In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

760. That 'forty days and forty nights' means its duration has been shown above at verse 4. As has been stated, 'forty' means the whole duration of temptation, long or short, and indeed severe temptation involving things of the will. For it is through a whole chain of pleasures and through love of the world and self-love, and so through the desires which are the unceasing activities of those loves, that a person has acquired life to himself. Consequently his whole life consists in nothing else than things such as these. This life cannot possibly accord with heavenly life, for nobody can love worldly things and at the same time heavenly. Loving worldly things is looking downwards, loving heavenly looking upwards. Still less can anyone love himself and at the same time the neighbour, and least of all himself and at the same time the Lord. Someone who loves himself hates all who are not subservient to him, and so he who loves himself is very far removed from heavenly love or charity, which consists in loving the neighbour more than self, and the Lord above all things. From these considerations it is clear how far away man's life is from heavenly life. This being so the Lord regenerates him by means of temptations, and redirects him so that he conforms [to heavenly life]. This is the reason why this temptation is severe. In fact it impinges on, attacks, breaks down, and alters a person's essential life, which also is why it is described by 'the fountains of the great deep being split open' and by 'the floodgates of heaven being opened'.