737. The symbolism of Noah, a son of six hundred years, as the first stage of their trials can be seen from this: From here all the way to Eber in chapter 11, the numbers, the ages in years, and the names have a purely symbolic meaning, just as the ages and names of everyone in chapter 5 did.
The symbolism here of six hundred years as the first stage of trial can be seen from the number's major factors, ten and six, which are multiplied twice. 1 If a larger or smaller number is produced by the use of the same factors, the symbolism does not change.
The number ten has already been shown at Genesis 6:3 to symbolize remaining traces [§576]. The symbolism here of six as hard work and combat can be seen from many places in the Word. The case is this: preceding verses have discussed our preparation for struggle, which involves receiving from the Lord a supply of truth in the intellect and goodness in the will. This truth and good are in the form of remaining traces, which are not brought to our consciousness until we are regenerating. If the trials we go through are a means to regeneration for us, the remnant we possess is for the use of the angels who attend us. From the remnant they draw out those resources that they can employ in defending us against evil spirits, who attack us by stirring up the falsity in us.
The symbolism of the number ten as the remnant and of six as combat is the reason for the reference to six hundred years, in which the numbers ten and six predominate, symbolizing a time of trial.
[2] The particular symbolism of six as combat or conflict is established by the first chapter of Genesis, which specifies six days for rebirth before a person turns heavenly. During those six days, the combat never lets up, but on the seventh day comes rest. This is the source of the six days of labor and the seventh of Sabbath, symbolizing rest.
For the same reason, a Hebrew slave was to serve for six years and go free in the seventh (Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12; Jeremiah 34:14). For the same reason, they were to sow the land and gather its produce for six years but to leave it fallow in the seventh (Exodus 23:10-11, 12); and the same for a vineyard. And for the same reason, the seventh year was to be an absolute Sabbath for the land, a Sabbath to Jehovah (Leviticus 25:3-4).
Because six symbolizes labor and conflict, it also symbolizes the dispersing of falsity. In Ezekiel:
Here, six men were coming by way of the upper gate, which faces north, and each had a weapon for dispersing [people] in his hand. (Ezekiel 9:2)
And in the same author's prophecy against Gog:
And I will make you turn back and will destroy a sixth of you 2 and bring you up from the flanks of the north. (Ezekiel 39:2)
In these verses, six and destroying a sixth stands for dispersing something, the north stands for falsity, and Gog stands for those who wring dogma from the most superficial matters and use it to destroy inner worship. From Job:
In six periods of distress he will liberate you, and in the seventh, evil will not touch you. (Job 5:19)
Here six stands for spiritual battles.
[3] In some of the other occurrences of six in the Word, it does not symbolize hard work, battles, or the dispersing of falsity. Instead it symbolizes the holy quality of faith, because it is drawing a connection with twelve (which symbolizes faith and all properties of faith taken together) and with three (which symbolizes holiness). From those numbers comes this additional, positive meaning of six. One example occurs in Ezekiel 40:5, where it says that the reed a man was using to measure Israel's holy city was six cubits. There are other instances as well.
The reason the positive meaning develops out of those numbers is that spiritual struggles have the holy quality of faith in them. Then too, the six days of labor and combat look to the seventh, holy day.
Footnotes:
1. That is, 6 } 10 $ 10. [LHC]
2. The Latin phrase here translated "destroy a sixth of you" is Sextabo te. The Hebrew is שִׁשֵּׁאתִיךָ (šiššēṯîḵā), which most modern translators understand to mean "I will lead you on," but the verb appears to resemble the Hebrew word for "six" (שֵׁשׁ [šēš]), and the verb that Swedenborg (like Schmidt 1696) uses (sextare) is accordingly based on the Latin word for "six" (sex). Hebrew-Latin lexicons of Swedenborg's day such as Alberti 1704 and Buxtorf 1735 use this same Latin verb to define the Hebrew. The closest analogy in English would be decimate, derived from the Latin decem, or "ten," whose original meaning was to destroy one out of ten (Oxford English Dictionary, under "decimate"). [LHC, RS]
