900. The symbolism of the second month as all the stages that precede rebirth can be seen from the symbolism of two in the Word. Two symbolizes the same thing as six, which is the fighting and hard work that come before rebirth. So here it means all the stages we go through before becoming regenerate.

The longest and shortest intervals in the Word are generally split in three or in seven and are called days, weeks, months, years, or "ages." ¹ Three and seven are holy; two and six, being just one less, are not holy but relatively profane, as shown before (§720).

Three and seven also mean something sacrosanct, each because of its connection with the Last Judgment, predicted as coming on the third or else the seventh day. ² Every person — both collectively and individually — has a last judgment when the Lord comes. There was a last judgment when the Lord came into the world. There will be a last judgment when he enters into his glory. There is a last judgment when he comes individually to each person. There is also a last judgment for each person who dies. This last judgment is the third day and the seventh day, which is holy for those who have lived good lives but unholy for those who have lived evil lives. Consequently, a third day and a seventh is predicted for those judged worthy of death and for those judged worthy of life, so that the numbers symbolize what is unholy for those with a verdict of death but what is holy for those with a verdict of life.

Two and six, the numbers just before three and seven, bear a relationship to them and symbolize in general every preceding stage. This is the meaning of the numbers two and six, and the meaning adapts to the subject at hand and to whatever the subject applies to, which the numbers describe.

All of this will become clearer from the discussion of the number twenty-seven in the next section.

Footnotes:

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:

2252. Perhaps there are fifty just people in the middle of the city means that truth can be full of goodness, as can be seen from the following: Fifty means full. The just symbolize what is good, as mentioned at §§612, 2235. The middle symbolizes the deepest core (§1074). And the city symbolizes truth (§402). So in an inner sense, fifty just people in the middle of the city means that at its core truth can be full of goodness.

From the literal text no one can see that the words contain this meaning, because the narrative that makes up the literal meaning leads the mind in a completely different direction, into a very different way of thinking. This is how the words are perceived by people immersed in the inner meaning, however, as I know for sure. Not even the numbers (fifty here, and forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and ten below) are taken as numbers by people focusing on the inner meaning. Instead they are taken as attributes or as states, a fact demonstrated in §§482, 487, 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, 1963, 1988, 2075.

[2] The ancients also marked the different phases of their church by numbers. Their method of calculating can be seen from the numerical symbolism given in the sections referred to just above. This symbolism they took from representations that exist in the world of spirits. Any object there that seems to be counted or measured stands not for something defined by numbers but for either a quality or a state. This can be seen from passages alluded to in §§2129 and 2130 and in §2089 dealing with the number twelve as symbolizing all aspects of faith. The same is true of the numbers that follow in the current passage. This reveals what the Word is like in its inner meaning.

[3] The reason fifty means full is that it is the number coming next after seven times seven, or forty-nine, and therefore completes or fills it. As a result, in the representative church, the feast of seven Sabbaths came on the fiftieth day and the jubilee in the fiftieth year. This is what Moses says about the feast of seven Sabbaths:

You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath; from the day that you bring the sheaf of the waved offering, seven whole Sabbaths there shall be. To the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days, and you shall offer a new offering to Jehovah. (Leviticus 23:15, 16)

The same author on the jubilee:

You shall count for yourself seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be forty-nine years for you and you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land to all its inhabitants. A jubilee it shall be to you. (Leviticus 25:8, 10)

This shows that the count of Sabbaths is full with the fiftieth.

[4] What is more, everywhere the Word mentions the number fifty, it means fullness. For instance, the Levites were registered from a son of thirty years and up, all the way to a son of fifty years (Numbers 4:23, 35, 39, 43, 47; 8:25). This stands for a full or final period of carrying out their ministry at that time.

A man who had lain with a girl, an unmarried woman, was to give her father fifty pieces of silver, and she would become his wife, and he could not divorce her (Deuteronomy 22:29). This stands for a full monetary penalty and full restitution.

David gave Araunah fifty shekels of silver for the threshing floor where he built an altar to Jehovah (2 Samuel 24:24), which stands for the full price fully paid.

Absalom made himself a chariot and horses and had fifty men running in front of him (2 Samuel 15:1). Adonijah too had chariots and riders and fifty men running in front of him (1 Kings 1:5). This stands for full superiority and greatness.

Because of the ancients, you see, [the people of Israel] viewed certain numbers as representative and symbolic. They honored the numbers, which were also commanded in their rituals, but few of them knew what they meant.

[5] Since fifty means fullness, then, and also had been a representative number, as I said, it has the same meaning in one of the Lord's parables. This involves a steward who said to a debtor who owed for oil, "How much do you owe my master?" The other said, "A hundred baths of oil." And the steward told him, "Take your note and sitting down quickly write fifty" (Luke 16[5,] 6). Fifty stands for a full resolution. Because it is a number, it does seem as though it could not mean anything but that number. Everywhere in the inner meaning, though, this number means something full.

In Haggai too, for example:

One came to the winepress to draw fifty [measures] from the press; there were twenty. (Haggai 2:16)

In other words, instead of fullness, there was not much. The prophet would not have mentioned fifty there if it had not had this meaning.