756. The symbolism of all the springs of the great abyss burst as the climax of their struggles over the intentions of the will can be established by statements just above about two kinds of trial. One kind involves activity in the intellect, the other the activity of the will, the latter being much more severe than the former. It can also be established by the fact that up to this point the discussion has centered on challenges to the workings of the intellect. More evidence for this meaning comes from the symbolism of the abyss as corrupt desires and the falsities that spring from them, as before (§18), and from the following passages in the Word. In Ezekiel:

This is what the Lord Jehovih says: "When I turn you into a ruined city, like cities that are not inhabited; when I bring up over you the abyss, and many waters cover you ..." (Ezekiel 26:19)

The abyss and the many waters stand for the climax of struggles. In Jonah:

The waters circled me right to my soul; the abyss surrounded me. (Jonah 2:5)

The waters and the abyss here again stand for the extremity of the trials. In David:

Abyss is shouting to abyss at the sound of your watercourses. All your breakers and all your waves go over me. (Psalms 42:7)

Clearly these things stand for a low point in the struggles. In the same author:

He rebuked the Suph Sea ¹ and it dried up, and he took them through the abysses as if through the desert. And he saved them from the hand of the one who hated them and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And water covered their foes. (Psalms 106:9, 10, 11)

The abysses stand for their trials in the wilderness.

[2] The people of ancient times used an abyss to symbolize hell, and they compared delusional thinking and persuasive lies to water, rivers, and smoke pouring out of an abyss. The hells of some spirits look this way too, like an abyss or like the oceans (to be described later [§8099:2-3], by the Lord's divine mercy).

The evil spirits who carry out a person's devastation and also those who put a person through trial come from such hells. Their fantasies, which they pour into us, and the desires that they use to inflame us are like inundations and vapors coming from such places. (As was noted [§§50, 687], evil spirits connect us with hell, and angels with heaven.) So when all the springs of the abyss are said to burst, these are the things symbolized.

In Ezekiel one can see that hell is called an abyss and that its loathsome discharges are called rivers:

This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: "On the day that he went down into hell, I caused him to mourn; I made the abyss cover him and held back its rivers, and great waters were shut in." (Ezekiel 31:15)

John too calls hell an abyss in Revelation 9:1-2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3.

Footnotes:

728. The symbolism of in seven days here as the beginning of their inward trials can be seen from the inner meaning of all the words in the current verse, which deal with the trials of the people referred to as Noah. The general subjects are both the inward trials of the "Noah" element and the total devastation that befell some in the earliest church. As a result, in seven days symbolizes not only the start of trials but also the end of ruin.

The reason in seven days symbolizes these things is that seven is a holy number, as has been said and shown at verse 2 of this chapter [§§716-717], at Genesis 4:15 and 24 [§§395, 433], and at §§84-87. It symbolizes the Lord's arrival in the world and his entry into glory, and it specifically symbolizes every time that the Lord comes to us.

Every arrival of the Lord entails a beginning for those who are regenerating and an end for those who are being destroyed. For the people of this church, his coming was the start of adversity, because when tested, an individual begins to turn into a new person and to regenerate. At the same time it was the end for those in the earliest church who had developed in such a way that the only possible outcome was extinction. By way of a parallel, at the time of the Lord's advent into the world the church was in the final stage of its destruction and a new church was formed.

[2] This symbolism of in seven days can be seen in Daniel:

Seventy weeks have been decreed upon your people and upon your holy city, to bring an end to transgression, and to seal up their sins, and to atone for wickedness, and to introduce everlasting justice, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holiest One. And you will know and perceive that from the issuing of the Word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem up to the time of Messiah the prince, there will be seven weeks. (Daniel 9:24-25)

The seventy weeks and the seven weeks here symbolize the same thing as seven days: the Lord's Coming. But since this is explicitly a prophecy, the numbers involving a seven mark the period as being even more holy and certain. The use of seven to describe this period symbolizes not only the Lord's arrival but the start of a new church at the same time, as indicated by the statement that the Holiest One would be anointed and Jerusalem would be restored and rebuilt. It also symbolizes a final devastation at the same time, as indicated by the statement that those weeks were decreed upon the holy city in order to bring an end to transgression and to seal up its sin.

[3] Similar words occur elsewhere in the Word, as in Ezekiel, where the prophet says of himself:

I came to the captives at Tel-abib, who were sitting by the river Chebar, and I sat there seven days, thunderstruck among them, and it happened at the end of seven days that the word of Jehovah came to me. (Ezekiel 3:15-16)

Here too the seven days stand for the start of a divine visitation, seeing that after the seven days during which Ezekiel sat with the captives the word of Jehovah came to him. In the same author:

They will bury Gog, in order to cleanse the land for seven months. At the end of seven months, they will make a careful search. (Ezekiel 39:12, 14)

Again the period of seven stands for the final point of devastation and the start of divine visitation. In Daniel:

Nebuchadnezzar's heart will change from [that of] a human, and the heart of an animal will be given to him, and seven seasons will pass over him. (Daniel 4:16, 25, 32)

This likewise stands for the end of devastation and the start of becoming a new person.

[4] Seventy years of captivity in Babylon represented the same thing. Whether it is seventy or seven, it involves the same meaning — seven days or seven years or the seven "ages" or decades that make up seventy years. The process of devastation was represented by the years of captivity; the beginning of a new church was represented by the liberation and rebuilding of the Temple.

Similar things were represented by Jacob's service with Laban, described in these words:

"I will serve you seven years for Rachel," and he served seven years. Laban said, "Fill out this week and we will give you her as well for the service that you serve with me yet another seven years." And Jacob did so and filled out this week. (Genesis 29:18, 20, 27-28)

The seven years of servitude here involve a similar meaning, as does the fact that marriage and liberty followed the days of the seven years. This span of seven years was called a week, as it also was in Daniel [9:24-25].

[5] The command that the people circle Jericho seven times to make the wall fall represented the same thing. It says that on the seventh day they got up at dawn and circled the city in the customary way, seven times, "and it happened on the seventh time that the seven priests blew their seven horns and the wall fell" (Joshua 6:1-20). Had such details been devoid of symbolic meaning, it never would have been ordered that they circle seven times or that there be seven priests and seven horns.

These and many other passages (such as Job 2:13; Revelation 15:1, 6-7; 21:9) show that in seven days symbolizes the beginning of a new church and the end of the old. Since the present verse deals both with the people of the church called Noah and their trials and with the last descendants of the earliest church, who destroyed themselves, the seven days more cannot symbolize anything else than the start of Noah's trials and the end of the earliest church, or its final ruination and death.