2280. Perhaps twenty will be found there means if there is no struggle but there is still something good, as can be seen from the symbolism of twenty.
Since all numbers mentioned in the Word symbolize qualities or states, as has been said and shown in many places above (see §2252), so does the number twenty. Its symbolism can be seen from its roots, in that it is two times ten.
In the Word, ten and tenths symbolize a remnant, which means everything good and true that the Lord instills into us from infancy up to the last moments of our life; the next verse treats of this remnant. Two times ten (twenty, that is) or two tenths symbolizes the same thing–goodness–but a higher level of it.
[2] A remnant symbolizes three kinds of goodness: childhood goodness, uninstructed goodness, and a knowing goodness. Childhood goodness is the goodness instilled in us from the moment we are born up till we are old enough to start being taught and begin to know things. Uninstructed goodness is the goodness we have while we are being taught and starting to know things. A knowing goodness is the goodness we have when we are able to ponder what is good and what is true.
Childhood goodness lasts from infancy up to our tenth year. Uninstructed goodness lasts from then up to our twentieth year. After that we start to become rational and to develop the ability to think deeply about goodness and truth and to acquire a knowing goodness for ourselves.
[3] Blind goodness is what the number twenty symbolizes, because people who have it do not undergo any spiritual struggle. We are never tested until we are capable of contemplating what is good and true and perceiving it in our own way. The last two verses talked about people like this, people who have acquired good qualities through times of trial. The current verse is talking about the former kind–people who are not facing inward struggles but still possess some goodness.
[4] Because the number twenty symbolizes people who have the kind of goodness described as blind, everyone who left Egypt–"everyone going out into the army," as it is put–from a son of twenty years and up was registered. These individuals stood for people whose goodness was no longer blind. They are spoken of in Numbers 1:20, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 38, 40, 42, 45; 26:4. For the same reason, everyone who was over twenty years old died in the wilderness (Numbers 32:10, 11), because they could be held responsible for their evil. They represented people who fail in their trials. Again it was for the same reason that one assessment valued a male at twenty shekels from a son of five years to a son of twenty years (Leviticus 27:5). Another assessment valued a male at fifty shekels from a son of twenty years to one of sixty (Leviticus 27:3).
[5] This is how the three kinds of goodness stand: A knowing goodness is best, because it is wise. The goodness that comes before it, or uninstructed goodness, is admittedly good, but because it is not very discerning it cannot be called wise. In itself childhood goodness is also admittedly good, but it is less good than the other two, because it is as yet untouched by any knowing kind of truth. It has not become a wise goodness but is merely a base on which wise goodness can form. Knowledge of what is good and true allows a human to gain human wisdom.
The childlike state that symbolizes innocence does not really belong to childhood but to wisdom, as will be easier to see from the commentary on children in the other world at the end of the chapter [§§2289-2309].
[6] The number twenty in this verse symbolizes no other kind of goodness than blind goodness, as noted. It is not only people under twenty, as mentioned, who can be described as blindly good but everyone who practices charity in ignorance of the truth. This includes people in the church who practice charity but do not know what is true from a religious point of view, for whatever reason. Many, many of those who think well of their neighbor and reverently of God fall into this category. It also includes all those outside the church–people called Gentiles–who likewise practice charity in their lives. Although both kinds lack religious truth, still, because they have some goodness, they are capable of embracing such truth in the other world as readily as children do. Their intellectual side has not yet been tainted with false assumptions, and their volitional side has not been much hardened by an evil life, because they are ignorant of falsity and evil. A charitable life carries with it the ability for blind falsity and evil to change easily into truth and goodness. The same is not true for people who have justified themselves in attacking what is true and lived their lives as an attack on what is good.
[7] In other places in the Word two tenths symbolizes goodness that is both heavenly and spiritual. The two tenths [of an ephah of flour] that went into the making of each loaf of the bread of presence arranged in rows (Leviticus 24:5) symbolizes heavenly goodness and the spiritual goodness that grows out of it. The two tenths [of an ephah of flour] in the minha laid on a sacrificial ram (Numbers 15:6; 28:12, 20, 28; 29:3, 9, 14) symbolizes spiritual goodness. I will have more to say on this elsewhere [§§7978, 10140], with the Lord's divine mercy.
