737. 'Noah was a son of six hundred years' means his initial state of temptation. This is clear from the fact from here down to Eber in Chapter 11 nothing else is meant by numbers, years of age, or names than real things, as was the case also with the ages and names of all those mentioned in Chapter 5. Here 'six hundred years' means the initial state of temptation. This becomes clear from its prime factors which are ten and six multiplied again by ten. When the same factors are involved it makes no difference whether the number arrived at is large or small. As for ten, this has been shown already at 6:3 to mean remnants, while the meaning of six here as labour and conflict is clear from places throughout the Word. For the situation is this: What has gone before dealt with man's preparation for temptation, that is to say, he was supplied by the Lord with truths of the understanding and with goods of the will. These truths and goods are remnants, but they are not brought forth so as to be acknowledged until man is being regenerated. In the case of those who are being regenerated by means of temptations the remnants existing with any man are for the angels present with him. From these remnants they draw out those things with which they protect him against the evil spirits who activate falsities with him and in this way attack him. It is because remnants are meant by 'ten' and conflict by 'six' that six hundred years are spoken of, a number in which ten and six are the prime factors and which means a state of temptation.

[2] As regards conflict being the particular meaning of 'six', this is clear from Genesis 1, which describes the six days of man's regeneration prior to his becoming celestial. During those six days there was constant conflict, but on the seventh day came rest. Consequently there are six days of labour, and the seventh is the sabbath, a word which means rest. This also is why a Hebrew slave was to serve for six years and in the seventh was to go free, Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12; Jeremiah 34:14, and why for six years they were to sow the land and gather in the produce, but in the seventh they were to leave it alone, Exodus 23:10-12. The same applied to a vineyard. It is also the reason why in the seventh year the land was to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to Jehovah, Leviticus 25:3-4. Because 'six' means labour and conflict it also means the dispersion of falsity, as in Ezekiel,

Behold, six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which looks towards the north, every man with a weapon of dispersion in his hand. Ezekiel 9:2.

And in the same prophet, against Gog,

I will cause you to turn about, and I will split you into six, and cause you to come up from the uttermost parts of the north. Ezekiel 39:2.

Here 'six' and 'splitting into six' stand for dispersion, 'the north' for falsities, and 'Gog' for people who seize on doctrinal matters based on things of an external nature with which they destroy internal worship. From Job,

He will deliver you in six troubles, and in a seventh no evil will touch you. Job 5:19.

This stands for the conflict that constitutes temptations.

[3] 'Six' occurs in other parts of the Word where it does not mean labour, conflict, or the dispersion of falsity, but the holiness of faith. In these instances it is related to twelve, which means faith and all things of faith in their entirety, and to three which means that which is holy. Consequently there is also a genuine derivative meaning to the number six, as in Ezekiel 40:5, where the man's measuring rod with which he measured the holy city of Israel was six cubits long; and in other places. The reason for this derivative is that in the conflict of temptation the holiness of faith is present, and also that six days of labour and conflict look forward to the holy seventh day.

9278. 'Six days you shall do your work' means a state of labour and conflict, when a person is governed by external delights that must be joined to things that are internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'six days' that come before the seventh, as states of labour and conflict, dealt with in 737, 900, 8510, 8888, 8975, the labour and conflict during them being meant by 'the work' that will be done on those days. 'The work' done during the six days and 'the rest' on the seventh day mean the things experienced by a person in his first state and in his second while being regenerated, and also those experienced by him after he has been regenerated. Regarding a person's first and second states while he is being regenerated, see above in 9274; and regarding the things experienced by him after he has been regenerated, 9213. The purpose of these experiences is that external things may be joined to internal ones; for there is an external man, which is also called natural, and there is an internal man, which is called spiritual. The external man is in contact with the world, and the internal with heaven.

[2] Divine order demands that heaven should rule the world with a person and not the world rule heaven with him; for when heaven rules a person, the Lord rules him, but when the world rules a person, the hells rule him. The natural disposition which a person is born with is such that he loves the world and self more than heaven and the Lord; and since this is the opposite of Divine order, an inversion must take place through regeneration. It takes place when the things that belong to heaven and the Lord are loved more than those which belong to the world and self. This is the reason why a person who has been regenerated, and also one who is in heaven, passes through two states that alternate with each other, in one of which external things prevail and in the other internal ones prevail; for by means of this alternation of states the external things are brought into agreement with the internal and at length made subordinate to them.

[3] When the external things prevail the person experiences labour and conflict; for he is immersed in the kind of life which savours of the world and into which the hells enter from every side, unceasingly endeavouring to engage in molestation, indeed to exercise control over the things of heaven with the person. But the Lord unceasingly protects and delivers him. This is the reason for the labour and conflict which are meant by the six days of the week in which work must be done. When however the internal things prevail, then - because the person is in heaven with the Lord - the labour and conflict come to an end, and he enjoys peace and serenity, in which also a joining together takes place. These blessings are what are meant by 'the seventh day'. The more internal aspects of the human being have been created in the image of heaven and the more external in the image of the world, so that the human being is a miniature form of heaven, also of the world, thus a microcosm, as the ancients called him, see 6057. So it is that Divine order demands that the Lord coming by way of heaven should rule the world with a person, and not at all vice versa.

[4] The nature of the labour and conflict experienced by the person when external things prevail may be recognized from this, that his state at that time is such that he is stirred by the world and indifferent towards heaven, unless it appears to him as the world does. But then the light by which he sees is so dim that he can only suppose that external things flow into internal ones, consequently that the eye sees or the ear hears by itself, that objects seen or heard by them are what produce thoughts and shape the understanding part of the mind, and that this gives him the ability to believe in and love God all by himself, and so to see heaven from the world. He cannot be easily led away from this illusion until he has been raised from external things to internal ones, and so to the light of heaven. Then he begins to perceive that things belonging to the world with him, thus those belonging to the body and its senses, see and act by means of influx from heaven, that is, from the Lord coming by way of heaven, and not at all by themselves. This goes to show why it is that a person thinking on the level of the senses supposes that his life is derived entirely from the world and the natural order, that there is no hell nor any heaven, and finally that there is no God. As a consequence he derides everything of the Church so far as he himself is concerned but is all in favour of it so far as the simple are concerned, as the means in addition to laws to keep them in check.

[5] From all this people may know what is meant by a situation in which external things prevail and not at the same time internal ones, and that when external things prevail a person feels indifferent towards what belongs to heaven or what belongs to the Lord and sees it in only dim light. They may also know who exactly in the world are the intelligent and wise, namely those who are governed by the Church's truth and good because they are recipients of wisdom from heaven, and who exactly are the stupid and foolish, namely those who are not governed by the Church's truth or good because the world is their only source of knowledge. And those among them who use worldly knowledge to set themselves firmly against the Church's truth and good are more foolish and stupid than the rest, no matter how much they suppose themselves to excel others in intelligence and wisdom and call people simple if they lead a good life based on the truths taught by doctrine. But such people's simplicity is wisdom in angels' eyes; and after death they are raised by the Lord into angelic wisdom.

[6] The Lord also teaches that this is so, in Matthew,

Therefore I speak in parables, because those who see do not see, and those who hear do not hear, nor do they understand. Matthew 13:13-14.

In John,

I will send the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. Yet a little while, the world will see Me no longer. John 14:17, 19.

The world's inability to receive the Spirit of truth 'because it neither sees Him nor knows Him' means that it will not acknowledge the Lord with faith in the heart, because external things belonging to the world will obscure [Him]. This being so, is there anyone at the present day who worships Him as the Lord of the whole of heaven and of earth, Matthew 28:18? Yet all who are in heaven, and so with whom internal things prevail, see the Lord as their only God.