3469. And Esau was a son of forty years. That this signifies a state of temptation as to the natural good of truth, is evident from the representation of Esau, as being the natural good of truth (n. 3300, 3302, 3322); and from the signification of “forty years,” as being states of temptation. (That “forty” signifies temptations may be seen above, n. 730, 862, 2272; and that “years” signify states, n. 487, 488, 493, 893.) The reason why these things concerning Esau are joined to what has been related concerning Abimelech and Isaac, is that those are treated of who are in the good of truth, that is, who are in life according to things that are derived from the literal sense of the Word; for these are signified by “Abimelech, Ahuzzath, and Phicol,” as before repeatedly said.

[2] They therefore who are in the good of truth, or in a life according to doctrinal things, are regenerate as to the interiors, which are their rational, but not yet as to the exteriors, which are their natural things; for man is regenerated as to the rational before he is regenerated as to the natural (n. 3286, 3288); because the natural is altogether in the world, and in the natural as in a plane there are founded man’s thought and will. This is the reason why during regeneration man observes a combat between his rational or internal man and his natural or external man; and why his external man is regenerated much later, and likewise with much greater difficulty, than his internal man. For that which is nearer to the world and nearer to the body cannot be easily constrained to render obedience to the internal man; but only after considerable length of time and by means of many new states into which the man is introduced, which are states of self-acknowledgment, and of acknowledgment of the Lord, that is, of one’s own wretchedness, and of the Lord’s mercy; thus states of humiliation resulting from temptation combats. Because this is so, there is here next adjoined what is said of Esau and his two wives, whereby such things are signified in the internal sense.

[3] Everyone knows what natural good is, namely, that it is the good into which man is born; but what the natural good of truth is, is known to few, if any. There are four kinds of natural good, that is, of the good that is born with man, namely, natural good from the love of good, natural good from the love of truth, and also natural good from the love of evil, and natural good from the love of falsity. For the good into which man is born he derives from his parents, either father or mother; for all that which parents have contracted by frequent use and habit, or have become imbued with by actual life until it has become so familiar to them that it appears as if natural, is transmitted into their children, and becomes hereditary. If parents who have lived in the good of the love of good and in this life have perceived their delight and blessedness, conceive offspring in this state, the offspring receive therefrom an inclination to similar good; and if parents who have lived in the good of the love of truth (concerning which good see n. 3459, 3463) and in this life have perceived their delight, are in this state when they conceive offspring, the offspring receive therefrom an inclination to the like good.

[4] The case is similar with those who receive hereditarily the good of the love of evil and the good of the love of what is false. These latter are called goods by reason of their appearing in outward form as goods in those persons in whom they are, although they are the very reverse of goods. Very many in whom natural good appears have such good. They who are in the natural good of the love of evil are pliant and prone to evils of every kind; for they suffer themselves to be easily led astray, and from this good are compliant, especially to foul pleasures, to adulteries, and also to cruelties; and they who are in the natural good of falsity are prone to falsities of every kind, and from this good learn with avidity what is persuasive, especially from hypocrites and cunning persons, who know how to captivate the mind, to insinuate themselves into the affections, and to feign innocence. At the present day most people who in the Christian world are in natural good, are born into these so-called goods of evil and falsity, because their parents have by actual life contracted the delight of evil and of falsity, and thus have implanted it in their children, and thereby in their descendants.

730. That by “forty days and nights” is signified the duration of temptation, is plainly evident from the Word of the Lord. That “forty” signifies the duration of temptation, comes from the fact that the Lord suffered Himself to be tempted for forty days (as is stated in Matthew 4:1-2; Luke 4:2; Mark 1:13). And as the things instituted in the Jewish and the other representative churches before the coming of the Lord were each and all types of Him, so also were the forty days and nights, in that they represented and signified in general all temptation, and specifically the duration of the temptation, whatever that might be. And because a man when in temptation is in vastation as to all things that are of his Own, and of the body (for the things that are of his Own and of the body must die, and this through combats and temptations, before he is born again a new man, or is made spiritual and heavenly), for this reason also “forty days and nights” signify the duration of vastation; and it is the same here where the subject is both the temptation of the man of the new church, called “Noah” and the devastation of the antediluvians.

[2] That the number “forty” signifies the duration of both temptation and vastation, whether greater or less, is evident in Ezekiel:

Thou shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, each day for a year have I appointed it unto thee (Ezekiel 4:6).

“Forty” denotes here the duration of the vastation of the Jewish Church, and also a representation of the Lord’s temptation; for it is said that he should “bear the iniquity of the house of Judah.” Again:

I will make the land of Egypt wastes, a waste of desolation; no foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, and it shall not be inhabited forty years; and I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of the desolate lands, and her cities in the midst of the cities that are laid waste shall be a solitude forty years (Ezekiel 29:10-12).

Here also “forty” denotes the duration of vastation and desolation; and in the internal sense forty years are not meant, but only, in general, the desolation of faith, whether within a less or greater time.

In John:

The court that is without the temple cast out and measure it not; for it hath been given unto the nations, who shall tread the holy city underfoot forty and two months (Revelation 11:2).

[3] And again:

There was given unto the beast a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and there was given unto him power to make war forty and two months (Revelation 13:5), denoting the duration of vastation, for anyone may know that forty-two months of time is not meant. But the origin of the use of the number “forty-two” in this passage (which has the same signification as the number “forty”) is that “seven days” signify the end of vastation, and a new beginning, and “six days” signify labor, from the six days of labor or combat. Seven are therefore multiplied by six, and thus give rise to the number forty-two, which signifies the duration of the vastation and the duration of the temptation, or the labor and combat, of the man who is to be regenerated, in which there is holiness. But, as is evident from these passages in Revelation, the round number “forty” was taken for the not-so-round number “forty-two.”

[4] That the Israelitish people were led about for forty years in the wilderness before they were brought into the land of Canaan, in like manner represented and signified the duration of temptation, and also the duration of vastation; the duration of temptation, by their being afterwards brought into the holy land; the duration of vastation, by the fact that all above the age of twenty years, who went out of Egypt, except Joshua and Caleb, died in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33-35; 32:8-14). The things against which they so often murmured signify temptations, and the plagues and destruction that so frequently came upon them signify vastations. That these signify temptations and vastations will of the Lord’s Divine mercy be shown in that place. Of these things it is written in Moses:

Thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to afflict thee, to tempt thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no (Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 16).

That Moses was forty days and forty nights upon Mount Sinai, likewise signifies the duration of the temptation, that is, it signifies the Lord’s temptation, as is evident from his abiding in the mount forty days and forty nights, neither eating bread nor drinking water, supplicating for the people that they might not be destroyed (Deuteronomy 9:9, 11, 18, 25-29; 10:10).

[5] The reason why “forty days” signify the duration of temptation is, as just said, that the Lord suffered Himself to be tempted of the devil forty days. And therefore-as all things were representative of the Lord-when the idea of temptations was present with the angels, that idea was represented in the world of spirits by such things as are in this world, as is the case with all angelic ideas during their descent into the world of spirits: they being presented representatively. And in the same way the idea of temptation was presented by the number “forty” because the Lord was to be tempted forty days. With the Lord, and consequently with the angelic heaven, it is the same whether a thing is present or is to come; what is to come is present, or what is to be done is done. From this came the representation of temptations, as also of vastations, in the representative church, by “forty.” But these things cannot as yet be very well comprehended, because the influx of the angelic heaven into the world of spirits is not known, nor that such is the nature of this influx.