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Genesis第7章

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1 And the LORD said to Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

3 Of fowls of the air also by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive on the face of all the earth.

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights: and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from the face of the earth.

5 And Noah did according to all that the LORD commanded him.

6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was on the earth.

7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every animal that creepeth upon the earth;

9 There went in two and two to Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

13 In the same day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark.

14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping animal that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

15 And they went in to Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, in which is the breath of life.

16 And they that entered, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.

17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth: and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it was lifted above the earth.

18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth: and the ark moved upon the face of the waters.

19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered.

20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail: and the mountains were covered.

21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping animal that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:

22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was on the dry land, died.

23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping animals, and the fowl of heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#730

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730. 'Forty days and nights' means the duration of temptation. This is quite clear from the Word of the Lord. The reason 'forty' means the duration of temptation is the fact that the Lord allowed Himself to be tempted for forty days, as is clear in Matthew 4:1-2; Luke 4:2; Mark 1:13. And because every single requirement in the Jewish Church and in all other representative Churches before the Lord's Coming was merely a type and shadow of Him, so too were forty days and nights. In general they represented and meant all temptation, and in particular however long its duration. And since anyone undergoing temptation experiences vastation of all things that belong to the proprium and of things that are bodily - for things of the proprium and those that are bodily have to die, doing so indeed through conflict and temptation, before he is reborn a new man, that is, before he becomes spiritual and celestial - 'forty days and nights' therefore also means the duration of vastation. The same applies here where the subject is both the temptation of the member of the new Church called Noah and also the destruction of those who lived before the Flood.

[2] That 'forty' means not only the duration of temptation but also of vastation, whether long or short, is clear in Ezekiel,

You shall lie on your right side and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, a day for each year I assign you. Ezekiel 4:6.

This stands for the duration of the vastation of the Jewish Church and also for a representation of the Lord's temptation, for it is said that he was 'to bear the iniquity of the house of Judah'. In the same prophet,

I will make the land of Egypt waste places, an utter desolation. The foot of man will not pass through it, and the foot of beast will not pass through it, and it will be uninhabited for forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of desolated lands, and her cities in the midst of devastated cities will be a lonely place for forty years. Ezekiel 29:10-11.

This too stands for the duration of vastation and desolation. Here the meaning in the internal sense is not forty years but solely the desolation of faith in general, whether within a short or a long period of time. In John,

The court outside the Temple, leave that out and do not measure it, for it has been given over to the nations 1 who will trample over the holy city for forty-two months. Revelation 11:2.

[3] And in the same author,

The beast was given a mouth uttering great things and blasphemies, and it was given power to act for forty-two months. Revelation 13:5.

This stands for the duration of vastation, for a period of forty-two months is not meant at all, as anyone may see. In these quotations the number is in fact forty-two, but this has the same meaning as forty. It is obtained from 'seven days' meaning the finish of vastation and a new beginning, and from 'six' meaning labour because of the six days of labour or conflict. Consequently seven multiplied by six, which produces the number 'forty-two', means the duration of vastation and the duration of temptation, that is, the labour and conflict of someone who is to be regenerated, which period of time involves holiness. The round number forty however has been adopted instead of the less round number forty-two, as is clear in these quotations from the Book of Revelation.

[4] The people of Israel's being led about in the wilderness for forty years before being brought into the land of Canaan in a similar way represented and meant the duration of temptation, and also the duration of vastation - the duration of temptation by the fact that they were subsequently brought into the Holy Land, and the duration of vastation by the fact that, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, all who were more than twenty years old when they left Egypt died in the wilderness. And temptations are also meant by the things they grumbled about so often, and vastations by the plagues and destruction they suffered so often. The fact that temptations and vastations are meant will in the Lord's Divine mercy be shown in their proper places. They are referred to in Moses as follows,

You shall remember all the way that Jehovah your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness to afflict you, to tempt you, to know what is in your heart, whether you will keep His commandments or not. Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 16.

Moses' forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai similarly mean the duration of temptation - that is, the temptation of the Lord - as is clear in Moses,

He was on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, eating no bread, drinking no water, pleading for the people not to be destroyed. Deuteronomy 9:9, 11, 18, Deuteronomy 9:25-end; Deuteronomy 10:10.

[See also]Numbers 14:33-35; 32:8-14

[5] The reason 'forty days' means the duration of temptation is, as has been stated, that the Lord allowed Himself to be tempted by the devil for forty days. Consequently in the days when all things were representatives of the Lord, whenever the idea of temptation existed with angels, that idea was represented in the world of spirits by such things as exist in the world - as happens with all angelic ideas when they come down into the world of spirits and manifest themselves there in a representative fashion. The same accordingly applies to the number forty, for the Lord was to be tempted for forty days. With the Lord, and consequently in the angelic heaven, the future and the present are one and the same, for what is future is already present, or what is to take place has taken place. This is the origin of the representation of temptations and also of vastations by forty in the representative Church. But these matters cannot as yet be understood satisfactorily because people do not know about the influx of the angelic heaven into the world of spirits or the nature of it.

脚注:

1. or the gentiles

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