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 #895

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895. 'The waters dried up from over the earth' means that falsities were not at that time apparent. This is clear from what has been stated. In particular these words mean that falsities had been separated from things of the will belonging to the member of this Church. The statement 'the waters dried up from over the earth' occurs at this point because here 'earth' means the person's will, which is nothing but evil desire. As stated already, the ground is situated in the understanding part of man's mind, in which part truths are sown. No sowing ever takes place in the will part, which in the spiritual man has been separated from the understanding part. This is why in the last part of this verse it is said that 'the face 1 of the ground was dry'. With the member of the Most Ancient Church there was ground in the will part of his mind, where the Lord implanted goods. It was from goods therefore that he was able to know and perceive truth, that is, it was from love that he was able to possess faith. If the same thing were to happen today however, a person would inevitably and eternally perish, for his will is utterly corrupted. What implantation in the will part entails and what in the understanding part becomes clear from the consideration that the member of the Most Ancient Church had in fact enjoyed revelations through which from early childhood onwards he was led into a perception of goods and truths. But since they used to be implanted in the will part of his mind he perceived without any further instruction the countless aspects of any one general matter. He knew from the Lord the details and the finer points which nowadays men must learn before knowing about them. And even then they can know scarcely one thousandth of them. For the member of the spiritual Church knows nothing unless he acquires it by learning; and what he gets to know in this fashion he retains and believes to be true. Indeed if he learns something false and this is impressed on him as though it were true, he believes that as well, for he has no other perception than that a thing is true because he has in that way been persuaded of it. People who possess conscience derive from conscience a certain dictate. Yet with them a thing is true only because they have heard and learned that it is. This is what constitutes their conscience, as becomes clear from people who have a conscience of what is false.

Footnotes:

1. literally, the faces

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