4168. 'These twenty years I have been with you' means the proprium. This is clear from the meaning of 'twenty' as the good present in remnants, 2280. But when the term remnants is used in reference to the Lord nothing else is meant than His proprium, 1906. 'Twenty years' means states of the proprium - 'years' meaning states, see 487, 488, 493, 893. In the highest sense the content of Jacob's words addressed to Laban refers to the proprium within the Natural which the Lord acquired to Himself by His own power, in particular to the various states of that proprium.

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.