Apocalypse Explained #664
664. And after three days and a half.- That this signifies when completed, thus the end of the old church, and the beginning of a new church, is evident from the signification of three days and a half, as denoting fulness or completion at the end of the old church, when there is the beginning of a new church, concerning which see above (n. 658). The reason why it is said, after three days and a half, is, that days, in the Word, signify states, here, the last state of the church. For all times, in the Word, as hours, days, weeks, months, years, and ages, signify states in the Word, as in this case, the last state of the church, when there is no longer any good of love or truth of faith remaining. Because days signify states, and since in the first chapter of Genesis the establishment of the Most Ancient Church is treated of which was accomplished successively from one state to another, therefore it is said there that there was evening and there was morning the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and sixth days, unto the seventh, when it was completed (Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), and the days there do not mean days, but the successive states of the regeneration of men at that time, and the consequent establishment of the church with them. So also elsewhere in the Word.
Leviticus 24
1
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
2
"Command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.
3
Outside of the veil of the Testimony, in the Tent of Meeting, shall Aaron keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh continually: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.
4
He shall keep in order the lamps on the pure gold lampstand before Yahweh continually.
5
"You shall take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes of it: two tenth parts of an ephah shall be in one cake.
6
You shall set them in two rows, six on a row, on the pure gold table before Yahweh.
7
You shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be to the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
8
Every Sabbath day he shall set it in order before Yahweh continually. It is on the behalf of the children of Israel an everlasting covenant.
9
It shall be for Aaron and his sons; and they shall eat it in a holy place: for it is most holy to him of the offerings of Yahweh made by fire by a perpetual statute."
10
The son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and the son of the Israelite woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp.
11
The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name, and cursed; and they brought him to Moses. His mother's Name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.
12
They put him in custody, until the will of Yahweh should be declared to them.
13
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
14
"Bring out of the camp him who cursed; and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
15
You shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin.
16
He who blasphemes the name of Yahweh, he shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him: the foreigner as well as the native-born, when he blasphemes the name, shall be put to death.
17
"'He who strikes any man mortally shall surely be put to death.
18
He who strikes an animal mortally shall make it good, life for life.
19
If anyone injures his neighbor; as he has done, so shall it be done to him:
20
fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has injured someone, so shall it be done to him.
21
He who kills an animal shall make it good; and he who kills a man shall be put to death.
22
You shall have one kind of law, for the foreigner as well as the native-born: for I am Yahweh your God.'"
23
Moses spoke to the children of Israel; and they brought forth him who had cursed out of the camp, and stoned him with stones. The children of Israel did as Yahweh commanded Moses.
