The "midst" of something in the Bible represents the thing that is most central and most important to the spiritual state being described, the motivation that drives everything else. In general this will be something we love or feel, because at the core of things we are what we love; our loves define us.

(Odkazy: Apocalypse Revealed 44, 90, 268; Arcana Coelestia 2252, 2940, 10153, 10365, 10557, 10635, 10641)

4617. 'A hundred and eighty years' means the nature of this state. This becomes clear from the fact that all numbers in the Word have spiritual realities as their meaning, see 482, 487, 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, 3252, 4264, 4495. 'A hundred and eighty years' accordingly means the nature of the reality, that is, of the state, which is being dealt with. 'A hundred' means a complete state, see 2636, and 'eighty' temptations, 1963, here by means of temptations - in addition to many other things which cannot be known. Numbers obtain their meanings from the simpler numbers of which they are the products when the simpler are brought together or multiplied, as with the number here which is the product of twelve and fifteen and also of others yet simpler than these.