575. That by the days of man being a hundred and twenty years is signified that he ought to have remains of faith, appears from what has been said in the foregoing chapter (Genesis 5:3-4), concerning “days” and “years” signifying times and states; and also from the circumstance of the most ancient people from numbers variously compounded signifying states and changes of states in the church; but the nature of their ecclesiastical computation is now totally lost. Here in like manner numbers of years are mentioned, whose signification it is impossible for anyone to understand, unless he be first acquainted with the hidden meaning of each particular number from “one” to “twelve” and so on. It plainly appears that they contain within them something else that is secret, for that men were to live a “hundred and twenty years” has no connection with the preceding part of the verse, nor did they live one hundred and twenty years, as is evident from the people after the flood (chapter 11), where it is said of Shem that “he lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years;” and that Arphaxad lived after be begat Selah “four hundred and three years;” and that Selah lived after he begat Eber “four hundred and three years;” and that Eber lived after he begat Peleg “four hundred and thirty years;” and that Noah lived after the flood “three hundred and fifty years” (Genesis 9:28), and so on. But what is involved in the number “one hundred and twenty” appears only from the meaning of “ten” and “twelve” which being multiplied together make one hundred and twenty, and from the signification of these component numbers it may be seen that “one hundred and twenty” signifies the remains of faith. The number “ten” in the Word, as also “tenths” signify and represent remains, which are preserved by the Lord in the internal man, and which are holy, because they are of the Lord alone; and the number “twelve” signifies faith, or all things relating to faith in one complex; the number therefore that is compounded of these, signifies the remains of faith.