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1 Mose 6

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1 Und es geschah, als die Menschen begannen sich zu mehren auf der Fläche des Erdbodens, und ihnen Töchter geboren wurden,

2 da sahen die Söhne Gottes, daß die Töchter der Menschen schön waren, und sie nahmen sich zu Weibern, welche sie irgend erwählten.

3 Und Jehova sprach: Mein Geist soll nicht ewiglich mit dem Menschen rechten, da er ja Fleisch ist; und seine Tage seien hundertzwanzig Jahre.

4 In jenen Tagen waren die Riesen auf der Erde, und auch nachher, als die Söhne Gottes zu den Töchtern der Menschen eingingen und diese ihnen gebaren. Das sind die Helden, welche von alters her waren, die Männer von Ruhm gewesen sind.

5 Und Jehova sah, daß des Menschen Bosheit groß war auf Erden und alles Gebilde der Gedanken seines Herzens nur böse den ganzen Tag.

6 Und es reute Jehova, daß er den Menschen gemacht hatte auf der Erde, und es schmerzte ihn in sein Herz hinein.

7 Und Jehova sprach: Ich will den Menschen, den ich geschaffen habe, von der Fläche des Erdbodens vertilgen, vom Menschen bis zum Vieh, bis zum Gewürm und bis zum Gevögel des Himmels; denn es reut mich, daß ich sie gemacht habe.

8 Noah aber fand Gnade in den Augen Jehovas.

9 Dies ist die Geschichte Noahs: Noah war ein gerechter, vollkommener Mann unter seinen Zeitgenossen; Noah wandelte mit Gott.

10 Und Noah zeugte drei Söhne: Sem, Ham und Japhet.

11 Und die Erde war verderbt vor Gott, und die Erde war voll Gewalttat.

12 Und Gott sah die Erde, und siehe, sie war verderbt; denn alles Fleisch hatte seinen Weg verderbt auf Erden.

13 Und Gott sprach zu Noah: Das Ende alles Fleisches ist vor mich gekommen; denn die Erde ist voll Gewalttat durch sie; und siehe, ich will sie verderben mit der Erde.

14 Mache dir eine Arche von Gopherholz; mit Kammern sollst du die Arche machen und sie von innen und von außen mit Harz verpichen.

15 Und also sollst du sie machen: Dreihundert Ellen sei die Länge der Arche, fünfzig Ellen ihre Breite und dreißig Ellen ihre Höhe.

16 Eine Lichtöffnung sollst du der Arche machen, und bis zu einer Elle sollst du sie fertigen von oben her; und die Tür der Arche sollst du in ihre Seite setzen; mit einem unteren, zweiten und dritten Stockwerk sollst du sie machen.

17 Denn ich, siehe, ich bringe die Wasserflut über die Erde, um alles Fleisch unter dem Himmel zu verderben, in welchem ein Hauch des Lebens ist; alles, was auf der Erde ist, soll verscheiden.

18 Aber mit dir will ich meinen Bund errichten, und du sollst in die Arche gehen, du und deine Söhne und dein Weib und die Weiber deiner Söhne mit dir.

19 Und von allem Lebendigen, von allem Fleische, zwei von jeglichem sollst du in die Arche bringen, um sie mit dir am Leben zu erhalten; ein Männliches und ein Weibliches sollen sie sein.

20 Von dem Gevögel nach seiner Art und von dem Vieh nach seiner Art, von allem Gewürm des Erdbodens nach seiner Art: zwei von jeglichem sollen zu dir hineingehen, um sie am Leben zu erhalten.

21 Und du, nimm dir von aller Speise, die gegessen wird und sammle sie bei dir auf, daß sie dir und ihnen zur Nahrung sei.

22 Und Noah tat es; nach allem, was Gott ihm geboten hatte, also tat er.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1673

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1673. 'And they smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim' means false persuasions or the hells of such persuasions which the Lord overcame. This is clear from the meaning of the Rephaim, the Zuzim, and the Emim, as those of a similar kind to the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6:4 - the Nephilim, as was shown more than adequately at that verse, meaning false persuasions or those people who because they were persuaded of their own superiority and pre-eminence regarded all things that were holy and true as worthless, and who plunged falsities into evil desires, see 581 - and from the following places quoted in that paragraph, Numbers 13:33; Deuteronomy 2:10; Isaiah 14:9; 26:14, 19; Psalms 88:10. Here it is the different kinds of false persuasions that are meant by these three, and also by 'the Horites in Mount Seir', for there are many kinds of false persuasions, each kind varying not only according to the falsities but also according to the evil desires to which those falsities are allied or into which they are plunged, or from which they stem and are produced. The nature of such false persuasions cannot possibly become clear to anyone who knows scarcely anything more about false persuasion or evil desire than that such things exist; but in the next life they are arranged quite distinctly and separately into their own genera and their own species.

[2] Among those who lived before the Flood, especially among those called the Nephilim, most dreadful false persuasions existed. The Nephilim were such that in the next life by their persuasions they deprive other spirits they encounter of their whole ability to think. As a result it seems to those spirits as though they are scarcely alive, let alone capable of thinking anything true. For in the next life, as has been shown, there is a communication of the thoughts of all; and therefore when persuasiveness such as this flows in, it inevitably kills so to speak all power to think that the others have. Such were the unspeakably horrible nations against whom the Lord fought in earliest childhood and whom He overcame. And unless the Lord by His Coming into the world had overcome them, nobody at all would be alive today on this planet, for everyone is governed by the Lord through spirits. Today those same people, on account of their delusions, are hemmed in all round by what looks like a misty rock, out of which they are constantly endeavouring to rise up, though to no avail - see 1265-1272, and in many places before that. They and their like are also the people meant by Isaiah,

The dead will not live, the Rephaim will not rise. To the end that You have visited and destroyed them, and wiped out all remembrance of them. Isaiah 26:14.

[3] And in David,

Will you work a wonder for the dead? Will the Rephaim rise up and confess You? Psalms 88:10.

'The dead' here is not used to mean the dead but the condemned. At the present day too, especially from the Christian world, there are people who in a similar way have persuasions, but not of so dreadful a nature as those possessed by people before the Flood. False persuasions which occupy both the will and the understanding parts of man's mind - as did the persuasions of those before the Flood, and of those meant by the Rephaim, Zuzim, and Emim - are of one kind. But false persuasions that occupy only the understanding part, having their origin in false assumptions confirmed within oneself, are of another kind. The latter kind are not so powerful as the former, nor so deadly, but they nevertheless cause much annoyance to the other spirits in the next life, partially taking away from them their capacity to think. Spirits such as these arouse in man outright confirmations of falsity, so that a person inevitably sees falsity as truth, and evil as good. It is their sphere which is of such a nature. As soon as any truth is called forth by angels those spirits smother and extinguish it.

[4] A person can discover whether such spirits govern him by merely considering whether he thinks the truths of the Word to be falsities and confirms himself in this so that he is not able to see otherwise. He can in that case be quite sure that such spirits reside with him and have dominion. It is similar with those who persuade themselves that all private gain is the common good, and who imagine that nothing contributes to the common good if it is not to their own private gain. Evil spirits residing with such a person supply so many confirmations that he does not see otherwise. Such people as regard all private gain as the common good, or who disguise it with the appearance of its being the common good, in the next life act in much the same way with regard to the common good there. That this is the nature of the influx of the spirits residing with man I have been given to know to the life from uninterrupted experience.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #581

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581. That 'the Nephilim' means those who, persuaded of their own prominence and superiority, treated everything holy and true as being worthless is clear from what comes before and directly after; that is to say, they immersed matters of doctrine in their own evil desires, which is what is meant by the statement about the sons of God going in to the daughters of man, who bore children to them. Persuasion concerning self and its own delusions also grows as more and more things enter in, till at length that persuasion is inerasable. And when doctrinal matters concerning faith are added as well, utterly persuasive assumptions cause them to treat everything holy and true as being worthless, and they become Nephilim. As has been stated, this set of people who lived before the Flood are such that all spirits are choked to death by their absolutely dreadful delusions which spread from them like a sphere that is poisonous and choking. Spirits are so choked to death by them that they do not know how to think, and as a result feel semi-dead. And unless the Lord by His Coming into the world had freed the world of spirits from so pernicious a set of people, no one could possibly have stayed on there, and so the human race, which the Lord governs by means of spirits, would have perished. Consequently these people are now detained in a hell beneath what looks like a misty solid rock, beneath the heel of the left foot. Nor do they ever try to escape. The world of spirits is accordingly free of that extremely dangerous crew. That crew and the thoroughly poisonous sphere of persuasions from it will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with as a separate subject. 1 These are the people called the Nephilim, and they treat all that is holy and true as being worthless.

[2] Further mention is made of them in the Word, though their descendants were called Anakim and Rephaim. The fact that they were called Anakim is clear in Moses,

The men who explored the land of Canaan said, We saw the Nephilim there, the sons of Anak who were descendants of the Nephilim; and in our own eyes we were like locusts, and so we were in their eyes. Numbers 13:33.

The fact that they were called Rephaim is clear once again in Moses,

The Emim lived formerly in the land of Moab, a people great and many, and tall like the Anakim. The Rephaim were also considered to be as Anakim; and the Moabites called them Emim. Deuteronomy 2:10-11.

The Nephilim are not mentioned again, but the Rephaim are. In the Prophets the description of them fits what has been said about them already, as in Isaiah,

Hell beneath has been stirred up for you, to meet you as you come. He has roused the Rephaim for you. Isaiah 14:9

This refers to the hell where such people are.

In the same prophet,

The dead will not live, the Rephaim will not rise. To that end You have visited and destroyed them, and wiped out all remembrance of them. Isaiah 26:14.

This also refers to that hell of theirs from which they will never rise up again. And in the same prophet,

Your dead will live, my corpse will rise again. Wake up and sing, O inhabitants of the dust. For Your dew is a dew of herbs. But You will cast away the land of the Rephaim. Isaiah 26:19.

'The land of the Rephaim' is that self same hell.

In David,

Will You work a wonder for the dead? Will the Rephaim rise up and confess You? Psalms 88:10.

This similarly refers to that hell of theirs and to the fact that they can never again rise up and contaminate the atmosphere of the world of spirits with the utterly dreadful poison of their persuasions. Provision has been made by the Lord however to prevent the human race ever again being steeped in such dreadful delusions and persuasions. But the people who lived before the Flood were of such a nature and disposition that they were able to be steeped in them, for reasons until now unknown to anybody, which too will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on.

Footnotes:

1. i.e. in 1265-1272

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