487. 'Days means periods of time and states in general. This has been shown in Chapter 1, where the 'days of creation' have no other meaning. In the Word it is very common for a whole period of time to be called 'a day', as it clearly is in the present verse and in verses 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 27, 31, below; and therefore the states that belong to periods of time in general are meant by 'days' as well. And when 'years' is attached, then periods of years mean the natures of those states, and so the states in particular.

[2] The most ancient people had their own particular numbers which they would use to mean different aspects of the Church - for instance, the numbers three, seven, ten, twelve, and many which they obtained from these and other numbers - and in so doing incorporated states of the Church. These numbers therefore contain arcana that would require considerable effort to unravel. Really a number was an evaluation of the states of the Church. The same feature occurs throughout the Word, especially in the prophetical. And the religious ceremonies of the Jewish Church also entail numbers specifying periods of time as well as quantities; for example, in connection with sacrifices, minchahs, oblations, and other practices, which in every case have special reference to holy things. Consequently eight hundred in this verse, nine hundred and thirty in the next, and the numbers of years mentioned in the verses that follow after that, embody in particular more matters than can possibly be retold; matters, that is to say, which have to do with changes in the state of their Church in relationship to their own general state. Later on, in the Lord's Divine mercy, the meaning of the simple numbers up to twelve will be given, for without knowing these first of all no one can grasp what compound numbers mean.

7680. 'The whole of that day and the whole of that night' means all the perception, both that which was darkened and that which was not darkened, of the molesting ones - that is to say, it was all destroyed. This is clear from the meaning of 'day' as a state of undarkened perception; and from the meaning of 'night' as a state of darkened perception. For periods of the day - morning, midday, evening, and night - correspond to degrees of enlightenment, that is, of intelligence and wisdom, 5672, 6110, and so to degrees of perception. In general day and night are called degrees of perception, not of enlightenment, because the evil who molest have no enlightenment, though they may still have perception. They have it for as long as there remains with them any knowledge at all of truth and goodness which they had acquired from the Church in which they had lived. For through truth and goodness they have contact with those who are in heaven. But once they have been deprived of such knowledge, as happens when they have undergone vastation, they no longer have any perception. Those in hell are, it is true, able to justify their evils, and also their falsities; but this is not perception. Perception is seeing that truth is truth and good is good, and also that evil is evil and falsity is falsity. But it is not perception when people see truth as falsity, or good as evil, and conversely see evil as good or falsity as truth. Those who do this have delusion instead of perception. That delusion takes on the appearance of perception, in that people such as they know how to justify falsities and evils by means of the kinds of ideas that suggest themselves to the senses and lend support to their evil longings.