Seven, as in Revelation 15:1, signifies everything in an universal sense. The number 'seven' was considered holy, as is well known, because of the six days of creation, and the seventh, which is the celestial self, where peace, rest, and the Sabbath is. The number seven occurs so frequently in the rites of the Jewish church and is held holy everywhere.

So times were divided into seven, longer and shorter intervals, and were called weeks, like the great intervals of times till the coming of the Messiah, in Daniel 9:24-25. The time of seven years is called 'a week' by Laban and Jacob, as in Genesis 29:27-28. So wherever the number seven occurs, it is considered holy and sacred, as in Psalm 119:164, and in Isaiah 30:26.

As the periods of a person's regeneration are distinguished into six, prior to the seventh, or the celestial self, so the times of vastation are also distinguished, until nothing celestial is left. This was represented by the many captivities of the Jews, and by the last Babylonian captivity, which lasted seven decades, or seventy years. This was also represented by Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel 4:16, 22, 29. It also refers to the vastation of the end times, in Revelation 15:1, 7-8. They should 'tread the holy city under foot, forty and two months, or six times seven,' as in Revelation 11:2 and Revelation 5:1. So the severity and increments of punishment were expressed by the number seven, as in Leviticus 26:18, 21, 24, 28 and Psalm 79:12.

(Препратки: Apocalypse Explained 5, 7-8, 15; Arcana Coelestia 395; Daniel 9, 9:24, 9:25; Psalms 119)

5. Verse 1. The revelation of Jesus Christ, signifies predictions from the Lord respecting the last times of the church. This is evident from the signification of "revelation," as being predictions; and since these are from the Lord alone, it is said, "the revelation of Jesus Christ." The revelation, or predictions, are respecting the last times of the church, since those times are especially treated of. It may be supposed that in Revelation the successive states of the church from beginning to end are treated of; these, however, are not there treated of, but only the state of heaven and of the church near the end, when the Last Judgment takes place, thus the last times. The successive states of the church were foretold by the Lord Himself in Matthew 24, Matthew 25; and also in Mark 13; yet what is there given is written in the Divine prophetic style, that is, by means of correspondences; consequently it is of such a character that it can only be revealed and made evident by the internal or spiritual sense. (It has therefore been granted me from the Lord to unfold these things in the Arcana Coelestia, at the beginning of chapters Genesis 26 to Genesis 40 of Genesis; which explanations may be seen in their order, in the following places: n. Arcana Coelestia 3353-3356, 3486-3489, 3650-3655, 3751-3757, 3897-3901, 4056-4060, 4229-4231, 4332-4335, 4422-4424, 4635-4638, 4661-4664, 4807-4810, 4954-4959, 5063-5071)