395. 'Anyone killing Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold' means that to violate faith thus separated was utterly forbidden. This is clear from the meaning of 'Cain' as separated faith, and from the meaning of 'seven' as utterly inviolable. As is well known, the number seven was considered holy on account of the six days of creation and of the seventh, which is the celestial man in whom peace, rest, and the Sabbath exist. This is the reason why the number seven occurs so many times in the religious ceremonies of the Jewish Church, in every instance standing for that which is holy. It is also the reason why periods of time, long as well as short, were divided into seven, and were called weeks, as in the case of the long time intervals leading up to the time when the Messiah was to come, Daniel 9:24-25. A period of seven years is also called a week by Laban and Jacob, Genesis 29:27-28. Consequently wherever the number seven occurs it stands either for something holy or else for something utterly inviolable, as in David,

Seven times in the day I praise You. Psalms 119:164.

In Isaiah,

The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days. Isaiah 30:26.

Here 'the sun' is love, and 'the moon' faith deriving from love, a faith which is to be as love.

[2] Just as the periods of man's regeneration divide into six before he reaches the seventh, which is the celestial man, so also do the periods of vastation even until nothing celestial is left. This was represented by the many captivities of the Jews, and by the last of them, the Babylonian, which was a captivity of seven decades, that is, seventy years. And it was several times stated that the land had to rest during its Sabbaths. It was also represented by Nebuchadnezzar, of whom it is said in Daniel,

His heart will be changed from man, and the heart of a beast given him until seven times will pass over him. Daniel 4:16, 25, 32.

In reference to the vastation of the last times it is recorded in John,

I saw another sign in heaven, great and wonderful - seven angels holding the seven Revelation 15:1, 6-7.

They will trample over the holy city for forty-two months (that is, six times seven). Revelation 11:2.

In the same book,

I saw a book [written] within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. Revelation 5:1.

Severe and increased penalties were for the same reason expressed by the number seven, as in Moses,

If you will not obey Me in this matter, I will chastise you seven times worse for your sins. Leviticus 26:18, 21, 24, 28.

In David,

Return to our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom. Psalms 79:12.

So then, it is because it was utterly forbidden to violate faith - since it had a use to serve, as has been stated - that the statement is made about 'vengeance being taken sevenfold on him who killed Cain'.

Father in the Word means what is most interior, and in those things that are following the Lord's order, it means what is good. In the highest sense Father means the Lord Himself, the creator. In the generation of natural children it is the father who provides the soul or the most interior receptacle of life, and an internal heredity, and the mother who provides all of the substance that the soul uses to form its body, plus an external heredity. In this process the soul comes from the Lord through the father, and not from the father, since all life is from the Lord. The wise person calls the Lord his father and the church his mother because his interior loves come from the Lord, but are given form and actuality through the truths taught by the church. Those things thus brought forth are a person's spiritual "children". In the New Testament, when speaking of Jesus and the Father, what is meant is the outward manifestation with the divine itself as the soul inside. Because Jesus was born from a natural mother, He had a natural body and a natural Jewish heredity. Throughout his life as He was tempted by the hells, He slowly put off all he had from His mother and replaced it with what He had from Himself inside, the Father. In doing this he made himself one with the Father that was His inmost so He could truly say, "I and my Father are one".