The Bible

 

Genesis 11

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1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2 And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

3 And they said one to another, come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

4 And they said, come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach to heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we should be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men were building.

6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7 Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the LORD there confounded the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was a hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:

11 And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah.

13 And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:

15 And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

16 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:

17 And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.

18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:

19 And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.

20 And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug.

21 And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.

22 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor:

23 And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah.

25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah a hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.

26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran: and Haran begat Lot.

28 And Haran died before his father Terah, in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran, and dwelt there.

32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Spiritual Experiences #155

  
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155. About Speech and the understanding of things, with Angels

1. ) I have spoken with spirits around me about the speech of angels and their understanding of matters which the spirits are extremely interested in knowing about. Having been taught by experience, I said that the angels' speech cannot be perceptible to us, because it contains countless elements almost simultaneously, which would have to be unfolded extensively in a sequence and in many roundabout ways; and that it is not portrayable to us except by forms virtually beyond our grasp and my powers of description, whirling around together in gyrating motions, following the varying pattern of more inward forms. About these forms as they were shown to me, I have spoken elsewhere [191a-92a].

2. ) Meanwhile, there is a form of speech, or of very many speaking at the same time, which, when it falls into the lower orb, does not appear the same, but sometimes quite different, for the most part turning into pictorial symbolism like that of the Prophets, which consequently more inwardly contains heavenly, and therefore hidden, matters. There is a reactive understanding with the angels, that is, arising from these symbolic displays, which, when exhibited through our mental images, are transformed into heavenly subjects that angels can understand, so that the earthly paradise can pass over into the heavenly one.

3. ) It was also shown to me how angels, from facts of nature alone properly joined together, have understood a series of very lofty, heavenly matters. Yet this cannot happen with the angels except through the mercy of God the Messiah. 1747, the 21st of August (old calendar).

4. ) Such gyrating motions I have sometimes been able, by the Divine mercy of God the Messiah, to feel come over me vividly, and I was able to gather therefrom that myriads of such more inward mental images could compose one material one, we may call it, 1 in which such a countless number of elements are contained that a person in the world could never believe it, much less comprehend it. In every more inward mental image, in its turn, [are contained countless elements], but in an incalculably greater degree of perfection.

Now this form, and consequently the influence of God the Messiah through angels, and from them through spirits, upon human minds, becomes disturbed when a person lives in a contrary order, especially when one wants to go into the mysteries of religion by means of knowledge that has been called up by the love of self and the world, and therefore by cupidity. From this there arises a confusion or disturbance like that among the Babylonians building the tower, when their lips were confounded [Gen. 11:4-9], 2

5. ) affirming the absence of God the Messiah from humanity, even though all things are nevertheless ordered in such a way that they may be restored to a semblance of some heavenly form. This can take place in countlessly many ways. For no matter what abstruseness, entanglement, jumble, comes to exist in the lower realm or world, it can nevertheless be brought back to order by God the Messiah; otherwise mankind would perish and not be able to understand anything. On this account there is still a spiritual influence enabling them to exercise their reason. The door from the heavenly Paradise to the earthly one is said to be opened when one is acting from what is higher, that is, according to order - which also is "to turn the face toward." About the Babylonic confounding [of the lip] and the opening of the heavenly Paradise.

Footnotes:

1. The meaning is not that "material" is the wrong term, but it is being used in the sense of "an idea with man in the material world." -tr.

2. This paragraph and the first half of the next is emphasized in the original by the word "Obs." written four times in the margin.

  
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Thanks to the Academy of the New Church, and Bryn Athyn College, for the permission to use this translation.