194. And thou shalt not know in what hour I will come upon thee, signifies ignorance of that time and of the state then. This is evident from the signification of "hour," as being the time when man is to die, and also his state then; and from the signification of "not knowing" it, as being ignorance. It is said "In what hour I will come upon thee," namely, "as a thief," and this means, in the sense of the letter, that the Lord will so come; but in the spiritual sense, it means that evils and falsities will steal away the knowledges that they have from the Word. For in the sense of the letter of the Word doing evil is attributed to Jehovah, or to the Lord, but in the spiritual sense the meaning is that He does evil to no one, but that man does evil to himself (See Arcana Coelestia 2447, 5798, 6071, 6991, 6997, 7533, 7632, 7643, 7679, 7710, 7877, 7926, 8227, 8228, 8284, 8483, 8632, 9010, 9128, 9306, 10431).

[2] "Hour," moreover signifies state, because all times in the Word, as a day, a week, a month, a year, an age, signify states of life, so likewise "an hour" (the reason of this may be seen in the work onHeaven and Hell 162-169, where Time in Heaven is treated of). But as "hour" means both time and state, where "hour" occurs in the Word it can scarcely be known that it signifies anything except time. As in Matthew:

A householder hired laborers into his vineyard, who labored from the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh, and received equal reward (Matthew 20:1-16).

These "hours" mean, in the world, times, but in heaven, states of life, since in heaven there are no hours, because times there are not measurable and divided into days and these into hours, as in the world; consequently instead of these times the angels perceive the states of life of those who die, as old men, men, youths, or children, and who have equally acquired for themselves spiritual life; "laboring in the vineyard" is acquiring for oneself spiritual life by the knowledges of truth and good from the Word applied to the uses of life; the "third," the "sixth," and the "ninth hours" signify a like state of life, for all numbers in the Word are significative, and these numbers have a similar signification. (That "vineyard" in the Word signifies the spiritual church, and with man spiritual life, see Arcana Coelestia 9139, 3220. That "three" signifies a full state, or what is complete even to the end, n. 2788, 4495, 7715, 8347, 9825; likewise "six" and "nine." But "eleven" signifies a state not yet full, and yet a receptive state such as there is with well-disposed children and infants. The "twelfth hour," to which all labored, signifies truths and goods in their fullness, n. 577, 2089, 2129, 2130, 3272, 3858, 3913. That all numbers in the Word are significative, n. 4495, 4670, 5265, 6175, 9488, 9659, 10217, 10253; and that composite numbers have a signification like that of the simple numbers from which they arise by multiplication, thus "three," "six," and "nine," have a similar signification, n. 5291, 5335, 5708, 7973.)

[3] Since "twelve" signifies truths and goods in their fullness, thus man's state of light or intelligence from these, the Lord says:

Are there not twelve hours of the day? If a man walk in the day he stumbleth not (John 11:9).

Elsewhere, also, "hours" signify states of life, as in Revelation:

Those four angels were loosed, which were prepared for the hour and day and month and year, that they should kill the third part of men (Revelation 9:15).

The times here mentioned mean the states of evil with man, as will be seen in the explanation of these words hereafter. From this it is now evident that "Thou shalt not know in what hour I will come upon thee," means not only that one is ignorant of the time of death but also of the state of life at that time which will continue to eternity; for such as the state of man's past life is, even to the end, such he remains to eternity.

[4] Like things are said by the Lord here and there in the Evangelists. In Matthew:

Ye know not in what hour your Lord will come; be ye ready; for in an hour that ye think not, the Son of man cometh (Matthew 24:42, 44).

The lord of the servant shall come in the day when he expecteth not, and in an hour that he knoweth not (Matthew 24:50).

Be wakeful, therefore, for ye know not the day, neither the hour, wherein the Son of man shall come (Matthew 25:13).

It should be known that man remains to eternity such as his whole life is, even to the end, and by no means such as he is at the hour of death: repentance at that time with the evil is of no avail, but with the good it strengthens.

6175. 'And the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred and forty-seven years means the state in general and its essential nature. This becomes clear if the meaning of the numbers seven, forty, and a hundred is brought out. ¹ For what seven means, see 395, 433, 716, 728, 881, 5165, 5268; for what forty means, 730, 862, 2272, 2273; and for what a hundred means, 1988, 1636, 4400. But no easy explanation of the sum of these numbers is possible, for they contain far more than anyone can calculate or explain intelligibly. In general these numbers contain the entire state of the reality represented by 'Jacob' and its essential nature. The angels can see these things in their entirety simply from that number; they can do so because with the angels all numbers in the Word pass into ideas about spiritual realities. This has also been made evident to me by the fact that on several occasions a long sequence of numbers has appeared in front of me, and whenever they have appeared the angels have told me that the numbers held, in sequence, the realities which they were talking about to one another. This in addition explains why the most ancient people who belonged to the celestial Church also had a way of calculating that consisted of numbers employed to express heavenly things which could barely be understood by the use of ideas in the natural mind. But after those people's times such evaluations perished, along with the perception of heavenly things. All that remained was a knowledge of the general meaning of the simple numbers, such as three, six, seven, and twelve, but not much knowledge of the meaning of compound numbers. At the present day however even the idea that numbers in the Word mean something more than their numerical values is quite unknown, and therefore the idea will probably be treated as one of those that are unbelievable.

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