In Genesis 7:1-24, the literal text is the heart of the "Noah and the Ark" story. Noah and his family go into the ark, and bring animals with them, two by two. A great flood comes, and the world is drowned, but the ark is safe, floating on the flood.

In the internal sense, the flood signifies the destruction of the "Most Ancient Church" - a stage in human development that was - at first - characterised by a simple monotheism, and an innocence, and a high degree of spiritual awareness.

Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, symbolise that initial human spiritual state, before "the fall", when they eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then, the story of Cain and Abel, and the listing of the descendants of these people, serve to trace - in the inner meaning - the gradual but pervasive corruption of the spirituality of that church.

In Genesis 7, a flood of water - representing a tide of evil and falsity - destroys that corrupted church. The people of that church effectively destroy their own spiritual lives.

In the Noah story, the Lord preserves the remnants of good and truth that still exist (represented by Noah, his family, and the selected animals), to provide for the beginning of a new church. That's what is meant by the ark and its preservation.

832. Genesis 8

1. And God remembered Noah, and every wild animal, and every beast that was with him in the ark. And God made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

2. And the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were stopped up, and the rain from heaven was restrained.

3. And the waters receded from off the earth, going back and forth, and the waters abated at the end of a hundred and fifty days.

4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

5. And the waters were going down and abating until the tenth month; and in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.

6. And it happened at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.

7. And he sent out a raven, and it went out going back and forth until the waters dried up from over the earth.

8. And he sent out a dove from himself to see whether the waters had abated from over the face ¹ of the ground.

9. And the dove found no rest for the sole of its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were over the face ¹ of the whole earth. And he put out his hand, and took hold of it, and brought it in to himself into the ark.

10. And he waited yet another seven days, and then proceeded to send out the dove from the ark.

11. And the dove came back to him at evening time; and behold, in its mouth an olive leaf plucked off. And Noah knew that the waters had abated from over the earth.

12. And he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not come back to him any more.

13. And it happened in the six hundred and first year, at the beginning, on the first of the month, that the waters dried up from over the earth, and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and saw out, and behold, the face ¹ of the ground was dry.

14. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

15. And God spoke to Noah, saying,

16. Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons wives with you.

17. Every wild animal of all flesh that is with you - birds, and beasts, and every creeping thing that creeps over the earth - bring out with you, and let them spread out into the earth and be fruitful, and multiply over the earth.

18. And Noah went out, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him.

19. Every wild animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything creeping over the earth - according to their families they went out of the ark.

20. And Noah built an altar to Jehovah, and took from every clean beast, and from every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

21. And Jehovah smelled the odour of rest, and Jehovah said in His heart, I will curse the ground no more on account of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his childhood. And I will no more strike every living thing, as I have done.

22. During all the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.

CONTENTS

Next in the line of subjects concerns the member of the new Church who is called Noah, and in fact his state following temptation up to the point of his regeneration, and beyond.

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