Arcana Coelestia volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 547Praise Jehovah ye wild animal and every beast, creeping thing andwinged fowl (Ps. 148:10),with a similar meaning.[6] That here by “creeping thing” nothing else is meant thangood affections from which are pleasures is evident also fromcreeping things being with this people unclean, as will be plainfrom what follows. Again:O Jehovah the earth is full of thy riches; this sea, great and wide,wherein are things creeping without number; these wait all upon thee,that thou mayest give them their food in due season; thou givest them,they gather; thou openest thy hand, they are satiated with good (Ps.104:24–28).Here in the internal sense by “seas” are signified spiritual things, by“things creeping,” all things that live therefrom; the enjoyment issignified by giving them food in due season, and by their beingsatiated with good. In Ezekiel:And it shall come to pass that every living soul that creepeth, inevery place whither the rivers come, shall live; and there shall be a verygreat multitude of fish, because these waters are come thither, and theyshall be healed, and everything shall live whithersoever the river cometh(Ezek. 47:9).Here are meant the waters of the new Jerusalem; these watersdenote spiritual things from a celestial origin; “the living soul thatcreepeth,” the affections of good, and the pleasures therefrom, bothof the body and of the senses; that these live from the “waters,” orfrom spiritual things from a celestial origin, is very evident.[7] That filthy pleasures too, which have their origin in what isman’s own, thus in the foul yearnings thereof, are also called“creeping things,” is evident in Ezekiel:So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping thing andof beast, the abomination, and all the idols of the house of Israel,portrayed upon the wall round about (Ezek. 8:10).