Bible

 

Genesis 6

Studie

   

1 And it was, that man began to multiply himself upon the faces of the ground, and daughters were born to them.

2 And the sons of God saw the daughters of man that they were good; and they took to themselves wives of all that they chose.

3 And Jehovah said, My spirit shall not contend with man to eternity, because he is flesh; and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

4 The Nephilim were in the land in those days; and even more after the sons of God came·​·in to the daughters of man, and they gave·​·birth for them; they are the mighty men, who from an age were men of renown*.

5 And Jehovah saw that the evil of man was multiplied on the earth, and that all that is formed by the thoughts of his heart is only evil all the day.

6 And Jehovah repented that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart.

7 And Jehovah said, I will wipe·​·away man, whom I have created, from upon the faces of the ground, from man to beast, to creeping thing, and to the fowl of the heavens; for I repent that I have made them.

8 But Noaḥ found grace in the eyes of Jehovah.

9 These are the births of Noaḥ; Noaḥ was a man just and perfect in his generations; Noaḥ walked with God.

10 And Noaḥ begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 And the earth was corrupt before God; and the earth was·​·filled with violence.

12 And God saw the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth.

13 And God said to Noaḥ, The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence from their faces, and behold I am destroying them with the earth.

14 Make for thee an ark of gopher wood; with rooms* thou shalt make the ark, and shalt tar* it inside and outside with tar.

15 And this is how thou shalt make it: three hundred cubits the length of the ark, fifty cubits its breadth, and thirty cubits its height.

16 A window* thou shalt make to the ark, and to a cubit thou shalt complete it from above; and the entrance of the ark thou shalt set in its side; with lowest, second, and third stories thou shalt make it.

17 And I, behold I am bringing the flood of waters on the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the spirit of lives from under the heavens; everything that is in the earth shall expire.

18 And I will raise·​·up My covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and the wives of thy sons, with thee.

19 And from all that lives from all flesh, twos from all, thou shalt bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; male and female they shall be.

20 Of the fowl after its kind, and of the beast after its kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of all shall come to thee, to cause them to live.

21 And take thou to thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee, and it shall be for food for thee and for them.

22 And Noaḥ did according·​·to all that God commanded him; so did he.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

Komentář

 

Two

  

The number "two" has two different meanings in the Bible. In most cases "two" indicates a joining together or unification. This is easy to see if we consider the conflicts we tend to have between our "hearts" and our "heads" -- between what we want and what we know. Our "hearts" tell us that we want pie with ice cream for dinner; our "heads" tell us we should have grilled chicken and salad. If we can bring those two together and actually want what's good for us, we'll be pretty happy. We're built that way -- with our emotions balanced against our intellect -- because the Lord is built that way. His essence is love itself, or Divine Love, the source of all caring, emotion and energy. It is expressed as Divine Wisdom, which gives form to that love and puts it to work, and is the source of all knowledge and reasoning. In His case the two aspects are always in conjunction, always in harmony. It's easy also to see how that duality is reflected throughout creation: plants and animals, food and drink, silver and gold. Most importantly, it's reflected in the two genders, with women representing love and men representing wisdom. That's the underlying reason why conjunction in marriage is such a holy thing. So when "two" is used in the Bible to indicate some sort of pairing or unity, it means a joining together. In rare cases, however, "two" is used more purely as a number. In these cases it stands for a profane or unholy state that comes before a holy one. This is because "three" represents a state of holiness and completion (Jesus, for instance, rose from the tomb on the third day), and "two" represents the state just before it.