435. As regards 'the man and his wife' here being used to mean the new Church which earlier on was meant by 'Adah and Zillah', this nobody can know or deduce from the sense of the letter, for previously 'the man (homo) and his wife' meant the Most Ancient Church and its descendants. The point is clear however from the internal sense, and also from the fact that a little further on, in verses 3-4 of the next chapter, reference is again made, though the wording is entirely different, to the man and his wife begetting Seth. At that point the first generation of the descendants of the Most Ancient Church is meant. Unless something different were meant at this point there would be no need to say the same thing again. A parallel to this exists in Chapter 1, where the subject is the creation of man, and also of the fruits of the earth, and of beasts; followed by Chapter 2, where similar events are described, the reason for the similarity being, as has been stated, that Chapter 1 deals with the creation of the spiritual man, Chapter 2 with the creation of the celestial man. When this kind of repetition of one and the same person or thing occurs, something different is meant on the first occasion from the second. But the exact meaning cannot possibly be known except from the internal sense. The actual train of thought in like manner establishes the meaning here. And there is the added consideration that 'man and wife' is a general expression meaning that Church, which is the subject here and from which the new Church was born.

2044. That 'a son eight days old' means any beginning whatever to purification is clear from the meaning of 'the eighth day'. 'A week', which consists of seven days, means the entire period of any state and length of time - of reformation, regeneration, or temptation, either of the individual in particular or of the Church in general. So the expression 'week' is used whether the period is one of a thousand years, or of a hundred, or of ten, or else one of days, hours, or minutes, and so on, as may become clear from the places quoted in Volume One, in 728. And because the eighth day is the first day of the following week it here means any new beginning whatever. From this it is also clear that just as circumcision itself was a representative of purification, so also was the time when it took place, namely the eighth day. Not that the uncircumcised on that day entered a purer state and on that account were made pure. Rather even as 'circumcision' was a sign meaning purification, so 'the eighth day' meant that such purification ought to go on all the time and so always to be taking place as if from a new beginning.