rible
threat, entered into matrimony and begot children.

207. It is very probable that he traveled up and down the earth; that
he taught everywhere; that everywhere he exhorted to worship God in
truth; that he, hindered by many labors, refrained from matrimony on
account of abundance of tribulations and in the expectation of the
advent of a better and more religious age. But when he recognized this
hope as unfounded and by a voice divine was warned that a time had
been set for the world's destruction, then and not before, prompted by
the Spirit, did he make up his mind to marry, in order to transmit to
the new age seed out of himself. And thus the holy man preserved the
human race, not only spiritually, in the true Word and worship, but
also bodily, by begetting children.

208. As in paradise a new Church had its beginning, before the flood,
through Adam and Eve's faith in the promise, so also here a new world
and a new Church arise from the marriage of Noah--a nursery of that
world which shall endure to the end.

209. I stated above (para 88) that this marriage was an occasion of
great offense to the ungodly and that they made the most extraordinary
sport of it. How inconsistent that the world is to perish so soon,
when Noah, five hundred years old, becomes a father! They deemed his
act the surest evidence that the world was not to perish by a flood.
Hence, they began to live even more licentiously, and in the greatest
security to despise all threats. Christ says in Matthew 24, 38, that
in the days of Noah they ate, they drank, etc. The world does not
understand the plans of God.

210. Concerning the order of the sons of Noah, I said above that
Japheth was first, that Shem was born two years afterward when Noah
commenced to build the ark, and Ham two years later. This has not been
clearly explained by Moses, but still it has been carefully noted.

B. Destruction of the Whole World.

V. 11. _And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled
with violence._

211. Lyra, perhaps under the influence of rabbinic interpretation,
contends here that even the birds and other animals forsook their
nature and mixed with those of another species. But I do not believe
it, for the creation or nature of animals remains as it was fashioned.
They have not fallen through sin, like man, but are, on the contrary,
fashioned for this bodily life alone. In consequence they neither hear
the Word, nor does the Word concer