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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 #661

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661. To destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of lives from under the heavens. That this signifies that the whole posterity of the Most Ancient Church would destroy themselves, is evident from what is said above, and from the description of them given before: that they derived by inheritance from their parents in succession such a genius that they more than others were imbued with direful persuasions; and especially for the reason that they immersed the doctrinal things of faith that they possessed in their cupidities. It is otherwise with those who have no doctrinal things of faith, but live entirely in ignorance; these cannot so act, and therefore cannot profane holy things, and thereby close up the way for remains; and consequently they cannot drive away from themselves the angels of the Lord.

[2] Remains, as has been said, are all things of innocence, all things of charity, all things of mercy, and all things of the truth of faith, which from his infancy a man has had from the Lord, and has learned. Each and all of these things are treasured up; and if a man had them not, there could be nothing of innocence, of charity, and of mercy, and therefore nothing of good and truth in his thought and actions, so that he would be worse than the savage wild beasts. And it would be the same if he had had the remains of such things and had closed up the way by foul cupidities and direful persuasions of falsity, so that they could not operate. Such were the antediluvians who destroyed themselves, and who are meant by “all flesh wherein is the breath of lives, under the heavens.”

[3] “Flesh” as before shown, signifies every man in general, and the corporeal man in particular. The “breath of lives” signifies all life in general, but properly the life of those who have been regenerated, consequently in the present case the last posterity of the Most Ancient Church. Although there was no life of faith remaining among them, yet as they derived from their parents something of seed therefrom which they stifled, it is here called the “breath of lives” or (as in Genesis 7:22) “in whose nostrils was the breathing of the breath of lives.” “Flesh under the heavens” signifies what is merely corporeal; the “heavens” are the things of the understanding that are of truth and the things of the will that are of good, on the separation of which from the corporeal a man can no longer live. What sustains man is his conjunction with heaven, that is, through heaven with the Lord.

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