The Bible

 

Genesis 7

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

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon 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 fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

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

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

12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

13 In the selfsame day entered 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 his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.

16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.

17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

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

21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:

22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #893

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893. Verse 13. And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the beginning, on the first of the month, that the waters were dried up from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and saw, and behold, the faces of the ground were dry. “And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year” signifies a last boundary [or ending]; “in the beginning, on the first of the month” signifies a first boundary [or new beginning]; “the waters were dried up from off the earth” signifies that falsities did not then appear; “and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked” signifies on the removal of falsities there was the light of the truths of faith, which he acknowledged and in which he had faith; “and behold the faces of the ground were dry” signifies regeneration. And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year. That this signifies a last boundary, is evident from the signification of the number “six hundred” concerning which in the preceding chapter (Genesis 7:6, and n. 737), as being a beginning, and there indeed the beginning of temptation, its end being here designated by the same number, a whole year having passed, so that what took place was at the end of the year, and therefore it is added, “in the beginning, on the first of the month” by which is signified a first boundary [or new beginning]. Any whole period is designated in the Word as a “day” a “week” a “month” a “year” even though it be a hundred or a thousand years, as the “days” in the first chapter of Genesis, by which are meant periods of the regeneration of the man of the Most Ancient Church; for “day” and “year” in the internal sense signify nothing else than a time, and because they signify a time they signify a state, and therefore in the Word a “year” is continually used with the meaning of a time and a state. As in Isaiah:

To proclaim the acceptable year of Jehovah, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn (Isaiah 61:2),

where the coming of the Lord is treated of. Again:

For the day of vengeance was in Mine heart, and the year of My redeemed had come (Isaiah 63:4),

where also “day” and “year” denote a time and state.

In Habakkuk:

O Jehovah, revive Thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known (Habakkuk 3:2),

where “years” denote a time and state.

In David:

Thou art God Himself, and Thy years are not consumed (Psalms 102:27),

where “years” denote times, and it is shown that with God there is no time. So in the passage before us, the year of the flood by no means signifies any particular year, but a time not determined by fixed years, and at the same time a state. (See what has been said before about “years” n. 482, 487, 488, 493)

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