3118. 'The man bowed, and bowed down to Jehovah' means gladness and joy. This is clear from the meaning of 'bowing' and of 'bowing down' as being glad and joyful. Bowing and bowing down are movements of the body that express humility, or humility in act, either in a state of grief or in a state of joy - in a state of grief when things do not turn out as one wishes, in a state of joy when they do turn out well, as here when Rebekah, according to the prayer already in the man's heart, gave him a drink from her pitcher, and also gave a drink to the camels. For bowing down can be a movement of the body expressing joy as well, see 2927, 2950. The reason why gladness is mentioned as well as joy is that 'gladness' in the Word has reference to truth, but 'joy' to good. Furthermore gladness belongs to the face whereas joy belongs to the heart; or what amounts to the same, gladness belongs to spiritual affection, or to truth, joy to celestial affection, or to good. Thus gladness occurs in a less degree than joy, as also does 'bowing' than 'bowing down'. This is also evident from the fact that the spiritual member of the Church merely bows before the Lord and calls upon grace, whereas the celestial member of the Church bows down before the Lord and pleads for mercy, 598, 981, 2423. Both are mentioned here on account of the marriage of truth and good existing in every individual part of the Word, 683, 793, 801, 2516, 2712.

793. From this point onwards to the end of the present chapter the subject is the people before the Flood who perished. This becomes clear from the details in the description given. People who possess the internal sense can recognize instantly, and indeed from any single word, what the subject is, better still from the combination of many. When the subject changes different words instantly appear, or else the same words combined differently. The reason is that some words are peculiar to spiritual matters, others peculiar to celestial; or what amounts to the same, some are peculiar to things of the understanding, others to those of the will. For example, 'desolation' is a word used of spiritual things, 'vastation' of celestial; 'city' is used of spiritual, 'mountain' of celestial; and so on. The same applies to combinations of words. And what is bound to amaze everybody, the difference in Hebrew is frequently just a matter of vocalization. In what belongs to the class of spiritual words the first three vowels [of the alphabet] are normally prominent, but in the case of what is celestial the last two. The fact that these verses contain a different subject is also discernible from the repetition discussed already. That is to say, the statement, 'And the waters grew stronger and stronger over the earth', is a repetition of what has already been stated in the previous verse. It is also discernible from everything that follows.