Arcana Coelestia #893
893. Verse 13 And it happened in the six hundred and first year, at the beginning, on the first of the month, that the waters dried up from over the earth, and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and saw out, and behold, the face 1 of the ground was dry.
'It happened in the six hundred and first year' means a finishing point. 'At the beginning, on the first of the month' means a starting point. 'The waters dried up from over the earth' means that falsities were not at that time apparent. 'And Noah removed the covering of the ark, and saw out' means the light, once falsities had been removed, shed by the truths of faith, which he acknowledged and in which he had faith. 'And behold, the face 1 of the ground was dry' means regeneration.
Footnotes:
1. literally, the faces
[893a] 1
That 'it happened in the six hundred and first year means a finishing point is clear from the meaning of the number six hundred, dealt with at Chapter 7:6, in 737, as a beginning, and in particular in that verse as the beginning of temptation. The end of it is specified by the same number, with a whole year having now passed by. It took place therefore at the end of a year, and this also is why the words are added 'at the beginning, on the first of the month', meaning a starting point. In the Word any complete period is specified either by a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, and even by a hundred or a thousand years - for example, 'the days' mentioned in Genesis 1, which meant stages in the regeneration of the member of the Most Ancient Church. For in the internal sense day and year mean nothing else than a period of time; and meaning a period of time they also mean a state. Consequently a year stands in the Word for a period of time and for a state, as in Isaiah,
To proclaim the year of Jehovah's good pleasure, and the day of vengeance for our God; to comfort all who mourn. Isaiah 61:2.
This refers to the Lord's Coming. In the same prophet,
The day of vengeance was in My heart, and the year of My redeemed had come. Isaiah 63:4.
Here too 'day' and 'year' stand for a period of time and for a state. In Habakkuk,
Your work, O Jehovah, in the midst of the years make it live, in the midst of the years do You make it known. Habakkuk 3:2.
Here 'years' stands for a period of time and for a state. In David,
'You are God Himself, and Your years have no end. Psalms 102:27.
This statement, in which 'years' stands for periods of time, means that time does not exist with God. The same applies in the present verse where 'the year' of the flood in no way means any one particular year but a period of time that is not determined by a specific number of years. At the same time it means a state. See what has been said already about 'years' in 482, 487, 488, 493.
1. This paragraph is not numbered in the Latin.
Arcana Coelestia #5511
5511. 'Hard words to us' means that no joining together with this took place because no agreement existed. This is clear from the meaning of 'speaking hard words', when used to refer to the internal in relation to the external separated from it, as no joining together because no agreement existed, dealt with above in 5422, 5423. For if no agreement of the external with the internal exists, everything in the internal and coming from the internal seems 'hard' to the external, because the two are not joined together. Take for example a situation in which the internal, that is, someone living in his internal, declares that nothing at all of a person's thought begins in himself, but that his thought comes to him either from heaven (that is, from the Lord by way of heaven) or else from hell: he declares that any thought he has of good comes from the Lord by way of heaven, while any thought of evil comes from hell. Such an idea seems to be a thoroughly 'hard' one to anyone who wants what he thinks to come from himself and who believes that if that 'hard' idea is true, he is nothing. Yet that idea is absolutely true, and all in heaven perceive it to be so.
[2] It is similarly the case when the internal, or those living in their internal, declare that the joy experienced by the angels originates in love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, that is to say, when they are actually engaged in performing deeds of love and charity, and that those deeds hold within them so much joy and happiness that these are beyond description. This will come as a 'hard' idea to those whose joy springs solely from self-love and love of the world and who take no interest in their neighbour other than for their own selfish reasons. Yet heaven and heavenly joy start to exist in a person when self-regard vanishes from the useful deeds he performs.
[3] Take as yet another example the situation in which the internal declares that a person's soul is nothing else than the internal man and that after death the internal man appears to be exactly the same person as lived in the world, having a similar face, similar body, similar sensory powers, and a similar power of thought. People who have entertained the idea that the soul exists only on the level where thought does and is for that reason something ethereal lacking any outward form, and that the soul is to be reclothed with its body, imagine that what is declared by the internal about the soul is very far from the truth. Indeed those who believe that there is nothing more than the body to a human being will find the idea 'hard' when they hear that the soul is the real person and that the body which is buried serves no use at all in the next life. I know this is true because I have in the Lord's Divine mercy gone among such people, not among just some but among many, not just once but often, and I have talked to them on this matter. The same may also be said about countless other matters.
