863. 'Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made means a further state when the truths of faith appeared to him. This becomes clear from the final words of the previous verse, which state that 'the tops of the mountains appeared'. It becomes clear from the meaning of those words, and also from the meaning of 'a window', dealt with already in 655, as that which constitutes the understanding part of the mind, or what consequently amounts to the same, the truth of faith. It becomes clear too from the fact that this is the first glimmer of light. The same observation made already about that which constitutes the understanding part, namely the truth of faith, being meant by 'a window must be made here. It is this: No truth of faith can possibly exist unless it originates in good stemming from love or charity, just as nothing that truly constitutes the understanding exists unless it comes from the will. Take away the will and no understanding exists, as shown several times already. Take away charity therefore and no faith exists. But because man's will is nothing else than evil desire the Lord has miraculously taken steps to prevent that which constitutes the understanding part, which is the truth of faith, being immersed in his evil desire, and has separated the understanding part of man's mind from the will part by means of a certain go-between, namely conscience, to which charity is added by the Lord. Without this miraculous provision nobody could ever have been saved.

6175. 'And the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred and forty-seven years means the state in general and its essential nature. This becomes clear if the meaning of the numbers seven, forty, and a hundred is brought out. ¹ For what seven means, see 395, 433, 716, 728, 881, 5165, 5268; for what forty means, 730, 862, 2272, 2273; and for what a hundred means, 1988, 1636, 4400. But no easy explanation of the sum of these numbers is possible, for they contain far more than anyone can calculate or explain intelligibly. In general these numbers contain the entire state of the reality represented by 'Jacob' and its essential nature. The angels can see these things in their entirety simply from that number; they can do so because with the angels all numbers in the Word pass into ideas about spiritual realities. This has also been made evident to me by the fact that on several occasions a long sequence of numbers has appeared in front of me, and whenever they have appeared the angels have told me that the numbers held, in sequence, the realities which they were talking about to one another. This in addition explains why the most ancient people who belonged to the celestial Church also had a way of calculating that consisted of numbers employed to express heavenly things which could barely be understood by the use of ideas in the natural mind. But after those people's times such evaluations perished, along with the perception of heavenly things. All that remained was a knowledge of the general meaning of the simple numbers, such as three, six, seven, and twelve, but not much knowledge of the meaning of compound numbers. At the present day however even the idea that numbers in the Word mean something more than their numerical values is quite unknown, and therefore the idea will probably be treated as one of those that are unbelievable.

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