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)

6174. 'Seventeen years' means the state there. This is clear from the meaning of 'seventeen' as from beginning to end, or from the beginning to something new, dealt with in 755, 4670 (end); and from the meaning of 'years' as states, dealt with in 487, 488, 493, 893, so that here 'seventeen years in which Jacob lived in Egypt' means the beginning of the state of spiritual life in the natural among known facts even to the end of that state. For all numbers in the Word serve to denote spiritual realities, see 575, 647, 648, 755, 817, 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, 3252, 4264, 4495, 4670, 5265.