In most places in the Word, "ten" represents "all," or in some cases "many" or "much." The Ten Commandments represent all the guidance we get from the Lord in life; the ten horns on the beast of Revelation represent all power of falsity; the ten virgins with lamps in Matthew 25 represent all people of the church.

Yet in other places, ten, or especially a "tenth," signifies representing remnants, or tiny scraps of goodness preserved for the future. These can be the remnants of a church -- a few good people that can be built up into a new church. Or they can be tiny subconscious memories of love and joy which the Lord stores in each of us in early childhood, feelings He can use later to draw us toward a life of goodness and affection.

These two meanings seem nearly opposite, but they're actually not. Love is whole and indivisible, so that the tiniest feeling buried inside someone contains all the elements of the love it can become. In a similar way, a remnant of a church that has preserved that church's knowledge has everything it needs to grow into a new church. In a sense, then, those remnants are indeed "all," they're just a version of "all" that is still in a state of potential.

5837. 'And your servants will cause the grey hair of your servant our father to go down in sorrow to the grave' means that the Church will be done for. This is clear from the explanation above in 5832, where similar words occur. The reason why Israel, to whom 'father' refers, here means the Church is that spiritual good, which he represents, makes the Church with a person, so much so that whether you say spiritual good or the Church it amounts to the same thing; for the two are inseparable. This is why in the Word, especially the prophetical part, 'Israel' is the spiritual Church.