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Genesis 6

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1 And after a time, when men were increasing on the earth, and had daughters,

2 The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took wives for themselves from those who were pleasing to them.

3 And the Lord said, My spirit will not be in man for ever, for he is only flesh; so the days of his life will be a hundred and twenty years.

4 There were men of great strength and size on the earth in those days; and after that, when the sons of God had connection with the daughters of men, they gave birth to children: these were the great men of old days, the men of great name.

5 And the Lord saw that the sin of man was great on the earth, and that all the thoughts of his heart were evil.

6 And the Lord had sorrow because he had made man on the earth, and grief was in his heart.

7 And the Lord said, I will take away man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, even man and beast and that which goes on the earth and every bird of the air; for I have sorrow for having made them.

8 But Noah had grace in the eyes of God.

9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was an upright man and without sin in his generation: he went in the ways of God.

10 And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 And the earth was evil in God's eyes and full of violent ways.

12 And God, looking on the earth, saw that it was evil: for the way of all flesh had become evil on the earth.

13 And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come; the earth is full of their violent doings, and now I will put an end to them with the earth.

14 Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood with rooms in it, and make it safe from the water inside and out.

15 And this is the way you are to make it: it is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.

16 You are to put a window in the ark, a cubit from the roof, and a door in the side of it, and you are to make it with a lower and second and third floors.

17 For truly, I will send a great flow of waters over the earth, for the destruction from under the heaven of all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything on the earth will come to an end.

18 But with you I will make an agreement; and you will come into the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

19 And you will take with you into the ark two of every sort of living thing, and keep them safe with you; they will be male and female.

20 Two of every sort of bird and cattle and of every sort of living thing which goes on the earth will you take with you to keep them from destruction.

21 And make a store of every sort of food for yourself and them.

22 And all these things Noah did; as God said, so he did.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 585

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585. That by the evil of man being multiplied in the earth is signified that there began to be no will of good, is evident from what was said above, namely, that there was no longer any will, but only cupidity; and from the signification of “man in the earth.” In the literal sense the “earth” is where man is. In the internal sense it is where the love is, and as love is of the will, or of the cupidity, the earth is taken to mean the will itself of man. For man is man from willing, and not so much from knowing and understanding, because these flow out from his will; whatever does not flow out from his will he is willing neither to know nor understand; nay, even when he is speaking or doing something that he does not will, still there is something of the will remote from the speech or action that governs him. That the “land of Canaan” or the “holy land” denotes love, and consequently the will of the celestial man, might be confirmed by many passages from the Word; in like manner, that the lands of various nations denote their loves, which in general are the love of self and the love of the world; but as this subject so often recurs, it need not be dwelt upon here. Hence it appears that by “the evil of man on the earth” is signified his natural evil, which is of the will, and which is said to be “multiplied” because it was not so depraved in all but that they wished good for others, yet for the sake of themselves; but that the perversion became complete, is signified by the “imagination of the thoughts of the heart.”

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