487. 'Days means periods of time and states in general. This has been shown in Chapter 1, where the 'days of creation' have no other meaning. In the Word it is very common for a whole period of time to be called 'a day', as it clearly is in the present verse and in verses 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 27, 31, below; and therefore the states that belong to periods of time in general are meant by 'days' as well. And when 'years' is attached, then periods of years mean the natures of those states, and so the states in particular.

[2] The most ancient people had their own particular numbers which they would use to mean different aspects of the Church - for instance, the numbers three, seven, ten, twelve, and many which they obtained from these and other numbers - and in so doing incorporated states of the Church. These numbers therefore contain arcana that would require considerable effort to unravel. Really a number was an evaluation of the states of the Church. The same feature occurs throughout the Word, especially in the prophetical. And the religious ceremonies of the Jewish Church also entail numbers specifying periods of time as well as quantities; for example, in connection with sacrifices, minchahs, oblations, and other practices, which in every case have special reference to holy things. Consequently eight hundred in this verse, nine hundred and thirty in the next, and the numbers of years mentioned in the verses that follow after that, embody in particular more matters than can possibly be retold; matters, that is to say, which have to do with changes in the state of their Church in relationship to their own general state. Later on, in the Lord's Divine mercy, the meaning of the simple numbers up to twelve will be given, for without knowing these first of all no one can grasp what compound numbers mean.

3288. 'And Rebekah his wife conceived' means from Divine Truth as the mother. This is clear from the representation of 'Rebekah' as the Divine Truth of the Rational, dealt with in the previous chapter, and from the meaning of 'conceiving' as the first beginnings of the rise of the Divine Natural, as from the mother. For as stated just above, the Divine Natural came into being from the Divine Good of the Rational as father and from the Divine Truth of the Rational as mother. Scarcely anybody knows that this is so, especially since few know that the rational is distinct and separate from the natural. None but those who are truly rational know of that distinctness, and none are truly rational but those who have been regenerated by the Lord. People who have not been regenerated do not grasp it since to them the rational and the natural are one and the same.