38. Verse 18 And to have dominion over the day and the night, and to make a distinction between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

'The day' is used to mean good, and 'the night' evil. Consequently goods are called 'the works of the day', whereas evils are called 'the works of the night'. 'The light' is used to mean truth, and 'the darkness' falsity, just as the Lord says,

Men preferred darkness rather than light; he who does the truth comes to the light. John 3:19-21.

Verse 19 And there was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

3252. 'A hundred and seventy-five years' means the things constituting that state. This becomes clear from the fact that every number used in the Word means some real thing, see 482, 487, 575, 647, 648, 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, and so with this particular number which consequently means the things which constitute the state that is the subject here. As long as the mind confines itself to the historical sense it seems as though numbers, such as these ¹ which give Abraham's age, do not hold any interior meaning within them. The fact that they do nevertheless hold such meaning within them is evident from all that has been shown already concerning numbers, and becomes clear from the consideration that no number as to its numerical value contains anything holy, and yet the smallest detail of all in the Word is holy.

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