10685. 'And he was with Jehovah forty days and forty nights' means temptations before the Church, worship, and the Word exist on an internal level. This is clear from the meaning of 'forty days and nights', when it has reference to the Church with a person, as states involving temptation, dealt with in 730, 862, 2272, 2273, 8098. Before the Church, worship, and the Word exist on an internal level is meant because temptations are the means by which the internal level in a person, called the internal man, is opened up to that person and handed over to him. Consequently everyone who is being regenerated undergoes temptations. The reason why temptations are the means by which the internal level is opened up and brought into existence is that while a person is embroiled in temptations, which are conflicts against evils and falsities, the Lord flows in from the interior and fights on the person's behalf. This may be recognized by a person from the fact that at the times when he is embroiled in temptations he inwardly offers resistance; for unless he did so he would not be victorious but would go under. He is not conscious of that inward resistance during temptations, because while embroiled in them he is in the dark, on account of the evil and falsities of evil that assail him; but after temptations those with a perception of truth are conscious of it. For while a person is living in the world he has no knowledge of the things which the Lord introduces into him on an internal level, because at that time, before he enters the next life, he thinks on the level of the external or natural man, and not perceptibly on an internal level. Nevertheless he ought to know and acknowledge, when victorious in temptations, that all the fighting was done not by himself but by the Lord on his behalf.

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.