The Bible

 

Genesis 9

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1 And God blesseth Noah, and his sons, and saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth;

2 and your fear and your dread is on every beast of the earth, and on every fowl of the heavens, on all that creepeth on the ground, and on all fishes of the sea -- into your hand they have been given.

3 Every creeping thing that is alive, to you it is for food; as the green herb I have given to you the whole;

4 only flesh in its life -- its blood -- ye do not eat.

5 `And only your blood for your lives do I require; from the hand of every living thing I require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother I require the life of man;

6 whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man is his blood shed: for in the image of God hath He made man.

7 And ye, be fruitful and multiply, teem in the earth, and multiply in it.'

8 And God speaketh unto Noah, and unto his sons with him, saying,

9 `And I, lo, I am establishing My covenant with you, and with your seed after you,

10 and with every living creature which [is] with you, among fowl, among cattle, and among every beast of the earth with you, from all who are going out of the ark -- to every beast of the earth.

11 And I have established My covenant with you, and all flesh is not any more cut off by waters of a deluge, and there is not any more a deluge to destroy the earth.'

12 And God saith, `This is a token of the covenant which I am giving between Me and you, and every living creature that [is] with you, to generations age-during;

13 My bow I have given in the cloud, and it hath been for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth;

14 and it hath come to pass (in My sending a cloud over the earth) that the bow hath been seen in the cloud,

15 and I have remembered My covenant which is between Me and you, and every living creature among all flesh, and the waters become no more a deluge to destroy all flesh;

16 and the bow hath been in the cloud, and I have seen it -- to remember the covenant age-during between God and every living creature among all flesh which [is] on the earth.'

17 And God saith unto Noah, `This [is] a token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that [is] upon the earth.'

18 And the sons of Noah who are going out of the ark are Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is father of Canaan.

19 These three [are] sons of Noah, and from these hath all the earth been overspread.

20 And Noah remaineth a man of the ground, and planteth a vineyard,

21 and drinketh of the wine, and is drunken, and uncovereth himself in the midst of the tent.

22 And Ham, father of Canaan, seeth the nakedness of his father, and declareth to his two brethren without.

23 And Shem taketh -- Japheth also -- the garment, and they place on the shoulder of them both, and go backward, and cover the nakedness of their father; and their faces [are] backward, and their father's nakedness they have not seen.

24 And Noah awaketh from his wine, and knoweth that which his young son hath done to him,

25 and saith: `Cursed [is] Canaan, Servant of servants he is to his brethren.'

26 And he saith: `Blessed of Jehovah my God [is] Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.

27 God doth give beauty to Japheth, And he dwelleth in tents of Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.'

28 And Noah liveth after the deluge three hundred and fifty years;

29 and all the days of Noah are nine hundred and fifty years, and he dieth.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #1222

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1222. The elder brother of Japheth. That this signifies that its worship was external, is evident from the signification of “Japheth,” as being the external church, concerning which in the preceding chapter, in Genesis 91:18 and following verses; and above, in this chapter, verses 1-5. Here “Shem, the elder brother of Japheth” signifies specifically that the internal church and the external church are brothers; for such is the relation of internal worship to external worship in which there is internal. It is a blood-relationship, for in each the principal is charity. But the internal church is the elder brother, because it is prior and interior. “The elder brother of Japheth” here involves also that the second Ancient Church, called “Eber,” was as a brother to the first Ancient Church. For by “Japheth,” in the internal sense, nothing else is signified than external worship in which there is internal, in whatever church; thus also the worship of this new Ancient Church, which was chiefly external. Such is the internal sense of the Word that the historicals of the literal sense are not attended to when universals, which are abstract from the literal sense, are regarded; for they look toward one another in a contrary manner. 1 Hence “the elder brother of Japheth” here signifies, in the internal sense, the worship of the new Ancient Church, that it was external. Unless this were signified, it would be needless to say here that he was the elder brother of Japheth.

Footnotes:

1. That is, when we look at the historicals we lose sight of the universals, and when we look at the universals we lose sight of the historicals. [Reviser.]

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