487. 'Days means periods of time and states in general. This has been shown in Chapter 1, where the 'days of creation' have no other meaning. In the Word it is very common for a whole period of time to be called 'a day', as it clearly is in the present verse and in verses 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 27, 31, below; and therefore the states that belong to periods of time in general are meant by 'days' as well. And when 'years' is attached, then periods of years mean the natures of those states, and so the states in particular.

[2] The most ancient people had their own particular numbers which they would use to mean different aspects of the Church - for instance, the numbers three, seven, ten, twelve, and many which they obtained from these and other numbers - and in so doing incorporated states of the Church. These numbers therefore contain arcana that would require considerable effort to unravel. Really a number was an evaluation of the states of the Church. The same feature occurs throughout the Word, especially in the prophetical. And the religious ceremonies of the Jewish Church also entail numbers specifying periods of time as well as quantities; for example, in connection with sacrifices, minchahs, oblations, and other practices, which in every case have special reference to holy things. Consequently eight hundred in this verse, nine hundred and thirty in the next, and the numbers of years mentioned in the verses that follow after that, embody in particular more matters than can possibly be retold; matters, that is to say, which have to do with changes in the state of their Church in relationship to their own general state. Later on, in the Lord's Divine mercy, the meaning of the simple numbers up to twelve will be given, for without knowing these first of all no one can grasp what compound numbers mean.

3043. 'You are clear from my oath' means the freedom that the natural man has. This is clear from the meaning of 'the servant', to whom Abraham's words are addressed, as the natural man, 3019, and from the meaning of 'being clear if the woman is unwilling to follow' in the proximate sense as not being bound if the affection for truth were not separated. These words, it is evident, imply the freedom that the natural man has; for the affection for truth, which is the subject here, and also its separation, is in the internal sense attributed to the natural man. In the historical sense these words do indeed have other connotations, but in the internal sense their implications are such.

[2] Regarding human freedom, see what has been stated and shown already in 892, 905, 1937, 1947, 2744, 2870-2893, for these paragraphs show what is implied by freedom. Freedom is attributed to the natural man, but not so much to the rational man, because it is by way of the rational man and into the natural man that good flows in, in heavenly freedom, from the Lord. It is the natural man that is the recipient of that good, and in order that it may receive it and so be joined to the heavenly freedom flowing in by way of the rational man, the natural man is left in freedom. For freedom goes with love or affection. If the natural man does not receive an affection for truth from an inflowing affection for good, that man is in no sense joined to the rational. This is how it is with man, whom the Lord reforms by means of freedom, see 1937, 1947, 2876-2878, 2881.

[3] In the Lord's case He too left the Natural in freedom when He made His Rational Divine as regards truth, that is, when He allied Divine Truth to the Divine Good of the Rational, for He was willing to make His Human Divine in the ordinary way. The ordinary way is that which occurs in anyone who is being reformed and regenerated. The actual reformation and regeneration of man is therefore a replica of what took place in the Lord. For by reformation and regeneration he becomes a new person, and is consequently called one begotten anew, and one created anew; and to the extent that he has been reformed he seems to have the Divine within him. But there is this difference, that the Lord made Himself Divine by His own power, whereas man is not able to effect the slightest reformation by his own power, only from the Lord. The expression 'seems to have the Divine' is used because man is solely a recipient of life, whereas the Lord is Life itself as to both Essences, see 1954, 2021, 2658, 2706, 3001.