The number "four" in the Bible represents things being linked together or joined. This is partly because four is two times two, and two represents the ultimate linking between our desire to be good and our understanding of truth. We can also see this in the fact that most buildings are rectangular, with the four sides linking together to make a whole. We also divide directions into four -- north, east, south and west -- and talk about the "four corners" of something meaning all of it. So our special thinking naturally looks at four sides as linking together into a whole.

(Odkazy: Apocalypse Explained 417; Arcana Coelestia 1686, 9103, 9601, 9767, 9864)

3252. 'A hundred and seventy-five years' means the things constituting that state. This becomes clear from the fact that every number used in the Word means some real thing, see 482, 487, 575, 647, 648, 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, and so with this particular number which consequently means the things which constitute the state that is the subject here. As long as the mind confines itself to the historical sense it seems as though numbers, such as these ¹ which give Abraham's age, do not hold any interior meaning within them. The fact that they do nevertheless hold such meaning within them is evident from all that has been shown already concerning numbers, and becomes clear from the consideration that no number as to its numerical value contains anything holy, and yet the smallest detail of all in the Word is holy.

Poznámky pod čarou: