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.

2021. 'For an eternal covenant' means conjunction with these people. This is clear from the meaning of 'a covenant' as conjunction, dealt with already in 665, 666, 1023, 1038; and that this conjunction is with those called 'the seed' is clear from the fact of its coming immediately after a reference to that 'seed', and of its being a second mention in this verse of a covenant. Thus the first mention of 'a covenant' has reference to the union of Jehovah with the Human Essence, and the second to the conjunction with those who are 'the seed'. To allow a clearer idea of the union of the Lord's Divine Essence with the Human Essence and of the conjunction of the Lord with the human race by means of the faith that inheres in charity, let the term union here and from now on be used to describe the first of these, and conjunction the second. Indeed the bond between the Lord's Divine Essence and Human Essence really was a union, but that between the Lord and the human race by means of the faith that inheres in charity is conjunction. From this it is clear that because Jehovah or the Lord is Life, His Human Essence became Life as well, as shown above. It was a union of life with life. Man however is not life but a recipient of life, as also shown already. When life flows into a recipient of life conjunction takes place, for life accommodates itself to the recipient as active does to passive or as that which in itself is living does to that which in itself is dead but made living from that which in itself is living. In the case of the principal and the instrumental, as they are called, they do indeed seem to have been joined together to exist as one. Nevertheless they are not one, for each exists by itself. Man does not live of himself, but the Lord in His mercy links him to Himself and in so doing causes him to live for ever. And because the Lord and man are distinct and separate from each other the term conjunction is used.