14. Where the Lord speaks with His disciples about the end of the age, which is the final period of the church, at the end of His predictions concerning its successive changes in state, He says:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)

[2] This, in the spiritual sense, does not mean that the sun and moon will be darkened, that the stars will fall from heaven, and that a sign of the Lord will appear in the sky. Nor does it mean that people will see Him on the clouds, or at the same time angels with trumpets. Rather each of these predictions has some spiritual meaning having to do with the church, regarding whose state at its end these predictions were made.

Indeed, in the spiritual sense the sun that will be darkened means the Lord in relation to love. The moon that will not give its light means the Lord in relation to faith. The stars that will fall from heaven mean concepts of goodness and truth that will perish. The sign of the Son of man in heaven means an appearance of Divine truth. The tribes of the earth that will mourn mean an absence of any truth as a matter of faith, and of any goodness as a matter of love. The coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven with power and glory means the Lord’s presence in the Word and a revelation of Him. The clouds symbolize the Word’s literal sense, and glory the Word’s spiritual sense. The angels with a great sound of a trumpet symbolize heaven and Divine truth coming from it. Gathering the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, symbolizes a renewal of the church as regards love and faith.

[3] That this prediction does not mean a darkening of the sun and moon and a falling of the stars to earth is quite clear from the Prophets, in which similar predictions occur regarding the state of the church when the Lord would come into the world. As in Isaiah:

Behold, the day of Jehovah is coming, cruel..., one of wrathful anger.... ...the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will visit upon the world its malice.... (Isaiah 13:9-11, cf. 24:21, 23)

In Joel:

(Behold, ) the day of Jehovah is coming..., a day of gloom and pitch darkness.... The sun and moon will darken, and the stars diminish their brightness. (Joel 2:1-2, 10, cf. 2:31, 3:15)

In Ezekiel:

...I will cover the heavens and darken the stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. All the shining lights of the heavens I will darken..., and bring darkness upon (the) land.... (Ezekiel 32:7-8)

The day of Jehovah means the Lord’s advent, which occurred when there was no longer any goodness and truth left in the church, and no knowledge of the Lord.

1988. 'Abram was a son of ninety-nine years' means the period of time before the Lord fully joined the Internal Man to the Rational Man. This is clear from the meaning of 'nine' when thought of as one less than ten, or what amounts to the same, of 'ninety-nine' when thought of as one less than a hundred; for when Isaac was born to him Abram was a hundred years old. The nature of the internal sense of the Word is made especially clear by the numbers that are used, as it is by the names. Any numbers whatever, as also any names, that are mentioned in the Word mean real things; for nothing ever exists in the Word that does not have that which is Divine within it, that is, which does not have an internal sense within it. How remote this sense is from the sense of the letter is especially evident from the names and numbers, for in heaven they pay no attention whatever to names and numbers but to things meant by the names or numbers. For example, whenever the number seven occurs, holiness instantly suggests itself to angels instead of the number seven, for 'seven' means holiness from the fact that the celestial man is the seventh day or the sabbath, and so the Lord's rest, 84-87, 395, 433, 716, 881. The same applies to all other numbers, for example, to the number twelve. Whenever twelve occurs the idea of everything belonging to faith suggests itself to angels, for the reason that the twelve tribes of Israel meant everything belonging to faith, 577. That numbers mean real things in the Word has been shown in Volume One; see 482, 487, 488, 493, 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, 893.

[2] It is similar with the number 'ninety-nine'. That this number means the period of time before the Lord fully joined the Internal Man to the Rational Man is clear from the meaning of 'a hundred years', Abram's age when Isaac was born to him, for Isaac represents and means the Lord's Rational Man which was joined to His Internal, that is, to the Divine. In the Word 'a hundred' has the same meaning as ten, for that number is the product of ten multiplied by ten, and 'ten' means remnants, as shown in Volume One, in 576. For what remnants residing with man are, see 468, 530, 561, 660, 1050, and for what remnants residing with the Lord were, 1906. These arcana cannot be explained any further, but anyone can find out for himself once he has acquainted himself with what remnants are - for nowadays what they are is not known - provided it is realized that by remnants residing with the Lord are meant the Divine Goods which He acquired to Himself by His own power, and by which He united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence.

[3] These considerations show what is meant by 'ninety-nine'. Being one less than a hundred, that number means the period of time before the Lord fully joined the Internal Man to the Rational Man. 'Ishmael' represented the first rational with the Lord, the nature of which has been shown adequately enough above in the previous chapter. But 'Isaac' represents the Lord's Divine Rational, as will be clear later on. Anyone may see that an arcanum is embodied within the following circumstance: Abram having remained such a long time in the land of Canaan - twenty-four years now, ten before Ishmael's birth, and thirteen after - and not as yet having had a son by Sarai his wife, he then first received the promise of a son, when he had now reached ninety-nine and would be a hundred when this son was born. The arcanum is that by means of these experiences he might represent the union of the Lord's Divine Essence with His Human Essence, and in fact of His Internal Man, which was Jehovah, with His Rational.