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.

8974. 'When you buy a Hebrew slave' means those within the Church who are imbued with the truths of religious teachings and not with the good that accords with those truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'buying' as acquiring to oneself and making one's own, dealt with in 4397, 5374, 5397, 5406, 5410, 5426, 7999; and from the meaning of 'a Hebrew slave' as those within the Church who are imbued with the truths of religious teachings and not with the goodness of life that accords with those truths. For 'a slave' or 'a servant' has reference to those who are imbued with truth and not with complementary good, and in general to truth in relation to good, 3409. And 'Hebrew' has reference to things connected with the Church and to those connected with some servitude; for its reference to things connected with the Church, see 5136, 5236, 6675, 6684, and for its reference to those connected with some servitude, 1703, 1741, 5013.

Since the regulations that come next refer to male slaves and female slaves from the children of Israel, what they hold within them in the internal sense must be stated. Anyone can see that they contain the arcana of heaven, since they were declared and commanded by Jehovah on Mount Sinai to Moses orally, and since they follow very soon after the words of the Ten Commandments. Without such arcana they would be no more than civil and criminal laws like those of other nations on earth, which do not have any arcanum of heaven within them. But the arcana they contain are not evident except to angels in heaven. Consequently they do not become evident to people in the world except through the internal sense, because this sense teaches the way in which angels perceive the Word, and therefore teaches the arcana which the Word holds within itself. What those arcana are, and the nature of them, will be evident below from the explanation of specific details.

[2] So that a person may have a general idea of those things, a brief statement is needed to show what 'Hebrew slaves' in particular means in the internal sense. In the spiritual Church, which the children of Israel represented, there are two kinds of people. There are those who are imbued with the truth of faith but not with the complementary goodness of life, and there are those who are imbued with the good of charity and with the complementary truth of faith. Those imbued with the good of charity and complementary truth of faith constitute the truest part of the Church, being members of the internal Church. In the internal sense of the Word they are those called 'the children of Israel'. They are intrinsically free, because they are imbued with good; for those who are led by the Lord through good are free, 892, 905, 2870-2893. Those however who are imbued with the truth of faith and not with the complementary goodness of life are members of the external spiritual Church. These are the ones who are meant in the internal sense of the Word by 'Hebrew slaves'. The reason why these people are represented by slaves or servants is that relatively the things which belong to the external Church are nothing other than a body of servants. The same applies also to the relationship of the truth of faith-to the good of charity; for the truth of faith acts like a servant to lead a member of the Church into the good of charity.

[3] In addition it should be recognized that those who think that the all of the Church, thus the all of salvation, consists in the truth of faith and not in the good of charity, and also those who do good solely in a spirit of obedience and not out of love and affection, cannot be regenerated in the way that those people are who are imbued with the good of charity, that is, who do good out of love and affection. They can, it is true, be reformed, but not regenerated. The reformation of them is the subject in the internal sense at this point, in the laws regarding male slaves and female slaves. The arcana of that reformation are not known to anyone at the present day, the reason being that almost everywhere within the Church people are ignorant of what difference the truth of faith can make to salvation, and what difference the good of charity can make. Indeed people are ignorant of what charity is, and also that charity and faith must be married to each other if anything of the Church is to come into being in a person; for the marriage of goodness and truth constitutes the Church itself, because it is heaven within a person, 2173, 2618, 2728, 2729, 2803, 3132, 3155, 4434, 4823, 5194, 5502, 6179.