on verse 5.

27. Vers. 9. And God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. When a person learns that there is both an internal and an external man, and that truths and goods flow from the Lord into the external man by way of the internal—even if it does not appear that way—then those truths, or knowledges of truth and good, are stored up in his memory and classified as "scientifics." Scientifics: facts or information gathered in the external memory. Indeed, whatever is insinuated into the memory of the external man, whether it be natural, spiritual, or celestial, remains there as a scientific, and is thence brought forth by the Lord. These knowledges are the waters gathered into one place, and they are called "seas." The external man himself is called the "dry land," and soon after, "earth," according to what follows.

28. Vers. 10. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas; and God saw that it was good. That "waters" signify knowledges and scientifics is very common in the Word, and therefore the "seas" represent the collection of them. As in Isaiah: "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea" (11:9). And in the same prophet, when dealing with a lack of knowledges and scientifics: "The waters shall fail from the sea, the river shall be dried up and parched, and the streams shall recede" (19:5, 6). In Haggai, concerning the new Church: "I am shaking the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory" (2:6, 7). And concerning the man being regenerated, in Zechariah: "There shall be one day, which is known to Jehovah; it shall not be day or night; and it shall be that at the time of evening there shall be light. And it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea" (14:7, 8). Through David, where a devastated man who is to be regenerated and will worship the Lord is described: "Jehovah does not despise His prisoners; the heavens and the earth shall praise Him, the seas and everything that creeps in them" (Psalm 69:34). That "earth" signifies the receptacle is found in Zechariah: "Jehovah, who extends the heavens, and founds the earth, and forms the spirit of man in the midst of it" (12:1).

29. Vers. 11, 12. And God said, "Let the earth bring forth tender grass, the grass yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit, according to its kind,"