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Genesis 9

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1 And God blessed Noaḥ and his sons, and said to them, Be·​·fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth.

2 And let the fear of you and the terror* of you be on every animal of the earth, and on every fowl of the heavens; to everything that the ground makes to creep forth, and to all the fish of the sea, into your hand let them be given.

3 Every creeping thing that lives shall be for you for food; as the green herb have I given it all to you.

4 Only the flesh with its soul, its blood, you shall not eat.

5 And surely your blood I will require of your souls; from the hand of every wild·​·animal I will require it; and from the hand of man, from the hand of a man his brother, I will require the soul of man.

6 Whoever sheds man’s blood in man*, his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God made He man.

7 And you, be· ye ·fruitful, and multiply; crawl forth on the earth, and multiply in it.

8 And God said to Noaḥ, and to his sons with him, saying,

9 And I, behold, I raise·​·up My covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10 and with every living soul that is with you, even to the fowl, to the beast, and to every wild·​·animal of the land with you; of all that go·​·out of the ark, as·​·to every wild·​·animal of the land.

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

12 And God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I give between Me and you and every living soul that is with you, for the generations of an age;

13 I have put My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

14 And it shall be, in clouding Myself with a cloud on 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 soul among all flesh; and the waters shall no more be for a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will see it, to remember the eternal covenant between God and every living soul among all flesh that is upon the earth.

17 And God said to Noaḥ, This is the sign of the covenant which I have raised·​·up between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.

18 And the sons of Noaḥ, who went·​·out from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham, he is the father of Canaan.

19 These three were the sons of Noaḥ; and from these was scattered all the earth.

20 And Noaḥ began to be a man of the ground, and he planted a vineyard;

21 and he drank from the wine and was·​·drunken; and he was uncovered in the midst of his tent.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.

23 And Shem and Japheth took the raiment, and set it upon the shoulders of the two of them, and walked backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not the nakedness of their father.

24 And Noaḥ awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him.

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.

26 And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem; and Canaan shall be a servant to him.

27 May God enlarge Japheth, and he shall reside in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be a servant to him.

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

29 And all the days of Noaḥ were nine hundred years and fifty years; and he died.

   


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

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Arcana Coelestia # 737

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737. 'Noah was a son of six hundred years' means his initial state of temptation. This is clear from the fact from here down to Eber in Chapter 11 nothing else is meant by numbers, years of age, or names than real things, as was the case also with the ages and names of all those mentioned in Chapter 5. Here 'six hundred years' means the initial state of temptation. This becomes clear from its prime factors which are ten and six multiplied again by ten. When the same factors are involved it makes no difference whether the number arrived at is large or small. As for ten, this has been shown already at 6:3 to mean remnants, while the meaning of six here as labour and conflict is clear from places throughout the Word. For the situation is this: What has gone before dealt with man's preparation for temptation, that is to say, he was supplied by the Lord with truths of the understanding and with goods of the will. These truths and goods are remnants, but they are not brought forth so as to be acknowledged until man is being regenerated. In the case of those who are being regenerated by means of temptations the remnants existing with any man are for the angels present with him. From these remnants they draw out those things with which they protect him against the evil spirits who activate falsities with him and in this way attack him. It is because remnants are meant by 'ten' and conflict by 'six' that six hundred years are spoken of, a number in which ten and six are the prime factors and which means a state of temptation.

[2] As regards conflict being the particular meaning of 'six', this is clear from Genesis 1, which describes the six days of man's regeneration prior to his becoming celestial. During those six days there was constant conflict, but on the seventh day came rest. Consequently there are six days of labour, and the seventh is the sabbath, a word which means rest. This also is why a Hebrew slave was to serve for six years and in the seventh was to go free, Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12; Jeremiah 34:14, and why for six years they were to sow the land and gather in the produce, but in the seventh they were to leave it alone, Exodus 23:10-12. The same applied to a vineyard. It is also the reason why in the seventh year the land was to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to Jehovah, Leviticus 25:3-4. Because 'six' means labour and conflict it also means the dispersion of falsity, as in Ezekiel,

Behold, six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which looks towards the north, every man with a weapon of dispersion in his hand. Ezekiel 9:2.

And in the same prophet, against Gog,

I will cause you to turn about, and I will split you into six, and cause you to come up from the uttermost parts of the north. Ezekiel 39:2.

Here 'six' and 'splitting into six' stand for dispersion, 'the north' for falsities, and 'Gog' for people who seize on doctrinal matters based on things of an external nature with which they destroy internal worship. From Job,

He will deliver you in six troubles, and in a seventh no evil will touch you. Job 5:19.

This stands for the conflict that constitutes temptations.

[3] 'Six' occurs in other parts of the Word where it does not mean labour, conflict, or the dispersion of falsity, but the holiness of faith. In these instances it is related to twelve, which means faith and all things of faith in their entirety, and to three which means that which is holy. Consequently there is also a genuine derivative meaning to the number six, as in Ezekiel 40:5, where the man's measuring rod with which he measured the holy city of Israel was six cubits long; and in other places. The reason for this derivative is that in the conflict of temptation the holiness of faith is present, and also that six days of labour and conflict look forward to the holy seventh day.

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