The Bible

 

Genesis 8

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1 And God remembereth Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle which [are] with him in the ark, and God causeth a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subside,

2 and closed are the fountains of the deep and the net-work of the heavens, and restrained is the shower from the heavens.

3 And turn back do the waters from off the earth, going on and returning; and the waters are lacking at the end of a hundred and fifty days.

4 And the ark resteth, in the seventh month, in the seventeenth day of the month, on mountains of Ararat;

5 and the waters have been going and becoming lacking till the tenth month; in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, appeared the heads of the mountains.

6 And it cometh to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah openeth the window of the ark which he made,

7 and he sendeth forth the raven, and it goeth out, going out and turning back till the drying of the waters from off the earth.

8 And he sendeth forth the dove from him to see whether the waters have been lightened from off the face of the ground,

9 and the dove hath not found rest for the sole of her foot, and she turneth back unto him, unto the ark, for waters [are] on the face of all the earth, and he putteth out his hand, and taketh her, and bringeth her in unto him, unto the ark.

10 And he stayeth yet other seven days, and addeth to send forth the dove from the ark;

11 and the dove cometh in unto him at even-time, and lo, an olive leaf torn off in her mouth; and Noah knoweth that the waters have been lightened from off the earth.

12 And he stayeth yet other seven days, and sendeth forth the dove, and it added not to turn back unto him any more.

13 And it cometh to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first [month], in the first of the month, the waters have been dried from off the earth; and Noah turneth aside the covering of the ark, and looketh, and lo, the face of the ground hath been dried.

14 And in the second month, in the seven and twentieth day of the month, the earth hath become dry.

15 And God speaketh unto Noah, saying, `Go out from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee;

16 every living thing that [is] with thee, of all flesh, among fowl, and among cattle, and among every creeping thing which is creeping on the earth, bring out with thee;

17 and they have teemed in the earth, and been fruitful, and have multiplied on the earth.'

18 And Noah goeth out, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him;

19 every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl; every creeping thing on the earth, after their families, have gone out from the ark.

20 And Noah buildeth an altar to Jehovah, and taketh of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and causeth burnt-offerings to ascend on the altar;

21 and Jehovah smelleth the sweet fragrance, and Jehovah saith unto His heart, `I continue not to disesteem any more the ground because of man, though the imagination of the heart of man [is] evil from his youth; and I continue not to smite any more all living, as I have done;

22 during all days of the earth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, do not cease.'

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #788

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788. 'The waters increased and raised the ark and lifted it above the earth' means that in such manner it wavered; and 'the waters grew stronger and increased greatly over the earth, and the ark went over the face 1 of the waters' means that in such manner its waverings grew stronger. This does not become clear unless the nature of the state of this Church called Noah is stated beforehand. 'Noah' was not the Ancient Church itself but, as already stated, was like the parent or seed of that Church. But Noah together with Shem, Ham, and Japheth constituted the Ancient Church that followed immediately after the Most Ancient Church. Every member of the Church called Noah belonged to the descendants of the Most Ancient Church, and therefore as far as hereditary evil was concerned his state was little different from that of other descendants who did not survive. Those whose state was little different were unable to be regenerated and become spiritual as those could whose hereditary disposition was not like theirs. The nature of their hereditary disposition has been stated already in 310, but to enable people to have a better knowledge of it let the following be said.

[2] People who belong to the seed of Jacob, such as the Jews, cannot be regenerated so easily as gentiles. The reverse of faith is ingrained within them not only on account of the assumptions they have adopted since early childhood and subsequently confirmed, but also on account of their heredity. That it is also ingrained within them on account of their heredity becomes clear to some extent from the consideration that they are by disposition different from others, indeed have different customs and also different facial features from others, by which they can be singled out, such characteristics being theirs by heredity. And the same applies to their interior peculiarities, for customs and facial features are the imprints of the things within. This also is why converted Jews, more than anybody else, waver between truth and falsity. It was similar with the first people of this Church who were called Noah, for they belonged to the stock and seed of the most ancient people. These waverings are what are being described here, and in what follows further on where it is said that Noah was a man of the ground and that he planted a vineyard, and drank some of the wine, and became drunk, so that he lay naked in the middle of his tent, Genesis 9:20-21. That those people were few has been made clear to me from the consideration that the member (homo) of that Church is represented in the world of spirits as a tall slim man (vir) clothed in white, in a narrow room. Even so these were the people who preserved and possessed among themselves doctrinal matters concerning faith.

Footnotes:

1. literally, over the faces

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