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Genesis 9

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1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; With all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered.

3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; As the green herb have I given you all.

4 But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

5 And surely your blood, [the blood] of your lives, will I require; At the hand of every beast will I require it. And at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man.

6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: For in the image of God made he man.

7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you. Of all that go out of the ark, even every beast of the earth.

11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud,

15 and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.

19 These three were the sons of Noah: and of these was the whole earth overspread.

20 And Noah began to be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard:

21 and he drank of the wine, and was drunken. And he was uncovered within his tent.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him.

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

26 And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.

27 God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.

28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.

29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: And he died.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1103

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1103. 'Canaan will be his slave' means that people who make worship consist solely in external things are able to perform inferior services. This is clear from what has been stated at verses 25-26, about Canaan being a slave. People such as these are not in fact 'slaves' in the Lord's Church on earth, for there are many of them who hold primary positions and who are over all others. They do nothing from charity and conscience, and yet very strictly they keep up the external things of the Church, and even condemn those who do not do the same. But because no charity and no conscience exist with them, and they make worship consist solely in external things devoid of internal, such persons are 'slaves' in the Lord's kingdom, that is, in the next life; for they are among the unhappy. The types of service they perform there are inferior, which, being many, cannot be explained satisfactorily here, but will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on.

[2] Indeed everyone, no matter who, must in the next life perform a use; for the sole purpose for which a person is born is that he may perform a use to the community he is in, and to his neighbour, while he lives in the world, and in the next life may perform a use in accord with the Lord's gracious purposes. It is the same with the human body: everything there must perform a use - even the things which in themselves seem to be good for nothing, such as fluids which in themselves are waste matter, for example the many secretions of saliva, bile, and so on which not only have to serve food passing through but also to separate waste matters and clear the intestines. The same applies to the use performed by manure and dung in fields and vineyards; and so on.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.