"Seek ye first the kingdom of the heavens and its righteousness, and all these things (which are recounted), shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6:33)

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Comparison of the kingdom of God:

1. With the human body from inmosts to outmosts; and therefore concerning that society wherein the Messiah is the Soul, and which shall form one body as one man.

2. With the kindred in the house of Abraham and Nahor.

3. With the land of Canaan and its bordering countries.

4. With the Paradise of Eden.

5. With a marriage and a feast.

[For the above comparisons, see:

(1) n. The Word Explained 596 seq.

(2) n. 567-568.

(3) n. 477 seq.

(4) n. 498 seq.,

(5) n. 586.]

Men are men only so far as they walk in the way of truth. But so far as they turn aside therefrom, they approach to the nature of a beast.

13. No earthly plant having yet arisen upon the earth, nor any herb (since Jova God had not sent rain upon the earth, neither was there a man to till the ground), there went up a mist front the earth which watered its whole soil. (5, 6)

In the beginning of creation, after a crust had been superinduced upon the earth, there must necessarily have been a continual mist which watered the surface of the earth; for the earth, like a great body, was intersected not only with watery veins but also with streams, so that the newborn atmosphere itself was ever humid by reason of the vapors — a condition which was necessarily requisite for the rising up of herbs, shrubs, and trees. From these words it may also be clear that the production of terrestrial things, as, in the present case, the production of herbs and plants, was not an immediate process but mediate; that is to say, it was effected by means of a mist or humidity in place of rain, which latter could not as yet have been gathered into clouds or have existed as such. That at this time the earth was encompassed by a kind of vapory bath as it were, to the production of which perpetual spring conspired, has been shown elsewhere. ¹

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