from WL Worcester (H Blackmer, ed.), 
The Sower.  Helps to the Study of the Bible in Home and Sunday School
 
(Boston: Massachusetts New-Church Union, n.d.)

Table of Contents
 

 

Lesson 6

Genesis 7: The Flood

The Story

Primary

We are learning of a time when wickedness like a great flood swept over all the earth. Who was Noah? Who were to go into the ark with him? His wife and his three sons and their wives. And what more was he to take into the ark? Animals of every kind and food for them all. There were to be two animals of each kind, or of the clean animals seven; this means gentle, useful animals, such as sheep and goats and cattle. Unclean animals mean those that are fierce and evil, like wolves, bears, foxes, pigs, and others. Noah was six hundred years old; and he lived in all nine hundred and fifty years. (Gen. 9:29) We read in chapter 5, of others who lived eight hundred and nine hundred years. It may not mean that particular people lived so long, but their names were given to tribes. Remember how the names Moab, Midian, and Israel were used. The older children will learn too that the numbers tell something about the kind of people in each tribe.

When all were in the ark, the flood came with a great rain that lasted forty days and forty nights. The waters rose higher and higher (so is described the great increase of wickedness in the world), and the mountains were covered, and all living things died but those that were in the ark. Did you ever see a great flood? I remember an autumn freshet when a little mountain stream grew to a roaring torrent a mile or two in width, and overflowed the farms. The corn had just been cut and it was carried off, and the pumpkins and the fences and bridges. It was a fearful sight; the water was so strong, and it was sad to see things carried by and not be able to save them. Some of you may have seen floods that carried away houses and whole towns and drowned many people. The flood in the story lasted a hundred and forty days, and the ark was carried here and there upon the waters. Those in the ark were safe, like the man in the Lord's parable who built his house upon a rock: "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not." (Matt. 7:25) We may think how the Lord's power is protecting us from many kinds of danger when we are safe in the house on a stormy night and hear the rain beating on the windows and on the roof. Let us read the story.

Junior

If you have seen a great storm, or a flood when the sea or a river overflowed the land, carrying away crops from the fields, and perhaps cattle and houses, it will help you to see the flood that this story describes. At the same time, we can remember how the people long ago, who first had this story, understood it: the great flood of evil which grew so great that almost nothing of heavenly life was left.

The stories of creation and of Eden, and this story of the flood, were spread among many nations, where the Ancient Word was known. Fragments of the flood story very like ours have been found in the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh.

The numbers are important which tell Noah's age, the days when the storm began and ceased, the height to which the water rose, the time that it stayed upon the earth. We will notice only two numbers, Noah's age, six hundred years, and the forty days and forty nights of the storm. You can associate both those numbers with trial and temptation, six with the days of labor of the week, and forty with the forty years of Israel in the desert, and with the forty days and nights of the Lord's temptation.

1. What is meant by the flood in our lesson? Tell me another place in the Bible where a flood has the same meaning?

2. How many days did the rain last? Do you think of another place in the Bible where the same number is used?

3. What other numbers are mentioned in the chapter?

4. What were saved with Noah in the ark?

Spiritual Study

Intermediate

Does water in the Bible ever represent anything good? What did the water of Jordan represent in which John the Baptist baptized? What is likened to rivers of water in the first Psalm? What is represented by the rivers of Eden and of the Holy City? The clear teaching from the Lord. Does the flood in our lesson mean such truth? It means the opposite of this, false and evil thoughts filling the minds of all people. (Read Matt. 7:25, 27; Ps. 124:2-5; Isa. 43:2; A. 739, 790)

The number forty in many places in the Bible is associated with states of trial and temptation. Remember especially the forty years of wandering in the wilderness (Deut. 8:2-4), and the Lord's forty days and forty nights in the wilderness at the time of His temptation. (Matt. 4:1, 2) States of spiritual darkness and distress are especially meant when forty nights are mentioned. It is interesting to think why forty is associated with temptations. Forty like four first of all suggests a full character, the length as large as the breadth, "the measure of a man, that is of an angel." (R. 905-908; A. 9717) But this fullness of character is gained only through temptations, and these are usually meant when the number is mentioned in the Bible. (A. 730, 8098; E. 633)

The number seven occurs in our lesson associated with the clean beasts and fowls. Seven suggests the Sabbath and the holy heavenly state after temptations and effort are ended. The animals, as we know, represent human affections, and the clean animals represent affections that are holy; that is why the number seven is mentioned with them. (A. 716, 2044; E. 20, 257) It is also said that the flood would come after seven days. The seven here means completeness, but in regard to the people at that time it was completeness of evil, when the time for their judgment would come. In regard to the completeness of an evil state before judgment, see Gen. 15:16; A. 1857.

As we read the chapter, it seems full of repetitions; it tells things that have been told before, and tells them twice. Thinking only of the literal story these are repetitions, but they are not so in the spiritual meaning. When the same thing or almost the same thing is told a second or a third time, spiritually it is speaking of a different state or faculty of life. The first time it may be speaking about the understanding and its thoughts, and the second time about the will and its affections. This explains the repetitions in many parts of the Bible. It explains too some apparent disagreements when a thing is repeated with some variation. For example, in verses 2 and 3 in our lesson it speaks of taking the clean animals by sevens, but in the chapter before and in verses which follow it speaks of taking them by twos. Naturally it seems like a disagreement; spiritually the "sevens" refer to a different and more holy faculty of the mind than the "twos." (A. 707, 717, 734)

The beasts and the fowls preserved with Noah in the ark represent the faculties of a person’s own life, the beasts meaning affections and the fowls meaning affections for thought, which are intelligence. (A. 744, 775, 776) Why were unclean beasts preserved in the ark? The people represented by Noah and his family were not altogether good people, but were such as could be regenerated by temptations and become heavenly. (A. 615, 705) The unclean beasts represent their unheavenly affections.

In verses 19 and 20, it is said that the mountains were covered. What do the mountains represent? Interior, heavenly states; states of love to the Lord and one another. (A. 795; E. 405) We may be sure that heavenly affections disappeared as the flood of wickedness increased. The "high hills" (verse 19) is more correctly translated "high mountains."

There are places in the Bible that speak of the waters of Noah as if they had come upon the earth also at other times. Can this be true when you remember what the waters mean? (Isa. 54:9; Matt. 24:37; A. 705)

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