Arcana Coelestia #221
221. 'Breeze, or breath, 1 of the daytime' means a time when the Church still had a residue of perception. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'day' and of 'night'. The most ancient people compared states of the Church to the times of the day and of the night. States when the Church still had light they compared to times of the day; therefore this verse speaks of 'the breath' or breeze of the daytime' as when they still had some residue of perception, from which they knew that they were fallen. The Lord too calls a state in which there is faith 'the daytime' and one in which there is none 'the night', as in John,
I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; night is coming when nobody will be able to work. John 9:4.
The consecutive states of man's regeneration for the same reason were called 'days' in Chapter Genesis 1.
Footnotes:
1. literally, spirit
Arcana Coelestia #493
493. There is no need to pause too long over the consideration that 'days' and 'years mean periods of time and states. Only this need be stated here, that in the world periods of time and measurements to which numbers may be applied are indispensable, for they belong within the ultimate realms of nature. But whenever such application occurs, the numbers of days and years, and also the numbers applied to measurements, mean something which is completely different from periods of time or from measurements, and which is determined by the meaning of the number used, as in the statements about there being six days for work, and the seventh being holy, which are dealt with above; in the statement about a jubilee having to be announced every forty-ninth year and celebrated in the fiftieth; about the tribes of Israel being twelve, the same number as the Lord's Apostles; and about there being seventy elders, the same number as the Lord's disciples. And there are many other examples where the numbers mean some special characteristic completely different from the persons or objects to which they apply. And when completely separated one from the other the states meant by the numbers are then left.
