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.

3295. 'And [one] people will prevail over [the other] people' means that at first truth must be superior to the good of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'people' as truth, dealt with immediately above in 3294, and from the meaning of 'prevailing over' as being superior to. The 'people' mentioned first means truth, whereas the 'people' mentioned second means the good of truth. The good of truth is good which arises out of truth, and, as it exists first of all, is truth. It is called good however because it looks like good. Consequently 'people' also means this good, which is called the good of truth as it is when it first arises.

[2] To have any concept of this good it should be recognized that until he has been regenerated a person does good from truth, but after he has been regenerated he does it from good. Or to make the point clearer still, before he has been regenerated the good he does is a product of the understanding, but after he has been regenerated it is a product of the will. Good therefore which is a product of the understanding is not in itself good but truth, whereas good that is a product of the will is good. For example, when a person does not honour his parents but then learns from the Ten Commandments to do so, his honouring of them is at first a product of the commandment. Such honouring however, being a product of the commandment, is not in itself good because it does not flow from love. It flows either from obedience to the law or from fear of the law, but is nevertheless called the good of truth. When it first arises however it is truth, for at that time it is not good that he performs but truth. When however his honouring of them is the product of love it is in that case good. The same is so in every other example that could be taken.