The Bible

 

Genesis 7

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1 And Jehovah said to Noah, Go into the ark, thou and all thy house; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

2 Of all clean beasts thou shalt take to thee by sevens, a male and its female; but of the beasts that are not clean two, a male and its female.

3 Also of the fowl of the heavens by sevens, male and female; to keep seed alive on the face of all the earth.

4 For in yet seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living being which I have made will I destroy from the ground.

5 And Noah did according to all that Jehovah had commanded him.

6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was on the earth.

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

8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowl, and of everything that creeps on the ground,

9 there came two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

10 And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth.

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

12 And the pour of rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.

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

14 they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and all fowl after its kind -- every bird of every wing.

15 And they went to Noah, into the ark, two and two of all flesh, in which was the breath of life.

16 And they that came, came male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him. And Jehovah shut him in.

17 And the flood was forty days on the earth. And the waters increased, and bore up the ark; and it was lifted up above the earth.

18 And the waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark went on the face of the waters.

19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth; and all the high mountains that are under all the heavens were covered.

20 Fifteen cubits upward the waters prevailed; and the mountains were covered.

21 And all flesh that moved on the earth expired, fowl as well as cattle, and beasts, and all crawling things which crawl on the earth, and all mankind:

22 everything which had in its nostrils the breath of life, of all that was on the dry [land], died.

23 And every living being was destroyed that was on the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping things, and fowl of the heavens; and they were destroyed from the earth. And Noah alone remained, and what was with him in the ark.

24 And the waters prevailed on the earth a hundred and fifty days.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #730

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730. That by “forty days and nights” is signified the duration of temptation, is plainly evident from the Word of the Lord. That “forty” signifies the duration of temptation, comes from the fact that the Lord suffered Himself to be tempted for forty days (as is stated in Matthew 4:1-2; Luke 4:2; Mark 1:13). And as the things instituted in the Jewish and the other representative churches before the coming of the Lord were each and all types of Him, so also were the forty days and nights, in that they represented and signified in general all temptation, and specifically the duration of the temptation, whatever that might be. And because a man when in temptation is in vastation as to all things that are of his Own, and of the body (for the things that are of his Own and of the body must die, and this through combats and temptations, before he is born again a new man, or is made spiritual and heavenly), for this reason also “forty days and nights” signify the duration of vastation; and it is the same here where the subject is both the temptation of the man of the new church, called “Noah” and the devastation of the antediluvians.

[2] That the number “forty” signifies the duration of both temptation and vastation, whether greater or less, is evident in Ezekiel:

Thou shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, each day for a year have I appointed it unto thee (Ezekiel 4:6).

“Forty” denotes here the duration of the vastation of the Jewish Church, and also a representation of the Lord’s temptation; for it is said that he should “bear the iniquity of the house of Judah.” Again:

I will make the land of Egypt wastes, a waste of desolation; no foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, and it shall not be inhabited forty years; and I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of the desolate lands, and her cities in the midst of the cities that are laid waste shall be a solitude forty years (Ezekiel 29:10-12).

Here also “forty” denotes the duration of vastation and desolation; and in the internal sense forty years are not meant, but only, in general, the desolation of faith, whether within a less or greater time.

In John:

The court that is without the temple cast out and measure it not; for it hath been given unto the nations, who shall tread the holy city underfoot forty and two months (Revelation 11:2).

[3] And again:

There was given unto the beast a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and there was given unto him power to make war forty and two months (Revelation 13:5), denoting the duration of vastation, for anyone may know that forty-two months of time is not meant. But the origin of the use of the number “forty-two” in this passage (which has the same signification as the number “forty”) is that “seven days” signify the end of vastation, and a new beginning, and “six days” signify labor, from the six days of labor or combat. Seven are therefore multiplied by six, and thus give rise to the number forty-two, which signifies the duration of the vastation and the duration of the temptation, or the labor and combat, of the man who is to be regenerated, in which there is holiness. But, as is evident from these passages in Revelation, the round number “forty” was taken for the not-so-round number “forty-two.”

[4] That the Israelitish people were led about for forty years in the wilderness before they were brought into the land of Canaan, in like manner represented and signified the duration of temptation, and also the duration of vastation; the duration of temptation, by their being afterwards brought into the holy land; the duration of vastation, by the fact that all above the age of twenty years, who went out of Egypt, except Joshua and Caleb, died in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33-35; 32:8-14). The things against which they so often murmured signify temptations, and the plagues and destruction that so frequently came upon them signify vastations. That these signify temptations and vastations will of the Lord’s Divine mercy be shown in that place. Of these things it is written in Moses:

Thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to afflict thee, to tempt thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no (Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 16).

That Moses was forty days and forty nights upon Mount Sinai, likewise signifies the duration of the temptation, that is, it signifies the Lord’s temptation, as is evident from his abiding in the mount forty days and forty nights, neither eating bread nor drinking water, supplicating for the people that they might not be destroyed (Deuteronomy 9:9, 11, 18, 25-29; 10:10).

[5] The reason why “forty days” signify the duration of temptation is, as just said, that the Lord suffered Himself to be tempted of the devil forty days. And therefore-as all things were representative of the Lord-when the idea of temptations was present with the angels, that idea was represented in the world of spirits by such things as are in this world, as is the case with all angelic ideas during their descent into the world of spirits: they being presented representatively. And in the same way the idea of temptation was presented by the number “forty” because the Lord was to be tempted forty days. With the Lord, and consequently with the angelic heaven, it is the same whether a thing is present or is to come; what is to come is present, or what is to be done is done. From this came the representation of temptations, as also of vastations, in the representative church, by “forty.” But these things cannot as yet be very well comprehended, because the influx of the angelic heaven into the world of spirits is not known, nor that such is the nature of this influx.

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