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Genesis 7

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1 And the Lord said to Noah, Take all your family and go into the ark, for you only in this generation have I seen to be upright.

2 Of every clean beast you will take seven males and seven females, and of the beasts which are not clean, two, the male and his female;

3 And of the birds of the air, seven males and seven females, so that their seed may still be living on the face of the earth.

4 For after seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, for the destruction of every living thing which I have made on the face of the earth.

5 And Noah did everything which the Lord said he was to do.

6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the waters came flowing over all the earth.

7 And Noah, with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives, went into the ark because of the flowing of the waters.

8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts which are not clean, and of birds, and of everything which goes on the earth,

9 In twos, male and female, they went into the ark with Noah, as God had said.

10 And after the seven days, the waters came over all the earth.

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, all the fountains of the great deep came bursting through, and the windows of heaven were open;

12 And rain came down on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

13 On the same day Noah, with Shem, Ham, and Japheth, his sons, and his wife and his sons' wives, went into the ark;

14 And with them, every sort of beast and cattle, and every sort of thing which goes on the earth, and every sort of bird.

15 They went with Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh in which is the breath of life.

16 Male and female of all flesh went in, as God had said, and the ark was shut by the Lord.

17 And for forty days the waters were over all the earth; and the waters were increased so that the ark was lifted up high over the earth.

18 And the waters overcame everything and were increased greatly on the earth, and the ark was resting on the face of the waters.

19 And the waters overcame everything on the earth; and all the mountains under heaven were covered.

20 The waters went fifteen cubits higher, till all the mountains were covered.

21 And destruction came on every living thing moving on the earth, birds and cattle and beasts and everything which went on the earth, and every man.

22 Everything on the dry land, in which was the breath of life, came to its end.

23 Every living thing on the face of all the earth, man and cattle and things moving on the face of the earth, and birds of the air, came to destruction: only Noah and those who were with him in the ark, were kept from death.

24 And the waters were over the earth a hundred and fifty days.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #716

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716. That holy things are signified by “seven” is evident from what has been said before respecting the seventh day, or the sabbath n. 84-87), namely, that the Lord is the seventh day; and that from Him every celestial church, or celestial man, is a seventh day, and indeed the celestial itself, which is most holy because it is from the Lord alone. For this reason, in the Word, “seven” signifies what is holy; and in fact, as here, in the internal sense partakes not at all of the idea of number. For they who are in the internal sense, as angels and angelic spirits are, do not even know what number is, and therefore not what seven is. Therefore it is not meant here that seven pairs were to be taken of all the clean beasts; or that there was so much of good in proportion to evil as seven to two; but that the things of the will with which this man of the church was furnished were goods, which are holy, whereby he could be regenerated, as was said above.

[2] That “seven” signifies what is holy, or holy things, is evident from the rituals in the representative church, wherein the number seven so frequently occurs. For example, they were to sprinkle of the blood and the oil seven times, as related in Leviticus:

Moses took the anointing oil, and anointed the tabernacle and all that was therein, and sanctified them; and he sprinkled thereof upon the altar seven times, and anointed the altar and all its vessels, to sanctify them (Leviticus 8:10-11).

Here “seven times” would be entirely without significance if what is holy were not thus represented. And in another place: When Aaron came into the holy place it is said: He shall take of the blood of the bullock and sprinkle with his finger upon the faces of the mercy seat toward the east; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times (Leviticus 16:14).

And so at the altar:

He shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it and sanctify it (Leviticus 16:19).

The particulars here, each and all, signify the Lord Himself, and therefore the holy of love; that is to say, the “blood” the “mercy seat” and also the “altar” and the “east” toward which the blood was to be sprinkled, and therefore also “seven.”

[3] And likewise in the sacrifices, of which in Leviticus:

If a soul shall sin through error, and if the anointed priest shall sin so as to bring guilt on the people, he shall slay the bullock before Jehovah, and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before Jehovah, toward the veil of the sanctuary (Leviticus 4:2-3, 6).

Here in like manner “seven” signifies what is holy; because the subject treated of is expiation, which is of the Lord alone, and therefore the subject treated of is the Lord. Similar rites were also instituted in respect to the cleansing of leprosy, concerning which in Leviticus:

Of the blood of the bird, with cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop, the priest shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall make him clean. In like manner he was to sprinkle of the oil that was upon the palm of his left hand seven times before Jehovah. And so in a house where there was leprosy, he was to take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet, and with the blood of the bird sprinkle seven times (Leviticus 14:6-7, 27, 51).Here anyone may see that there is nothing at all in the “cedar wood” the “scarlet” the “oil” the “blood of a bird” nor yet in “seven” except from the fact that they are representative of holy things. Take away from them what is holy, and all that remains is dead, or profanely idolatrous. But when they signify holy things there is Divine worship therein, which is internal, and is only represented by the externals. The Jews indeed could not know what these things signified; nor does anyone at the present day know what was signified by the “cedar wood” the “hyssop” the “scarlet” and the “bird.” But if they had only been willing to think that holy things were involved which they did not know, and so had worshiped the Lord, or the Messiah who was to come, who would heal them of their leprosy-that is, of their profanation of holy things-they might have been saved. For they who so think and believe are at once instructed in the other life, if they desire, as to what each and all things represented.

[4] And in like manner it was commanded respecting the red heifer:

The priest shall take of her blood with his finger and sprinkle of her blood toward the face of the tent of meeting seven times (Numbers 19:4).

As the “seventh day” or “sabbath” signified the Lord, and from Him the celestial man, and the celestial itself, the seventh day in the Jewish Church was of all religious observances the most holy; and hence came the “sabbath of sabbath” in the seventh year (Leviticus 25:4), and the “jubilee” that was proclaimed after the seven sabbaths of years, or after seven times seven years (Leviticus 25:8-9. That in the highest sense “seven” signifies the Lord, and hence the holy of love, is evident also from the golden candlestick and its seven lamps (concerning which in Exodus 25:31-33, 37; 37:17-19, 23; Numbers 8:2-3; Zechariah 4:2) and of which it is thus written by John:

Seven golden lampstands; and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like unto the Son of man (Revelation 1:12-13).

It very clearly appears in this passage that the “lampstand with the seven lamps” signifies the Lord, and that the “lamps” are the holy things of love, or celestial things; and therefore they were “seven.”

[5] And again:

Out of the throne went forth seven torches of fire, burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God (Revelation 4:5).

Here the “seven torches” that went forth out of the throne of the Lord are the seven lights, or lamps. The same is signified wherever the number “seven” occurs in the Prophets, as in Isaiah:

The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah bindeth up the breach of His people (Isaiah 30:26).

Here the “sevenfold light, as the light of seven days” does not signify sevenfold, but the holy of the love signified by the “sun.” See also what was said and shown above respecting the number “seven” (Genesis 4:15). From all this again it is clearly evident that whatever numbers are used in the Word never mean numbers (as was also shown before, (Genesis 6:3).

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

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