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Genesis 11

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1 And all the earth had one language and one tongue.

2 And it came about that in their wandering from the east, they came to a stretch of flat country in the land of Shinar, and there they made their living-place.

3 And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks, burning them well. And they had bricks for stone, putting them together with sticky earth.

4 And they said, Come, let us make a town, and a tower whose top will go up as high as heaven; and let us make a great name for ourselves, so that we may not be wanderers over the face of the earth.

5 And the Lord came down to see the town and the tower which the children of men were building.

6 And the Lord said, See, they are all one people and have all one language; and this is only the start of what they may do: and now it will not be possible to keep them from any purpose of theirs.

7 Come, let us go down and take away the sense of their language, so that they will not be able to make themselves clear to one another.

8 So the Lord God sent them away into every part of the earth: and they gave up building their town.

9 So it was named Babel, because there the Lord took away the sense of all languages and from there the Lord sent them away over all the face of the earth.

10 These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old when he became the father of Arpachshad, two years after the great flow of waters;

11 And after the birth of Arpachshad, Shem went on living for five hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

12 And Arpachshad was thirty-five years old when he became the father of Shelah:

13 And after the birth of Shelah, Arpachshad went on living for four hundred and three years, and had sons and daughters:

14 And Shelah was thirty years old when he became the father of Eber:

15 And after the birth of Eber, Shelah went on living for four hundred and three years, and had sons and daughters:

16 And Eber was thirty-four years old when he became the father of Peleg:

17 And after the birth of Peleg, Eber went on living for four hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters:

18 And Peleg was thirty years old when he became the father of Reu:

19 And after the birth of Reu, Peleg went on living for two hundred and nine years, and had sons and daughters:

20 And Reu was thirty-two years old when he became the father of Serug:

21 And after the birth of Serug, Reu went on living for two hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters:

22 And Serug was thirty years old when he became the father of Nahor:

23 And after the birth of Nahor, Serug went on living for two hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

24 And Nahor was twenty-nine years old when he became the father of Terah:

25 And after the birth of Terah, Nahor went on living for a hundred and nineteen years, and had sons and daughters:

26 And Terah was seventy years old when he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

27 These are the generations of Terah: Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot.

28 And death came to Haran when he was with his father Terah in the land of his birth, Ur of the Chaldees.

29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.

30 And Sarai had no child.

31 And Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Abram and they went out from Ur of the Chaldees, to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran, and were there for some time.

32 And all the years of Terah's life were two hundred and five: and Terah came to his end in Haran.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #1326

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1326. That 'therefore He called the name of it Babel' means such worship, namely that meant by 'Babel', is clear from what has been stated so far - about worship which inwardly contains self-love and therefore everything that is filthy and unholy. Self-love is nothing else than the proprium, and how filthy and unholy this is becomes clear from what has been shown already about the proprium in 210, 215. From philautia, 1 that is, from self-love or the proprium, flow all evils, such as those of hatred, revenge, cruelty, adultery, deceit, hypocrisy, and irreligion. Consequently when self-love or the proprium is present in worship, such evils are present too - but the particular kind of evils and their intensity being determined by the extent and nature of what flows from that self-love. This is the origin of all profanation in worship. The fact of the matter is that insofar as self-love or the proprium introduces itself into worship, internal worship departs, that is, internal worship ceases to exist. Internal worship consists in the affection for good and in the acknowledgement of truth, but to the extent that self-love or the proprium intrudes or enters in, the affection for good and the acknowledgement of truth depart or go away. Holiness cannot possibly co-exist with unholiness, any more than heaven can with hell. Instead one must depart from the other. Such is the state and proper order existing in the Lord's kingdom. This is the reason why among the kind of people whose worship is called 'Babel' no internal worship exists, but instead something dead and indeed inwardly corpse-like is worshipped. This shows what their external worship which is inwardly such is like.

[2] That such worship is 'Babel' is clear from many parts of the Word where Babel is described, as in Daniel, where the description of the statue which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel saw in a dream - whose head was gold, breast and arms silver, belly and thighs bronze, legs iron, and feet partly iron and partly clay - means that true worship finally deteriorated into the kind of worship called 'Babel', and therefore also a stone cut out of the rock smashed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold, Daniel 2:31-33, 44-45. The statue of gold which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel set up, and which people were to adore, had no other meaning, Daniel 3:1-end. The same applies to the description of the king of Babel with his nobles drinking wine from the vessels of gold that had come from the Temple in Jerusalem, of their praising the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and stone, and of writing therefore appearing on the wall, Daniel 5:1-end; to the description of Darius the Mede commanding that he be adored instead of God, Daniel 6:1-end; and to that of the beasts seen by Daniel in a dream, Daniel 7:1-end, as well as to that of the beasts and Babel in John's Revelation.

[3] That such worship was meant and represented is quite clear not only in Daniel and John but also in the Prophets: in Isaiah,

Their faces were faces of flames; the stars of the heavens and their constellations do not give their light The sun is darkened in its coming up and the moon does not shed its light Tziim lie down there, and their houses are full of ochim, and daughters of the owl dwell there, and satyrs dance there, and iim answer in its palaces, and dragons in its halls of pleasure. Isaiah 13:8, 10, 21-22

This refers to Babel and describes the internal aspect of such worship by 'faces of flames', which are evil desires; by 'the stars', which are truths of faith, 'not giving their light'; by 'the sun', which is holy love, 'being darkened'; by 'the moon', which is the truth of faith, 'not shedding its light'; by 'tziim, ochim, daughters of the owl, satyrs, dim, and dragons', which are the more interior aspects of worship. For such things belong to self-love or the proprium. This also is why Babel in John is called 'the mother of whoredoms and abominations', Revelation 17:5; and in the same book,

A dwelling-place of demons, 2 and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. Revelation 18:2.

From these places it is evident that when such things are within, it is impossible for any good or truth of faith to be there, and that to the extent that those things enter in, the goods which are the objects of affection, and the truths of faith, depart. They are also called in Isaiah 21:9 'the graven images of the gods of Babel'.

[4] That it is self-love or the proprium which lies within their worship, or that it is worship of self, is quite clear in Isaiah,

Prophesy this parable against the king of Babel, You said in your heart, I will go up the heavens, above the stars of God I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the uttermost parts of the north. I will go up above the heights of the cloud, I will make myself like the Most High. But you will be brought down to hell. Isaiah 14:4, 13-15.

Here, it is plain, Babel means the person who wishes to be worshipped as a god, that is, worship of self is meant.

[5] In the same prophet,

Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. You trusted in your wickedness, you said, No one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray; you said in your heart, I am, and there is no one besides me. Isaiah 47:1, 10.

In Jeremiah,

Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, destroying the whole earth; and I will stretch out My hand over you and roll you down from the rocks and will make you into a mountain of burning. Though Babel rise up into the heavens, and though she fortify the height of her strength, yet from Me those who lay waste will come to her. Jeremiah 51:25, 53.

This again shows that 'Babel' is worship of self.

[6] The fact that such people have no light of truth, but only total darkness, that is, that they do not possess the truth of faith, is described in Jeremiah,

The word which Jehovah spoke against Babel, against the land of the Chaldeans, There will come up upon her a nation from the north, which will make her land a desolation, and none will dwell in it; both man and beast will scatter themselves, they will go away. Jeremiah 50:1, 3.

'The north' stands for thick darkness, or absence of truth. 'No man and no beast' stands for the absence of good. For more about Babel, see at verse 28 3 below, where Chaldea is referred to.

Fußnoten:

1. A Greek word, also used in late Medieval or Neo-Latin, which means self-love, self-regard.

2. The Latin means dragons, but the Greek means demons, which Swedenborg has in other pieces where he quotes this verse.

3. i.e. 1368

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