:
fighting against the evil of hell invented by those early human
beings. This instruction and temptations are represented by the
40 days and nights of the flood. (Ibid. 727, 730) But in order to
overcome completely in that combat, the Lord did finally make
His advent in Bethlehem, fulfilling the pre-deluge prophesy
of “trampling the head of the serpent” (Genesis 3:15), and for
the identical purpose of the 40 days in the ark: to prevent the
destruction of the entire human race.
Thus the Lord as an infant, a toddler, combatted the hells
in temptations from those very same giants who died in the flood. “The Lord
combated those ‘wicked tribes’ in His earliest childhood, whom He conquered;
and unless the Lord had conquered them by His coming into the world, no
one man would have been left at this day upon the earth.” (Arcana Coelestia
1673.2) The Lord finished His combats on Noah’s behalf, after His Advent,
while yet an infant. The Lord “saved” the celestial heaven, the Most Ancients,
by these temptations. (Ibid. 6373) Wow!
So who did He conquer? The Nephilim, which is Hebrew for “The Fallen
Ones” or “The Giants on the earth in those days.” (Genesis 6.4) They were
the ones who choked to death on the idea that they were God, and God did
not exist outside themselves. They “drowned in the flood.” The reason for
their drowning is that the Lord taught them the truth. “God spoke to Noah,”
meaning He revealed that He alone Is, and His Name thus is “I Am that I Am”
– Jehovah.
This was