3298. 'Her days for bringing forth were completed' means the first state of the effect. This is clear from the meaning of 'days' as states, dealt with in 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788. The first state of the effect is meant by 'the days for bringing forth were completed' because 'bringing forth' in the spiritual sense has to do with good and truth, and means in that sense the manifestation of these, 2621, 2629. Good and truth are similar to offspring, in that they are conceived, carried in the womb, born, and after that grow to maturity. After conception the efficient, or conceived, seed starts to produce the effect. This takes place in the womb. Once these states have been completed and the time to give birth is at hand, the effect at that point begins to exist, which is called the first state of the effect. For at that point the offspring begins to act independently so to speak and to strive to reach that state which is called the state of the effect.

493. There is no need to pause too long over the consideration that 'days' and 'years mean periods of time and states. Only this need be stated here, that in the world periods of time and measurements to which numbers may be applied are indispensable, for they belong within the ultimate realms of nature. But whenever such application occurs, the numbers of days and years, and also the numbers applied to measurements, mean something which is completely different from periods of time or from measurements, and which is determined by the meaning of the number used, as in the statements about there being six days for work, and the seventh being holy, which are dealt with above; in the statement about a jubilee having to be announced every forty-ninth year and celebrated in the fiftieth; about the tribes of Israel being twelve, the same number as the Lord's Apostles; and about there being seventy elders, the same number as the Lord's disciples. And there are many other examples where the numbers mean some special characteristic completely different from the persons or objects to which they apply. And when completely separated one from the other the states meant by the numbers are then left.