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Genesis 7

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1 And Jehovah saith to Noah, `Come in, thou and all thy house, unto the ark, for thee I have seen righteous before Me in this generation;

2 of all the clean beasts thou dost take to thee seven pairs, a male and its female; and of the beasts which are not clean two, a male and its female;

3 also, of fowl of the heavens seven pairs, a male and a female, to keep alive seed on the face of all the earth;

4 for after other seven days I am sending rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and have wiped away all the substance that I have made from off the face of the ground.'

5 And Noah doth according to all that Jehovah hath commanded him:

6 and Noah [is] a son of six hundred years, and the deluge of waters hath been upon the earth.

7 And Noah goeth in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, unto the ark, from the presence of the waters of the deluge;

8 of the clean beasts and of the beasts that [are] not clean, and of the fowl, and of every thing that is creeping upon the ground,

9 two by two they have come in unto Noah, unto the ark, a male and a female, as God hath commanded Noah.

10 And it cometh to pass, after the seventh of the days, that waters of the deluge have been on the earth.

11 In the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, in the seventeenth day of the month, in this day have been broken up all fountains of the great deep, and the net-work of the heavens hath been opened,

12 and the shower is on the earth forty days and forty nights.

13 In this self-same day went in Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, sons of Noah, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them, unto the ark;

14 they, and every living creature after its kind, and every beast after its kind, and every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth after its kind, and every fowl after its kind, every bird -- every wing.

15 And they come in unto Noah, unto the ark, two by two of all the flesh in which [is] a living spirit;

16 and they that are coming in, male and female of all flesh, have come in as God hath commanded him, and Jehovah doth close [it] for him.

17 And the deluge is forty days on the earth, and the waters multiply, and lift up the ark, and it is raised up from off the earth;

18 and the waters are mighty, and multiply exceedingly upon the earth; and the ark goeth on the face of the waters.

19 And the waters have been very very mighty on the earth, and covered are all the high mountains which [are] under the whole heavens;

20 fifteen cubits upwards have the waters become mighty, and the mountains are covered;

21 and expire doth all flesh that is moving on the earth, among fowl, and among cattle, and among beasts, and among all the teeming things which are teeming on the earth, and all mankind;

22 all in whose nostrils [is] breath of a living spirit -- of all that [is] in the dry land -- have died.

23 And wiped away is all the substance that is on the face of the ground, from man unto beast, unto creeping thing, and unto fowl of the heavens; yea, they are wiped away from the earth, and only Noah is left, and those who [are] with him in the ark;

24 and the waters are mighty on the earth a hundred and fifty days.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #720

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720. 'Pairs of each' means that in relation to goods they are unholy. This becomes clear from the meaning of that number. A pair or two means not only a marriage (and when the heavenly marriage is meant it is a holy number); it also has the same meaning as six. That is to say, two relates to three in the same way that the six days of labour do to the seventh or holy day of rest. This is why in the Word 'the third day' takes on the same meaning as 'the seventh', and embodies almost the same, the reason being that the Lord's resurrection took place on the third day. This also is why the Lord's Coming into the world and into glory, and also every coming of the Lord, is described by the third day, as well as by the seventh day. The two days which go before therefore are not holy, but in relation to the third are unholy, as in Hosea,

Come and we will return to Jehovah, for He has wounded and will heal us; He has stricken and will bind us up; He will revive us after two days, on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him. Hosea 6:1-2.

And in Zechariah,

It will be in all the land, said Jehovah, that two parts in it will be cut off and breathe their last, and a third will be left in it. And I will lead the third part through the fire, and I will refine them as one refines silver. Zechariah 13:8-9.

And Psalms 12:6 speaks of silver being purest when it has been purified seven times. These quotations show that just as 'sevens of each' did not mean sevens of each but things that are holy, so 'pairs of each' does not mean two of each but those which in relation to the holy are unholy. Accordingly the meaning is not at all that unclean beasts, or man's evil affections, in relation to clean beasts, or goods, were fewer by a ratio of two to seven; for with man evils far outnumber goods.

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