101. "'And you will have tribulation ten days.'" This symbolically means that this will continue the whole time, that is, as long as they wish to remain caught up in falsities.

Tribulation, which we discussed in nos. 33 and 95 above, here symbolizes infestation, thus temptation or trial; and ten days symbolize the duration of that state to its completion. Therefore the people of this church are told next, "Be faithful until death," which symbolizes their reception and acknowledgment of truths until their falsities have been set aside and seemingly abolished.

Ten days symbolize the duration of their state to its completion because a day symbolizes a state, and ten completeness. For intervals of time in the Word symbolize states (no. 947), and numbers add their character (no. 10).

[2] Since ten symbolizes completeness, it also symbolizes much or many, and every or all, as can be seen from the following passages:

...the men who have seen My glory... have put Me to the test... ten times... (Numbers 14:22)

...ten times you have reproached me. (Job 19:3)

(Daniel was found) ten times better than... the astrologers. (Daniel 1:20)

...ten women shall bake your bread in one oven... (Leviticus 26:26)

...ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man... (Zechariah 8:23)

Because ten symbolizes much and also all, therefore the precepts that Jehovah wrote upon the tablets of the Decalogue are called the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 4:13; 10:4). The Ten Commandments embody all truths, for they encompass them.

Moreover, because ten symbolizes all, therefore the Lord likened the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins (Matthew 25:1). And in a parable He said of a certain nobleman that the nobleman gave his servants ten minas with which to do business (Luke 19:12-27).

Much is also symbolically meant by the ten horns of the beast that came up from the sea in Daniel 7:7; by the ten horns and the ten jewels ¹ upon the horns of the beast rising up from the sea in Revelation 13:1; by the ten horns of the dragon in Revelation 12:3; and by the ten horns of the scarlet beast with the woman sitting upon it in Revelation 17:3, 7, 12. The ten horns symbolize much power.

[3] From the symbolic meaning of ten as being complete, much, and all, it can be seen why it was instituted that a tenth part of all the produce of the earth be given to Jehovah, and by Jehovah in turn to Aaron and the Levites (Numbers 18:24, 28, Deuteronomy 14:22), and why Abram gave to Melchizedek a tithe of all (Genesis 14:18, 20). For this symbolically meant that everything they had therefore was from Jehovah and sanctified by Him (see Malachi 3:10).

It can be seen from this now that having tribulation ten days means, symbolically, that their temptation or trial will continue the whole time, that is, as long as they wish to remain caught up in falsities. For falsities are never taken from a person against his will, but in accord with it.

Poznámky pod čarou:

515. In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth part of the city fell. (11:13) This symbolizes a considerable change of state occurring then in those people, and their being plucked away from heaven and sinking into hell.

In the same hour means, symbolically, the time when those people saw the two witnesses ascend to heaven, and yet remained in their falsities, as said just above in no. 514. For those two witnesses prophesied, meaning that they taught them (verse 3); and after they were killed and came back to life, and the people also saw them ascend to heaven and yet did not turn away from their falsities, then that great earthquake occurred.

Something similar happened with the two doctrines of the New Jerusalem, one concerning the Lord, and the other teaching a life in accordance with the Ten Commandments, as may be seen to some extent from the narrative accounts appended to each chapter. These two doctrines are the two witnesses dealt with here.

The earthquake symbolizes a change of state (no. 331), here the people's destruction, because in it a tenth part of the city fell. A tenth part means, symbolically, all the people in it, for the number ten symbolizes much or all (no. 101), and so likewise a tenth part or a tenth, just as a fourth part or a fourth has the same symbolic meaning as four (no. 322), and a third part or a third the same symbolic meaning as three (no. 400).

To fall means, symbolically, to sink down into hell, which occurs when people are plucked away from heaven. For in the case of cities in the world of spirits that are filled with evils and falsities, the people there are visited, taught and warned, and after that, if they remain still in their evils and falsities, the cities are struck with an earthquake. This then causes a chasm to open into which the people sink down, and the inhabitants at the bottom then seem to themselves to be in a desert, from which they are dispatched one by one to their places in hell. That this was the case with the city here will be seen in no. 531 below.