489. "And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months." This symbolically means that the church has dispelled every truth of the Word to the point that none remains.

The holy city means the Holy Jerusalem, and the Holy Jerusalem means the New Church which possesses doctrinal truths, as holiness is predicated of Divine truth (no. 173). A city, moreover, symbolizes doctrine (no. 194). Consequently to tread that city underfoot means, symbolically, to dispel its doctrinal truths. Forty-two months mean, symbolically, to the end when nothing remains.

Doctrinal truths mean truths from the Word, because that is the source of the church's doctrine and every particular of it.

People concerned with the internal elements of the church today have thus dispelled the Word's truths and the church's doctrine from it. All of this is described in the present chapter by the beast ascending from the bottomless pit, which killed the two witnesses (verse 7); and it may also be seen from the accounts from the spiritual world appended to each chapter.

[2] Forty-two months mean, symbolically, to the end when nothing of the church's truth and goodness remains, because the number forty-two has the same symbolic meaning as six weeks, inasmuch as forty-two is the product of six multiplied by seven, and six weeks symbolizes a period complete to the end. For that is the symbolic meaning of the number six, and a week symbolizes a state, and the seventh week a holy state, which is the new state of the church when the Lord begins His reign.

The number forty-two has the same symbolic meaning in the following verse:

(The beast rising up out of the sea) was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and it was given the power to do this for forty-two months. (Revelation 13:5, no. 583)

The number six symbolizes a period complete to the end because that is the symbolic meaning of the number three, six being that number doubled; and doubled or not, in the case of numbers the symbolism is the same.

Furthermore, this number has the same symbolic meaning as the number three and a half, because forty-two months is equivalent to three and a half years.

The period is expressed in terms of months because a month symbolizes a complete state, as in Isaiah 66:23, Revelation 22:1-2, Genesis 29:14, Numbers 11:18-20, Deuteronomy 21:11, 13.