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Genesis 11

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1 And the whole earth is of one pronunciation, and of the same words,

2 and it cometh to pass, in their journeying from the east, that they find a valley in the land of Shinar, and dwell there;

3 and they say each one to his neighbour, `Give help, let us make bricks, and burn [them] thoroughly:' and the brick is to them for stone, and the bitumen hath been to them for mortar.

4 And they say, `Give help, let us build for ourselves a city and tower, and its head in the heavens, and make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth.'

5 And Jehovah cometh down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men have builded;

6 and Jehovah saith, `Lo, the people [is] one, and one pronunciation [is] to them all, and this it hath dreamed of doing; and now, nothing is restrained from them of that which they have purposed to do.

7 Give help, let us go down, and mingle there their pronunciation, so that a man doth not understand the pronunciation of his companion.'

8 And Jehovah doth scatter them from thence over the face of all the earth, and they cease to build the city;

9 therefore hath [one] called its name Babel, for there hath Jehovah mingled the pronunciation of all the earth, and from thence hath Jehovah scattered them over the face of all the earth.

10 These [are] births of Shem: Shem [is] a son of an hundred years, and begetteth Arphaxad two years after the deluge.

11 And Shem liveth after his begetting Arphaxad five hundred years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

12 And Arphaxad hath lived five and thirty years, and begetteth Salah.

13 And Arphaxad liveth after his begetting Salah four hundred and three years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

14 And Salah hath lived thirty years, and begetteth Eber.

15 And Salah liveth after his begetting Eber four hundred and three years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

16 And Eber liveth four and thirty years, and begetteth Peleg.

17 And Eber liveth after his begetting Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

18 And Peleg liveth thirty years, and begetteth Reu.

19 And Peleg liveth after his begetting Reu two hundred and nine years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

20 And Reu liveth two and thirty years, and begetteth Serug.

21 And Reu liveth after his begetting Serug two hundred and seven years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

22 And Serug liveth thirty years, and begetteth Nahor.

23 And Serug liveth after his begetting Nahor two hundred years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

24 And Nahor liveth nine and twenty years, and begetteth Terah.

25 And Nahor liveth after his begetting Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

26 And Terah liveth seventy years, and begetteth Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

27 And these [are] births of Terah: Terah hath begotten Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran hath begotten Lot;

28 and Haran dieth in the presence of Terah his father, in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldees.

29 And Abram and Nahor take to themselves wives; the name of Abram's wife [is] Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife [is] Milcah, daughter of Haran, father of Milcah, and father of Iscah.

30 And Sarai is barren -- she hath no child.

31 And Terah taketh Abram his son, and Lot, son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, wife of Abram his son, and they go out with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go towards the land of Canaan; and they come unto Charan, and dwell there.

32 And the days of Terah are two hundred and five years, and Terah dieth in Charan.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1295

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1295. And they said a man to his fellow. That this signifies that it was begun, or that they had begun, follows from the connection. In this verse the third state of the church is treated of, when falsities had begun to reign; and in fact from cupidities. There are two beginnings of falsities, one from ignorance of truth, the other from cupidities. Falsity from ignorance of truth is not so pernicious as falsity from cupidities. For the falsity of ignorance arises either from one’s having been so instructed from childhood, or from having been diverted by various occupations so that one has not examined whether what professes to be true is really so, or from not having had much faculty of judging concerning what is true and what is false. The falsities from these sources do not inflict much harm, provided the man has not much confirmed and thus persuaded himself, being incited thereto by some cupidity so as to defend the falsities; for by doing this he would make the cloud of ignorance dense, and turn it into darkness so that he could not see the truth.

[2] But the falsity of cupidities exists when the origin of the falsity is the cupidity or love of self and of the world; as when one seizes upon some point of doctrine and professes it in order to captivate minds and lead them, and explains or perverts the doctrine in favor of self, and confirms it both by reasonings from memory-knowledges, and by the literal sense of the Word. The worship derived from this is profane, however holy it may outwardly appear; for inwardly it is not the worship of the Lord, but the worship of self. Nor does such a man acknowledge anything as true except insofar as he can explain it so as to favor himself. Such worship is that which is signified by “Babel.” But the case is different with those who have been born and brought up in such worship, and who do not know that it is false, and who live in charity. In their ignorance there is innocence, and in their worship there is good from charity. The profanity in worship is not predicated so much from the worship itself, as from the quality of the man who is in the worship.

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