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Et appropinquans ait : Numquid perdes justum cum impio ?
Arcana Coelestia # 2144
2144. 'In the oak-groves of Mamre' means the character of the perception. This is clear from the representation and meaning of 'oak-groves', and also from the representation and meaning of 'Mamre'. What oak-groves in general represented and meant has been shown in Volume One, in 1442, 1443, and what the oak-grove of Mamre specifically represented and meant, in 1616, namely perceptions, though of a human kind such as spring from factual knowledge and from the initial rational concepts derived from that knowledge.
[2] What perception is, is totally unknown at the present day, for nobody today possesses the kind of perception that the ancient and especially the most ancient people possessed. The latter knew from perception whether a thing was good and consequently whether it was true. There was an influx from the Lord by way of heaven into the rational part of their minds, and from that influx when they thought about anything holy, they perceived instantly whether a thing was so or was not so. Later on such perception with mankind perished and people began to entertain heavenly ideas no more but only worldly and bodily ones; and when this happened the place of such perception was taken by conscience (which also is a kind of perception), for acting contrary to conscience and according to conscience is nothing else than discerning from conscience whether a thing is so or not so, or whether it ought to be done.
[3] But perception that goes with conscience does not originate in inflowing good but in truth which from earliest childhood has been implanted in the rational part of the mind in accordance with the holiness of people's worship, and after that has been confirmed; for that truth alone is believed by them to be good. Consequently conscience is a kind of perception, but it has its origin in truth such as this; and when charity and innocence are introduced into it by the Lord, the good that goes with that conscience is then brought into being. These few considerations show what perception is. Yet between perception and conscience there is a wide difference. See what has been stated about perception in Volume One, in 104, 125, 371, 483, 495, 503, 521, 536, 597, 607, 784, 865, 895, 1121, 1616; about the perception spirits and angels have, in 202, 203, 1008, 1383, 1384, 1390-1392, 1394, 1397, 1504; and about the learned not knowing what perception is, in 1387.
[4] As regards the Lord when He lived in the world, all of His thought sprang from Divine perception since He alone was a Divine and Celestial Man. For He has been the only one in whom Jehovah Himself was present and from whom His perception came, also dealt with in Volume One, in 1616, 1791. His perceptions became more and more interior the closer He came to union with Jehovah. The nature of His perception at this time becomes clear from what has been stated in Volume One, in 1616, about the oak-groves of Mamre; and then the nature of it when He perceived the things contained in this chapter is described in what follows below.
Genesis 8
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God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.
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The deep's fountains and the sky's windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained.
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The waters receded from the earth continually. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters decreased.
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The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat's mountains.
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The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
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It happened at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,
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and he sent forth a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth.
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He sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground,
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but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him into the ship; for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship.
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He stayed yet another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ship.
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The dove came back to him at evening, and, behold, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth.
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He stayed yet another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she didn't return to him any more.
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It happened in the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dried.
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In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
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"Go out of the ship, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you.
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Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth."
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Noah went forth, with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives with him.
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Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.
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Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
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Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, because the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again strike everything living, as I have done.
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While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."
