Bible

 

Genesis 9

Studie

   

1 And God blesseth Noah, and his sons, and saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth;

2 and your fear and your dread is on every beast of the earth, and on every fowl of the heavens, on all that creepeth on the ground, and on all fishes of the sea -- into your hand they have been given.

3 Every creeping thing that is alive, to you it is for food; as the green herb I have given to you the whole;

4 only flesh in its life -- its blood -- ye do not eat.

5 `And only your blood for your lives do I require; from the hand of every living thing I require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother I require the life of man;

6 whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man is his blood shed: for in the image of God hath He made man.

7 And ye, be fruitful and multiply, teem in the earth, and multiply in it.'

8 And God speaketh unto Noah, and unto his sons with him, saying,

9 `And I, lo, I am establishing My covenant with you, and with your seed after you,

10 and with every living creature which [is] with you, among fowl, among cattle, and among every beast of the earth with you, from all who are going out of the ark -- to every beast of the earth.

11 And I have established My covenant with you, and all flesh is not any more cut off by waters of a deluge, and there is not any more a deluge to destroy the earth.'

12 And God saith, `This is a token of the covenant which I am giving between Me and you, and every living creature that [is] with you, to generations age-during;

13 My bow I have given in the cloud, and it hath been for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth;

14 and it hath come to pass (in My sending a cloud over the earth) that the bow hath been seen in the cloud,

15 and I have remembered My covenant which is between Me and you, and every living creature among all flesh, and the waters become no more a deluge to destroy all flesh;

16 and the bow hath been in the cloud, and I have seen it -- to remember the covenant age-during between God and every living creature among all flesh which [is] on the earth.'

17 And God saith unto Noah, `This [is] a token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that [is] upon the earth.'

18 And the sons of Noah who are going out of the ark are Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is father of Canaan.

19 These three [are] sons of Noah, and from these hath all the earth been overspread.

20 And Noah remaineth a man of the ground, and planteth a vineyard,

21 and drinketh of the wine, and is drunken, and uncovereth himself in the midst of the tent.

22 And Ham, father of Canaan, seeth the nakedness of his father, and declareth to his two brethren without.

23 And Shem taketh -- Japheth also -- the garment, and they place on the shoulder of them both, and go backward, and cover the nakedness of their father; and their faces [are] backward, and their father's nakedness they have not seen.

24 And Noah awaketh from his wine, and knoweth that which his young son hath done to him,

25 and saith: `Cursed [is] Canaan, Servant of servants he is to his brethren.'

26 And he saith: `Blessed of Jehovah my God [is] Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.

27 God doth give beauty to Japheth, And he dwelleth in tents of Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.'

28 And Noah liveth after the deluge three hundred and fifty years;

29 and all the days of Noah are nine hundred and fifty years, and he dieth.

   

Komentář

 

One

  

A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things -- but if they're doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company -- and the individuals in it -- will likely be successful. The Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual loves, but if we all share a mutual love -- a love of serving others -- then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord's love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around a shared good intention. That is the kind of love pictured when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.” In more casual references -- when used to identify a specific person or object -- the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 1151

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 10837  
  

1151. 'Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras' were just so many nations with whom such worship existed, and who in the internal sense mean just so many differing types of doctrine which were one and the same as the forms of ritual which they observed devoutly. This is quite clear from the Word where these nations are mentioned in various places, for those nations everywhere mean external worship, sometimes external worship corresponding to internal, sometimes the contrary The reason the latter is sometimes meant is that all Churches everywhere altered in the course of time, and altered indeed into something contrary. The fact that the nations named here mean nothing other than external worship, and therefore their doctrinal teachings, which were forms of ritual, becomes clear, as has been stated, from other parts of the Word, chiefly in the Prophets.

[2] Magog, Meshech, Tubal, and Gomer are referred to in Ezekiel as follows,

Son of man, set your face 1 towards Gog, the land of Magog, the prince, the head of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince, the head of Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn you about, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you back, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company, with shield and buckler, all of them wielding swords: Persia, Cush, and Put with them; Gomer and all on his flanks; Bethtogarmah, the uttermost parts of the north, and all on his Ranks. In the latter years you will come upon the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, upon the mountains of Israel, which have been made a waste. Ezekiel 38:2-6, 8.

The subject in the whole of this chapter is a Church that became corrupted and which at length focused the whole of worship in external things or religious observances once charity, meant by 'the mountains of Israel', had been destroyed. Here 'Gog and the land of Magog, the prince and head of Meshech and Tubal' is worship confined to external things. Anyone may see that Gog and Magog are not the subject, for the Word of the Lord does not deal with worldly things, but embodies Divine matters.

[3] In the same prophet,

Prophesy against Gog and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince, the head of Meshech and Tubal; and I will bring you back, and will split you into six, and make you come up from the uttermost parts of the north and bring you on to the mountains of Israel. On the mountains of Israel you will fall, you and all on your flanks, and the peoples that are with you. Ezekiel 39:1-2, 4.

The subject in the whole of this chapter is likewise external worship separated from internal and made idolatrous. Such worship is meant here by 'Gog, Meshech and Tubal' who are also used to mean the matters of doctrine which people adopt and then confirm from the literal sense of the Word, and in so doing falsify truths and destroy internal worship. For, as has been stated, those same nations also mean contrary things.

[4] In John,

When the thousand years have come to an end, Satan will be loosed from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth. Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. They went up over the breadth 2 of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, [and] the beloved city. Revelation 20:7-9.

Here also 'Gog and Magog' has a similar meaning. External worship separated from internal, that is, separated from love to the Lord and from love towards the neighbour, is nothing but idolatrous worship which 'surrounds the camp of the saints and the beloved city'.

[5] Meshech and Tubal are referred to in Ezekiel as follows,

Meshech and Tubal are there, and all their crowd; round about it are its graves; all of them are uncircumcised, pierced by the sword, for they spread their terror in the land of the living. Ezekiel 32:26.

This refers to Egypt, that is, to factual knowledge by means of which people wish to inquire into spiritual things. 'Meshech and Tubal' stands for doctrinal teachings, which were forms of ritual, which are called 'uncircumcised' when love does not exist. Consequently they are 'pierced by the sword, and a terror in the land of the living'.

[6] Javan is referred to in Joel,

You have sold the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem to the sons of the Javanites, 3 to remove them far away from their border. Joel 3:6.

'The sons of Judah' stands for things on the celestial side of faith, 'the sons of Jerusalem' for those on the spiritual side, and so for things that are internal. 'The sons of the Javanites' stands for worship in external things that is separated from internal worship; and because this worship is so far removed from that which is internal it is said that they 'removed them far away from their border'.

[7] 'Javan and Tubal' in Isaiah stands for true external worship itself,

One is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they will come and see My glory, and I will set a sign among them And I will send survivors from them to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the islands far off that have not heard My fame and have not seen My glory; and they will declare My glory among the nations. Isaiah 66:18-19.

This refers to the Lord's kingdom and His Coming. 'Tubal and Javan' stands for those whose worship is external corresponding to internal and who are to be informed about internal things.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, faces

2. literally, the plain

3. i.e. the Greeks

  
/ 10837  
  

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