793. From here to the end of the chapter, the topic being discussed is the pre-Flood people who perished, as can be seen from the individual parts of the description. Anyone alive to the inner meaning can tell instantly what the subject is, even from a single word, and even more easily from the connections among many words. When the topic changes, different words suddenly come into use, or else the previous words are linked together in a new way. The reason for the shift is that spiritual themes have their own special vocabulary and heavenly themes have theirs, or to put it another way, intellectual matters have their own vocabulary and volitional ones theirs. Ruination, for example, is a word that applies to spiritual things, while devastation applies to heavenly things; a city has to do with spiritual things, while a mountain has to do with heavenly things; and so on. The same holds true for the ways that words link together.

No one could help being surprised to learn that in Hebrew it is often sound that distinguishes the two. In words that belong to the spiritual category, the first three vowels [of the Hebrew alphabet] usually predominate. In those that capture heavenly qualities, the last two vowels do. ¹

The changing of topics here can be recognized by such signs, and also by the repetition involved (as discussed previously [§§435, 683, 707, 734, 765, 782]). To be specific, it says again here, "And the water strengthened greatly, greatly on the earth," as the last verse also said. The fact of a switch can also be recognized from everything that follows.

Footnotes:

683. Again, the double mention of did means that it involves both. In this connection, it needs to be realized that the Word, especially in the prophets, describes a single phenomenon in two ways. In Isaiah, for instance:

He has passed by in peace; he did not tread the path with his feet. Who has managed and done it? (Isaiah 41:3-4)

One expression looks to good, the other to truth. In other words, one looks to what exists in the will, the other to what exists in the intellect. So passing by in peace involves qualities of the will, not treading the path with his feet qualities of the intellect. The same holds for managing and doing.

This is how the Word ties together the properties of the will and those of the intellect, that is, those of love and those of faith, or in other words, heavenly attributes and spiritual ones. At each point it achieves a kind of marriage and a reflection of the heavenly marriage. The repetition of a single word here achieves the same purpose.