487. The symbolism of days as those times and states in general was shown in the first chapter [§23], where the days of creation symbolize nothing else.

It is very common for the Word to call all units of time "days." ¹ In this verse the practice is quite obvious, as it also is in verses 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 27, and 31 below. The general states at those times accordingly are symbolized by days as well. When years are mentioned in conjunction with days, the time spans represented by those years symbolize the nature of the states then; in other words, they symbolize the specific states.

[2] The earliest people had particular numbers they used for symbolizing various aspects of the church: three, seven, ten, twelve, and additional ones that they compounded out of these and others. This allowed them to sum up the states of the church. As a result, these numbers contain hidden wisdom that would require a long explanation. It was a way of evaluating different states in the church.

The same phenomenon occurs at many other places in the Word, especially in the prophets. In the rites of the Jewish religion there are also numbers for both timing and measurement in connection with sacrifices, minhas, ² oblations, and other acts of worship; and everywhere those numbers occur they symbolize holiness in the thing they are applied to.

What these numbers specifically involve, then — the eight hundred in this verse, the nine hundred thirty in the next, and so on for the numbers of years in the following verses — is more than I can ever convey. They all come down to changes in the state of religion among those people, seen in relation to their general state.

Later on, by the Lord's divine mercy, I will need to tell what the simple numbers up to twelve symbolize. ³ Unless this is known first, the symbolism of their products cannot be grasped.

Footnotes:

1686. Four kings against five symbolizes the unity of the truth and goodness and the disunity of the evil and falsity, as the symbolism of four and of five shows. Four symbolizes unity because it symbolizes pairings, just as two does when it has to do with a marriage between things, as noted at §720. Five, however, symbolizes disarray because it symbolizes a small amount, as illustrated at §649. All meanings depend on the subject under discussion.

901. The symbolism of the twenty-seventh day as holiness is established by this: The number is the product of three multiplied by itself twice; three times three is nine, and nine times three is twenty-seven, so that three is dominant in the number. This is how the earliest people calculated their numbers, and they understood them purely as standing for some quality.

The fact that three symbolizes the same thing as seven can be seen from remarks in the previous section. The secret reason is that the Lord rose again on the third day. The Lord's resurrection in itself involves everything that is sacred and entails the resurrection of all people. That is why the Jewish religion came to use this number in a representative way and why it is a holy number in the Word. The situation resembles that in heaven, where there are no numbers; a generalized and reverent idea of the Lord's resurrection and of his arrival in the world replaces the numbers three and seven there.

[2] The symbolism of three and seven as holiness is established by the following passages in the Word. In Moses:

Those touching a dead body will be unclean seven days. They shall atone for themselves in this matter on the third day, and on the seventh day they will be clean. And if they have not atoned for themselves on the third day, then on the seventh day they will not be clean. Those who touch one stabbed by a sword, or a dead body, or a human bone, or a grave will be unclean seven days. A clean person shall spatter [water] on the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and the clean one will expiate the unclean on the seventh day. The unclean shall wash their clothes and rinse with water and will be clean in the evening. (Numbers 19:11-12, 16, 19)

It is quite clear that these things are representative, in other words, that the outward circumstances symbolize something internal. This is true, for instance, of the uncleanliness ascribed to one who had touched a dead body, a victim of stabbing, a human bone, or a grave. All these things on an inner level symbolize a person's own propensities, which are dead and profane. The same is also true of the fact that they were to wash with water and would then be clean in the evening. So the third and seventh days were representative too, symbolizing holiness, since on those days the person would achieve atonement and would therefore be clean.

[3] The same applies to those who returned from battle against the Midianites, of whom it says,

Camp outside the camp seven days, every one of you who has killed a soul and every one who has touched a victim of stabbing. You shall atone for yourselves on the third day and on the seventh day. (Numbers 31:19)

Had this been mere ritual, neither the third day nor the seventh would have represented or symbolized holiness and atonement. They would have been something dead, like a result without means and a means without a purpose, or to put it another way, like a result separated from a means separated from its purpose. ¹ So it would not have been the least bit divine.

The coming of the Lord to Mount Sinai clearly indicates that the third day represented and therefore symbolized something holy. These are the commandments concerning that event:

Jehovah said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, [telling them] to wash their clothes and be ready for the third day, because on the third day, Jehovah will come down, in the eyes of all the people, onto Mount Sinai." (Exodus 19:10-11, 15-16)

[4] Joshua's passage across the Jordan on the third day suggests the same thing. It is described this way:

Joshua commanded, "Pass through the middle of the camp and command the people, saying, ‘Get provisions ready for yourselves, because in three days you are crossing this Jordan, to come in to inherit the land.'" (Joshua 1:11; 3:2)

The crossing of the Jordan represented the entrance of the children of Israel — regenerate people, that is — into the Lord's kingdom. Joshua, who led them in, represented the Lord himself, and it occurred on the third day.

Since the third day like the seventh was holy, the third year was set up as a "year of tithes," and the people then behaved in a godly way by doing charitable work (Deuteronomy 26:12 and following verses). Tithes represented the remnant in us, which is holy because it is the Lord's alone.

Jonah's three days and three nights in the fish's belly (Jonah 1:17) obviously represented the Lord's burial and resurrection on the third day (Matthew 12:40).

[5] The symbolism of three as this kind of sanctity can also be seen in the prophets, as in Hosea:

Jehovah will bring us to life after two days; on the third day he will revive us, so that we may live before him. (Hosea 6:2)

Here too the third day plainly stands for the Lord's Coming and his resurrection. In Zechariah:

It will come about in all the earth that two parts in it will be cut off, will die, and a third will be left in it. And I will lead the third part through fire, and smelt them as silver is smelted, and test them as gold is tested. (Zechariah 13:8,

[9])

The third part, or the number three, here again stands for holiness. One third involves the same thing as three, as does a third of a third, which comes up in the current verse, since three is a third of a third of twenty-seven.

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