The 3rd Day: Genesis 1:9-13

9. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together in one place, and let the dry (land) appear; and it was so.

10. And God called the dry (land) earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He seas; and God saw that it was good.

11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the tender herb, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so.

12. And the earth brought forth the tender herb, the herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree bearing fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

13. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Summary

The third state is that of repentance, in which the man, from his internal man, speaks piously and devoutly, and brings forth goods, like works of charity, but which nevertheless are inanimate, because he thinks they are from himself. These goods are called the "tender grass," and also the "herb yielding seed," and afterwards the "tree bearing fruit."

Details from Emanuel Swedenborg: Verses 9-13,

from Thomas King,

from Theodore Pitcairn

from illustration by David Chambers,

from Lee Woofenden:

After we realize that there are higher, spiritual truths, this is when our mind begins to grow and blossom spiritually. On the third day, God separates the waters (the ones below the expanse) from the land and lets the dry land appear. This is when the plants can first begin to grow. These are the growing spiritual awareness in our mind: first the tender herb, the grass--at first we have a very sketchy idea of what this spiritual life is all about. But soon there are the shrubs, and then there are the trees.

The trees are fixed principles of living; those principles that we live by, such as that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Trees are the idea that we should always guide our life by a principle like that: that we should love our neighbor just as we love ourselves. That whatever we would have our neighbor--other people--do to us, we should do to them. These are fixed principles of spiritual living that grow up as strong trees, which we can then be sheltered by and be guided by as we live our life. So now we are beginning to develop a real understanding of what it means to live in a spiritual way, and not just in a material way. "And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day."

All of this, as I said, is more or less the development of our mind. We're realizing that there is a higher life. We're distinguishing between the spiritual truths and the material truths. We're beginning to develop those principles of spiritual living--and we are applying them. On the third day, there are fruits that come from the trees, and the fruits are the good deeds that we do for others.

from Lee Woofenden

Video: "Practicing Peace" Day Three: Plants

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