535. The Church called Noah must not be reckoned among the Churches that came before the Flood. This becomes clear from verse 29, which says that that Church 'would comfort them from their work and from the toil of their hands that came from the ground which Jehovah had cursed'. The comfort was that it would live on and endure. Noah and his sons however will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on.

Space and time in the physical world correspond to states of life in the spiritual world. When the Bible talks about someone being “old,” the internal meaning has to do with the progression of spiritual life. And just as elderly people in the physical world tend to be pretty settled in their ideas about life and their place in the scheme of things, the spiritual state described by “old” is one of confirmation and completion -- a state in which a person's ideas have fully crystallized, they are confirmed in who they are and what they believe and think, and they are ready to move on to a new state. As with all things, these representations can be positive or negative -- people can be confirmed in evil loves and the lies that support them just as well as they can be confirmed in love of the Lord or love of the neighbor and the truths that spring from them.