40. By the "creeping things which the waters bring forth" are signified the memory-knowledges [scientifica] which belong to the external man; by "birds" in general, rational and intellectual things, of which the latter belong to the internal man. That the "creeping things of the waters" or "fishes" signify memory-knowledges, is plain from Isaiah:
I came and there was no man; at My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness; their fish shall stink because there is no water and shall die for thirst; I clothe the heavens with blackness (Isa. 50:2-3).
[2] But it is still plainer from Ezekiel, where the Lord describes the new temple, or a new church in general, and the man of the church, or a regenerate person; for everyone who is regenerate is a temple of the Lord:
The Lord Jehovah said unto me, These waters that shall issue to the boundary toward the east, and shall come toward the sea, being led into the sea, and the waters shall be healed; and it shall come to pass that every living soul that shall creep forth, whithersoever the water of the rivers shall come, shall live, and there shall be exceeding much fish, because those waters shall come thither, and they shall heal, and everything shall live whither the river cometh; and it shall come to pass that fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi to En-eglaim, with the spreading of nets shall they be; their fish shall be according to its kind, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many (Ezek. 47:8-10).
"Fishers from En-gedi unto En-eglaim" with the "spreading of nets" signify those who shall instruct the natural man in the truths of faith.
[3] That "birds" signify things rational and intellectual, is evident from the Prophets; as in Isaiah:
Calling a bird from the east, the man of My counsel from a distant land (Isa. 46:11).
And in Jeremiah:
I beheld and lo there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled (Jer. 4:25).
In Ezekiel:
I will plant a shoot of a lofty cedar, and it shall lift up a branch, and shall bear fruit, and be a magnificent cedar; and under it shall dwell every fowl of every wing, in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell (Ezek. 17:22-23).
And in Hosea, speaking of a new church, or of a regenerate man:
And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the wild beast of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the moving thing of the ground (Hos. 2:18).
That "wild beast" does not signify wild beast, nor "bird" bird, must be evident to everyone, for the Lord is said to "make a new covenant" with them.