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Genesis 6

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1 And it cometh to pass that mankind have begun to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters have been born to them,

2 and sons of God see the daughters of men that they [are] fair, and they take to themselves women of all whom they have chosen.

3 And Jehovah saith, `My Spirit doth not strive in man -- to the age; in their erring they [are] flesh:' and his days have been an hundred and twenty years.

4 The fallen ones were in the earth in those days, and even afterwards when sons of God come in unto daughters of men, and they have borne to them -- they [are] the heroes, who, from of old, [are] the men of name.

5 And Jehovah seeth that abundant [is] the wickedness of man in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil all the day;

6 and Jehovah repenteth that He hath made man in the earth, and He grieveth Himself -- unto His heart.

7 And Jehovah saith, `I wipe away man whom I have prepared from off the face of the ground, from man unto beast, unto creeping thing, and unto fowl of the heavens, for I have repented that I have made them.'

8 And Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah.

9 These [are] births of Noah: Noah [is] a righteous man; perfect he hath been among his generations; with God hath Noah walked habitually.

10 And Noah begetteth three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 And the earth is corrupt before God, and the earth is filled [with] violence.

12 And God seeth the earth, and lo, it hath been corrupted, for all flesh hath corrupted its way on the earth.

13 And God said to Noah, `An end of all flesh hath come before Me, for the earth hath been full of violence from their presence; and lo, I am destroying them with the earth.

14 `Make for thyself an ark of gopher-wood; rooms dost thou make with the ark, and thou hast covered it within and without with cypress;

15 and this [is] that which thou dost with it: three hundred cubits [is] the length of the ark, fifty cubits its breadth, and thirty cubits its height;

16 a window dost thou make for the ark, and unto a cubit thou dost restrain it from above; and the opening of the ark thou dost put in its side, -- lower, second, and third [stories] dost thou make it.

17 `And I, lo, I am bringing in the deluge of waters on the earth to destroy all flesh, in which [is] a living spirit, from under the heavens; all that [is] in the earth doth expire.

18 `And I have established My covenant with thee, and thou hast come in unto the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy son's wives with thee;

19 and of all that liveth, of all flesh, two of every [sort] thou dost bring in unto the ark, to keep alive with thee; male and female are they.

20 Of the fowl after its kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every [sort] they come in unto thee, to keep alive.

21 `And thou, take to thyself of all food that is eaten; and thou hast gathered unto thyself, and it hath been to thee and to them for food.'

22 And Noah doth according to all that God hath commanded him; so hath he done.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 587

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587. That 'Jehovah repented that He had made man on the earth' means mercy, and that 'He was grieved in heart' has a similar meaning, is clear from the consideration that Jehovah foresees from eternity every single thing and therefore never repents. When He made man, that is, created him anew and perfected him to the point of his becoming celestial, He also foresaw that in the process of time he would become the kind of person described here. And because He foresaw the kind of person he would become, He could not repent. This is quite clear in Samuel,

Samuel said, The Invincible One of Israel does not lie, and He will not repent, for He is not a man (homo) that He should repent. 1 Samuel 15:29.

And in Moses,

God is not a man (vir), that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not act? Or has He spoken, and will He not carry it out? Numbers 23:19.

'Repenting' however means having mercy.

[2] Jehovah's, that is, the Lord's mercy includes every single thing which the Lord does towards the human race, whose condition is such that He has mercy on it, on each according to his state. He has mercy therefore on the state of the person He allows to be punished, as He does on that of the person on whom He confers the enjoyment of good. Being punished is a manifestation of mercy because it turns all evil that is being punished towards good. And conferring the enjoyment of good is a manifestation of mercy too, because nobody merits anything good at all. In fact the whole human race is evil, with everyone, if left to himself, rushing into hell. Consequently it is by mercy that anyone is rescued from that place, and by nothing other than mercy, since the Lord does not need anyone to help Him. The word mercy (misericordia) is used therefore because mercy rescues a person from misery (miseriae) and from hell, and so is used with respect to the human race whose condition is such, and it is the product of love towards all because all are such.

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