The Bible

 

Genesis 9

Study

   

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.

2 And let the fear of you and the dread of you be upon every animal of the earth, and upon all fowl of the heavens: upon all that moveth [on] the ground; and upon all the fishes of the sea: into your hand are they delivered.

3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you: as the green herb I give you everything.

4 Only, the flesh with its life, its blood, ye shall not eat.

5 And indeed your blood, [the blood] of your lives, will I require: at the hand of every animal will I require it, and at the hand of Man, at the hand of each [the blood] of his brother, will I require the life of Man.

6 Whoso sheddeth Man's blood, by Man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God he hath made Man.

7 And ye, be fruitful and multiply: swarm on the earth, and multiply on it.

8 And God spoke to Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10 and with every living soul which is with you, fowl as well as cattle, and all the animals of the earth with you, of all that has gone out of the ark -- every animal of the earth.

11 And I establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, and henceforth there shall be no flood to destroy the earth.

12 And God said, This is the sign of the covenant that I set between me and you and every living soul that is with you, for everlasting generations:

13 I set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

14 And it shall come to pass when I bring clouds over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud,

15 and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living soul of all flesh; and the waters shall not henceforth become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living soul of all flesh that is upon the earth.

17 And God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

18 And the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth. And Ham is the father of Canaan.

19 These three are the sons of Noah; and from these was [the population of] the whole earth spread abroad.

20 And Noah began [to be] a husbandman, and planted a vineyard.

21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken, and he uncovered himself in his tent.

22 And Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren outside.

23 And Shem and Japheth took the upper garment and both laid [it] upon their shoulders, and went backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces were turned away, that they saw not their father's nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and learned what his youngest son had done to him.

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; Let him be a bondman of bondmen to his brethren.

26 And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem, And let Canaan be his bondman.

27 Let God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, And let Canaan be his bondman.

28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.

29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #981

Study this Passage

  
/ 10837  
  

981. That 'God blessed' means the Lord's presence and grace is clear from the meaning of 'blessing'. In the Word, in the external sense, 'blessing' means being enriched with all earthly and bodily good. This is also how all people who keep to the external sense explain the Word, as Jews did in the past, and still do so today, and also as Christians do, especially at the present time. Consequently they have focused the Divine blessing, and still do, on wealth, on having plenty of everything, and on personal glory. But in the internal sense 'blessing' means being enriched with all spiritual and celestial good, a blessing which neither does nor can possibly exist unless it comes from the Lord. This is why 'blessing' means the Lord's presence and grace. The Lord's presence and grace carry such blessing within them. The expression 'presence' is used because the Lord is present only in charity, and the subject at this point is the regenerate spiritual man who acts from charity. The Lord is present with everyone, but as is a person's distance from charity, so is the degree of the Lord's presence, or so is He, let me say, more absent, that is, the Lord is more remote.

[2] The reason the expression grace and not mercy is used - a reason, I presume, that has remained unknown up to now - is that celestial people do not talk of grace but of mercy, while spiritual people talk not of mercy but of grace. This difference has its origins in the fact that celestial people acknowledge that the human race is wholly unclean, and in itself excrementitious and hellish, on account of which they plead for the Lord's mercy - mercy being the appropriate word for people in this condition.

[3] Spiritual people however, though they are aware that the human condition is such, do not acknowledge it, for they still remain in, and love, their proprium; and therefore they find it difficult to make mention of mercy but easy to do so of grace. It is the different kind of humility existing with each that produces this verbal difference. The more anyone loves himself and imagines that he is able to do good of himself and so merit salvation, the less he is able to plead for the Lord's mercy. The reason some [are able to plead] for grace at all is that it has become a commonplace expression. When used however it contains little that is the Lord's and much that is a person's own. This anyone can discover in himself when he uses the expression 'the grace of the Lord'.

  
/ 10837  
  

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