Revelation 21
1
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth did pass away, and the sea is not any more;
2
and I, John, saw the holy city -- new Jerusalem -- coming down from God out of the heaven, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband;
3
and I heard a great voice out of the heaven, saying, `Lo, the tabernacle of God [is] with men, and He will tabernacle with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them -- their God,
4
and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and the death shall not be any more, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor shall there be any more pain, because the first things did go away.'
5
And He who is sitting upon the throne said, `Lo, new I make all things; and He saith to me, `Write, because these words are true and stedfast;'
6
and He said to me, `It hath been done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End; I, to him who is thirsting, will give of the fountain of the water of the life freely;
7
he who is overcoming shall inherit all things, and I will be to him -- a God, and he shall be to me -- the son,
8
and to fearful, and unstedfast, and abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all the liars, their part [is] in the lake that is burning with fire and brimstone, which is a second death.'
9
And there came unto me one of the seven messengers, who have the seven vials that are full of the seven last plagues, and he spake with me, saying, `Come, I will shew thee the bride of the Lamb -- the wife,'
10
and he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and did shew to me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God,
11
having the glory of God, and her light [is] like a stone most precious, as a jasper stone clear as crystal,
12
having also a wall great and high, having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve messengers, and names written thereon, which are [those] of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel,
13
at the east three gates, at the north three gates, at the south three gates, at the west three gates;
14
and the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15
And he who is speaking with me had a golden reed, that he may measure the city, and its gates, and its wall;
16
and the city lieth square, and the length of it is as great as the breadth; and he did measure the city with the reed -- furlongs twelve thousand; the length, and the breadth, and the height, of it are equal;
17
and he measured its wall, an hundred forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of the messenger;
18
and the building of its wall was jasper, and the city [is] pure gold -- like to pure glass;
19
and the foundations of the wall of the city with every precious stone have been adorned; the first foundation jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald;
20
the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst.
21
And the twelve gates [are] twelve pearls, each several one of the gates was of one pearl; and the broad-place of the city [is] pure gold -- as transparent glass.
22
And a sanctuary I did not see in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, is its sanctuary, and the Lamb,
23
and the city hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon, that they may shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp of it [is] the Lamb;
24
and the nations of the saved in its light shall walk, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it,
25
and its gates shall not at all be shut by day, for night shall not be there;
26
and they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it;
27
and there may not at all enter into it any thing defiling and doing abomination, and a lie, but -- those written in the scroll of the life of the Lamb.
Arcana Coelestia # 5265
5265. 'The seven good cows are seven years' means a state when truth within the interior natural is multiplied. This is clear from the meaning of 'the cows' in the good sense as the truths belonging to the interior natural, dealt with in 5198; and from the meaning of 'years' as states, dealt with in 482, 487, 488, 493, 893. There were seven because 'seven' means that which is holy and therefore adds the idea of holiness to the matter under discussion, dealt with in 395, 433, 716, 881, as well as implying a whole period from start to finish, 728. This explains why in the dream seven cows and seven heads of grain were seen, and after that why there were seven years of abundance of corn and seven years of famine. It also explains why the seventh day was made holy, why in the representative Church the seventh year was a sabbatical year, and why after seven times seven years there was a Jubilee.
[2] 'Seven' means things that are holy because of the meanings that numbers have in the world of spirits. Each number there holds some spiritual reality within it. Visual indications of numbers have appeared to me frequently, simple and compound ones, and also on one occasion a long sequence of them, when I have wondered what meanings they possessed. I have been told that they have their origin in conversations held by angels, and that it is customary from time to time to use numbers to express spiritual realities too. These numbers are not seen in heaven but in the world of spirits, where the visual presentation of such things takes place. The most ancients, who were celestial people and who talked to angels, knew all about this, which was why they used numbers to express an evaluation of the Church. The numbers used by them conveyed a general overall idea of matters for which words served to provide a detailed description. The meaning contained within every number did not however continue to be known among the descendants of these people; only the meanings of the simple numbers survived, that is to say, the meanings of two, three, six, seven, eight, twelve, and from these the meanings of twenty-four, seventy-two, and seventy-seven. In particular their descendants knew that 'seven' meant that which was most holy - that is to say, that in the highest sense 'seven' meant the Divine Himself, and in the representative sense the celestial element of love - and that the state of the celestial man was therefore meant by 'the seventh day', 84-87.
[3] It is quite evident from the numbers used plentifully in the Word that numbers mean spiritual realities, such as the following ones in John,
Let him who has intelligence reckon the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, that is, its number is six hundred and sixty-six. Revelation 13:18.
And elsewhere in the same book,
The angel measured the wall of the holy Jerusalem, a hundred and forty-four cubits, which is the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. Revelation 11:17.
The number one hundred and forty-four is twelve squared and twice seventy-two.
