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.

Voetnoten:

1988. Abram was a son of ninety-nine years symbolizes the time before the Lord had fully united his inner self with his rational self. This can be seen from the symbolism of nine, coming as it does before ten. Similarly, it can be seen from the symbolism of ninety-nine, coming as it does before a hundred. Abram was a hundred years old when Isaac was born to him.

Numbers (like names) reveal with special clarity the nature of the Word's inner meaning. All the numbers in the Word have symbolic meaning, just as the names do. There is nothing whatever in the Word that does not have divinity within it, or in other words, that does not have an inner meaning. Numbers show particularly well how far removed that inner meaning is from the literal, because in heaven the inhabitants do not pay any attention to names and numbers in the Word but only to what the names and numbers symbolize. For example, wherever the number seven comes up, the concept of holiness immediately replaces that number in angels' minds. Seven symbolizes holiness because a heavenly type of person is the seventh day, or the Sabbath, the day the Lord rested (§§84-87, 395, 433, 716, 881).

It is the same with the other numbers; for example, twelve. Every time twelve comes up, the thought of everything having to do with faith springs to angels' minds, because that is what the twelve tribes of Israel symbolized (§577). For a demonstration of the idea that numbers in the Word have symbolic meaning, see §§482, 487, 488, 493, 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, 893 in the first volume.

[2] It is the same with ninety-nine, which symbolizes the time before the Lord had fully united his inner self with his rational self. This can be seen from the symbolism of a hundred years, which was Abram's age when Isaac was born to him, which in turn represents and symbolizes the Lord's rational self as united to his inner or divine self. In the Word, one hundred symbolizes the same thing as ten, because it is made up of ten times ten, and ten symbolizes a remnant [of goodness and truth]. The symbolism of ten was illustrated in volume 1 at §576. For a definition of the remnant in a person, see §§468, 530, 561, 660, 1050. For a description of the remnant in the Lord, see §1906.

These mysteries cannot be explained any further, but people everywhere can come to their own conclusions about them after finding out what a remnant is, since that is currently unknown.

The key fact is this: the remnant in the Lord symbolizes the divine goodness that he acquired for himself by his own power, through which he made his human nature one with his divine.

[3] This discussion indicates what ninety-nine symbolizes. Because it comes before a hundred, it symbolizes a time before the Lord had fully united his inner self with his rational self. Ishmael represented the Lord's early rationality, whose nature was demonstrated more than amply in the previous chapter, Genesis 16 [§§1911, 1936, 1948-1951, 1964]. But Isaac represents the Lord's divine rationality, as later sections will establish [§§2632, 2658].

Abram has stayed in the land of Canaan for quite a while–twenty-four years now (ten before the year Ishmael was born and then thirteen after)–and still had not had a child by his wife Sarai. Only now, when he was ninety-nine, did he receive the promise of a son. Anyone can see that this has a secret meaning. The secret is that through these particulars he would represent the union of the Lord's divine nature with his human nature, and indeed that of the Lord's inner self–Jehovah–with his rational self.