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Genesis 9

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1 And God gave his blessing to Noah and his sons, and said, Be fertile, and have increase, and make the earth full.

2 And the fear of you will be strong in every beast of the earth and every bird of the air; everything which goes on the land, and all the fishes of the sea, are given into your hands.

3 Every living and moving thing will be food for you; I give them all to you as before I gave you all green things.

4 But flesh with the life-blood in it you may not take for food.

5 And for your blood, which is your life, will I take payment; from every beast I will take it, and from every man will I take payment for the blood of his brother-man.

6 Whoever takes a man's life, by man will his life be taken; because God made man in his image.

7 And now, be fertile and have increase; have offspring on the earth and become great in number.

8 And God said to Noah and to his sons,

9 Truly, I will make my agreement with you and with your seed after you,

10 And with every living thing with you, all birds and cattle and every beast of the earth which comes out of the ark with you.

11 And I will make my agreement with you; never again will all flesh be cut off by the waters; never again will the waters come over all the earth for its destruction.

12 And God said, This is the sign of the agreement which I make between me and you and every living thing with you, for all future generations:

13 I will put my bow in the cloud and it will be for a sign of the agreement between me and the earth.

14 And whenever I make a cloud come over the earth, the bow will be seen in the cloud,

15 And I will keep in mind the agreement between me and you and every living thing; and never again will there be a great flow of waters causing destruction to all flesh.

16 And the bow will be in the cloud, and looking on it, I will keep in mind the eternal agreement between God and every living thing on the earth.

17 And God said to Noah, This is the sign of the agreement which I have made between me and all flesh on the earth.

18 And the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan.

19 These three were the sons of Noah and from them all the earth was peopled.

20 In those days Noah became a farmer, and he made a vine-garden.

21 And he took of the wine of it and was overcome by drink; and he was uncovered in his tent.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father unclothed, and gave news of it to his two brothers outside.

23 And Shem and Japheth took a robe, and putting it on their backs went in with their faces turned away, and put it over their father so that they might not see him unclothed.

24 And, awaking from his wine, Noah saw what his youngest son had done to him, and he said,

25 Cursed be Canaan; let him be a servant of servants to his brothers.

26 And he said, Praise to the Lord, the God of Shem; let Canaan be his servant.

27 May God make Japheth great, and let his living-place be in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.

28 And Noah went on living three hundred and fifty years after the great flow of waters;

29 all the years of his life were nine hundred and fifty: and he came to his end.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 895

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895. 'The waters dried up from over the earth' means that falsities were not at that time apparent. This is clear from what has been stated. In particular these words mean that falsities had been separated from things of the will belonging to the member of this Church. The statement 'the waters dried up from over the earth' occurs at this point because here 'earth' means the person's will, which is nothing but evil desire. As stated already, the ground is situated in the understanding part of man's mind, in which part truths are sown. No sowing ever takes place in the will part, which in the spiritual man has been separated from the understanding part. This is why in the last part of this verse it is said that 'the face 1 of the ground was dry'. With the member of the Most Ancient Church there was ground in the will part of his mind, where the Lord implanted goods. It was from goods therefore that he was able to know and perceive truth, that is, it was from love that he was able to possess faith. If the same thing were to happen today however, a person would inevitably and eternally perish, for his will is utterly corrupted. What implantation in the will part entails and what in the understanding part becomes clear from the consideration that the member of the Most Ancient Church had in fact enjoyed revelations through which from early childhood onwards he was led into a perception of goods and truths. But since they used to be implanted in the will part of his mind he perceived without any further instruction the countless aspects of any one general matter. He knew from the Lord the details and the finer points which nowadays men must learn before knowing about them. And even then they can know scarcely one thousandth of them. For the member of the spiritual Church knows nothing unless he acquires it by learning; and what he gets to know in this fashion he retains and believes to be true. Indeed if he learns something false and this is impressed on him as though it were true, he believes that as well, for he has no other perception than that a thing is true because he has in that way been persuaded of it. People who possess conscience derive from conscience a certain dictate. Yet with them a thing is true only because they have heard and learned that it is. This is what constitutes their conscience, as becomes clear from people who have a conscience of what is false.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, the faces

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