738. Noah is called a son of six hundred years here because a son symbolizes truth in the intellect, as already demonstrated [§§489, 570]. But verse 11 below does not call him a son, because that passage deals with that church's struggles in respect to the workings of its will.

570. The symbolism of the sons of God as the teachings of faith is established by the symbolism of sons, dealt with just above and in verse 4 of the last chapter [§489], where sons symbolized the church's truth.

The church has truth in the form of doctrinal teachings. Because the people described in the present chapter received them by word of mouth from the earliest people, these teachings were true in the abstract. It is for this reason that they are called the sons of God, and also because of their relation to the desires called the daughters of humankind.

This verse is describing those people's character, showing that they immersed the church's truth — which is holy — in their cravings and in this way defiled it. In doing so they reinforced their own firmly held assumptions.

The way these matters stand is something we can all evaluate by looking at ourselves and the people around us. When we convince ourselves of some idea, we prove its truth to ourselves by the use of every seemingly valid argument — even by arguments that come from the Lord's Word. As long as we cling to our adopted principles and persuasions, we force everything into agreement and harmony with them. The more we dote on ourselves, the more rigidly we stick by those ideas.

Such a description fits the race of people under discussion here. More will be said about them below [§§573, 580-586a, 607:3, 619-637, 659-662, 792-813], by the Lord's divine mercy, in a further description of their hideous delusions. Surprising to say, these delusions are such that those people are never allowed to influence others with their rationalizations; if they did, they would kill all rational power in the spirits around them. They are allowed to influence others only with their desires.

Now it is clear what is meant by the sons of God saw the daughters of humankind, that they were good, and they took wives for themselves from among all whom they chose. The meaning is that they forged ties between the teachings of faith and their cravings — cravings of any kind whatever.