Arcana Coelestia # 862
862. That 'it happened at the end of forty days' means the duration of the former state, and the beginning of the one that followed, is clear from the meaning of 'forty', see 730, where, the subject being temptation, the phrase 'forty days and forty nights' was used, which meant the duration of temptation. Here, since the subject is the state following temptation, 'forty days' is mentioned but not forty nights. The reason is that charity now starts to appear, which in the Word is compared to the day and is called the day. Faith however which precedes but has not yet been so joined to charity is compared to the night and is called the night, as in Genesis 1:16, and elsewhere in the Word. Faith is also called 'the night' in the Word because it receives its light from charity, just as the moon does from the sun. Faith is therefore also compared to the moon and is called the moon; and love or charity is compared to the sun and is called the sun. 'Forty days', or the duration of time meant by them, refers both to the things that precede and to those that follow; hence the statement 'at the end of forty days', which accordingly means both the duration of the previous state, and the beginning of the one being described now. This then begins the description of the second state following temptation of the member of this Church.
Numbers 32:8-14
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Your fathers did so when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.
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For when they went up to the valley of Eshcol, and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, that they should not go into the land which Yahweh had given them.
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Yahweh's anger was kindled in that day, and he swore, saying,
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'Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me:
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except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun; because they have followed Yahweh completely.'
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Yahweh's anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander back and forth in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, who had done evil in the sight of Yahweh, was consumed.
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"Behold, you have risen up in your fathers' place, an increase of sinful men, to augment yet the fierce anger of Yahweh toward Israel.
