1
神记念挪亚和挪亚方舟里的一切走兽牲畜。神叫风吹地，水势渐落。
9
但遍地上都是水，鸽子找不着落脚之地，就回到方舟挪亚那里，挪亚伸手把鸽子接进方舟来。
11
到了晚上，鸽子回到他那里，嘴里叼着一个新拧下来的橄榄叶子，挪亚就知道地上的水退了。
13
到挪亚六百零一岁，正月初一日，地上的水都乾了。挪亚撤去方舟的盖观看，便见地面上乾了。
17
在你那里凡有血肉的活物，就是飞鸟、牲畜，和一切爬在地上的昆虫，都要带出来，叫他在地上多多滋生，大大兴旺。
19
一切走兽、昆虫、飞鸟，和地上所有的动物，各从其类，也都出了方舟。
20
挪亚为耶和华筑了一座坛，拿各类洁净的牲畜、飞鸟献在坛上为燔祭。
870. That 'a dove' means the truths and goods of faith residing with a person who is to be regenerated is clear from the meaning of 'a dove' in the Word, especially from the dove that alighted on Jesus when He was baptized, as mentioned in Matthew,
When Jesus was baptized He went up immediately out of the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Himself. Matthew 3:16-17; and in John 1:32, Luke 3:21-22; Mark 1:10-11.
Here 'a dove' meant nothing else than the holiness of faith, and the 'baptism' itself meant regeneration. It also meant therefore the truth and good of faith residing with the new Church that was to arise, which truth and good people receive through being regenerated by the Lord.
[2] Similar things were represented and embodied in the young doves or the turtle doves - mentioned in Leviticus 1:14-end; 5:7-10; 12:6; 14:21-22; 15:14-15, 29-30; Numbers 6:10-11; Luke 2:22-24 - which they used to offer as sacrifices and as burnt offerings in the Jewish Church, as becomes clear from each of the references just given. Anyone may grasp that they had such a meaning merely from the fact that they could not have been anything else than things of a representative nature. Otherwise they would be pointless, and in no sense Divine, for the external side of the Church is lifeless, but is made alive by the internal, as is the internal by the Lord.
[3] That 'a dove' in general means the intellectual concepts of faith is also clear in the Prophets, as in Hosea,
Ephraim will be like a stupid dove with no heart; they called Egypt, they went away to Assyria. Hosea 7:11.
In the same prophet, speaking of Ephraim,
They will tremble like a bird out of Egypt and a dove from the land of Assyria. Hosea 11:11.
Here 'Ephraim' stands for one who has intelligence, 'Egypt' for him who has knowledge, 'Assyria' for him who is rational, and 'a dove' stands for what belongs to the intellectual concepts of faith, the subject there being the regeneration of the spiritual Church. In David,
O Jehovah, deliver not the soul of [Your] turtle dove to the wild animal. Psalms 74:19.
'Wild animal' stands for people without any charity, 'the soul of a turtle dove' for the life of faith. See what has been stated and shown already in 40, 776, about birds meaning intellectual things. Harmless, beautiful, clean, and useful birds in particular mean intellectual truths and goods; but harmful, ugly, unclean, and useless ones, such as the raven, which is here used as the opposite of the dove, mean their opposites, namely falsities.
