493. There is no need for me to linger any further over the symbolism of days and years as those times and states. I must only say here that in the world, the necessity for periods of time and units of measure, expressed in numbers, is unavoidable, since they are among the most concrete features of the natural world. But every time such terms are used, the number of days and years (and the numbers used in measurement) symbolize something abstracted from time (and measure). Just what is being symbolized depends on what the number is. This is true of the six days' labor and the holy seventh day, discussed above [§395]. It is true of the jubilee that was proclaimed in the forty-ninth year of every cycle and celebrated in the fiftieth [Leviticus 25, 27]. It is true of the twelve tribes of Israel, matching the number of the Lord's apostles; of the seventy elders [Numbers 11:16, 24-25] and the equal number of the Lord's disciples [Luke 10:1]; and of many other phenomena. The numbers in these places symbolize some special quality, as distinguished from the objects to which they apply. Once the qualities are isolated, their various states are what the numbers symbolize.
Secrets of Heaven #395
395. Anyone who kills Cain will suffer sevenfold vengeance means there was a sacred ban on violating the faith detached in this way. This is established by the symbolism of Cain as a detached faith and of seven as a sacred ban.
The number seven was held sacred, as is known, 1 because of the six days of creation and because of the seventh day — which is the heavenly kind of person — on which there is peace, repose, a Sabbath. This is why the rituals of the Jewish religion so often involve the number seven, and each time it is seen to stand for something sacred. 2
For this reason, different stretches of time, long and short, were divided in seven and called weeks. One instance is the long periods before the coming of the Messiah in Daniel 9:24-25. Laban and Jacob call a period of seven years a week in Genesis 29:27-28. So wherever the number seven occurs, it is considered as standing for something sacred, or else for a sacred ban, as in David:
Seven times in a day do I praise you. (Psalms 119:164)
In Isaiah:
The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times as strong, like the light of seven days. (Isaiah 30:26)
Here the sun is love and the moon is faith from love, which will be like love.
[2] Just as the stages of a person's regeneration are divided into six, which precede the seventh, or the stage of being heavenly, so too are the stages of devastation, which continues until nothing heavenly remains. This was represented by the Jews' many captivities, including the last, in Babylon — a captivity of seven "ages" or seventy years; 3 and several times it is said that the land was to rest during its Sabbaths. 4 Devastation was also represented by Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel:
His heart will change from [that of] a human, and the heart of an animal will be given to him, until seven seasons change upon him. (Daniel 4:16, 25, 32)
Concerning the devastation of the final days as described by John:
I saw another sign in the sky, great and awesome: seven angels having the seven final plagues. (Revelation 15:1, 6-7)
Revelation 11:2 says that the holy city will be trampled for forty-two months, which is six times seven. In the same author:
I saw a book written inside and on the back, 5 sealed with seven seals. (Revelation 5:1)
Accordingly, different severities and levels of punishment were expressed in sevens, as in Moses:
If after all this you do not obey me, I will castigate you seven times harder for your sins. (Leviticus 26:18, 21, 24, 28)
In David:
Return seven times as much into our neighbors' lap. (Psalms 79:12)
Since a sanction was placed on the violation of faith, then, because faith could be of service (as has already been said [§372]), the present verse states that the person who kills Cain will suffer sevenfold vengeance.
Footnotes:
1. The universality of the sacred character of the number seven is sometimes explained by the fact that it is a "virgin" number (the only one between one and ten that is neither the product nor the divisor of any of the others), that it referred to the seven classical planets (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), or that it reflects the seven notes of the octave. Swedenborg here gives the most common reason cited in the Judeo-Christian tradition. See, for example, Philo On the Creation (Philo 1993) §§30-43; and for more explanation by Swedenborg, §433 below. As Swedenborg goes on to note, however, the number has negative connotations as well, indicating a period of "devastation." What unites these two concepts is perhaps the idea that the number seven represents a complete cycle. [RS]
2. On the sacred significance of the number seven in general, see note 1 in §395; on its sacred significance in Scripture in particular, see, for example, the passages quoted in §716, including Leviticus 8:10-11; 16:14, 19; Isaiah 30:26; Revelation 1:12-13; 4:5; the passages quoted in §2252:3: Leviticus 23:15; 25:8, 10; and the passages quoted in §2830:3, including Numbers 28:11-12, 18-20, 26-28. [LHC]
3. In §433 Swedenborg explains that a biblical "age" (Latin saeculum) is a decade. Elsewhere he also uses the term for centuries and whole eras. [LHC]
4. See Exodus 23:10-11 and Leviticus 25:2-5, which indicate that the land of the Israelites was to be left fallow every seventh year. The six years before the fallow are thus, in the exhaustion of the soil, representative of the devastation in which all heavenly properties of the individual are used up. The Sabbath is not, strictly speaking, one of the stages of spiritual devastation, but rather the symbol of the end of such devastation, that is, of regeneration. See §8539:2: " [The state before regeneration] is signified by the six days that precede the seventh, and ... [the state after regeneration] is signified by the seventh day, or the Sabbath." [SS, LHC, LSW]
5. The book in question was most likely a scroll, so that "inside and on the back" means on both sides of the rolled up sheet of paper. [LHC]
