6508. 'Seventy days' means a complete state. This is clear from the meaning of 'seventy'; for this number implies much the same as 'seven', and 'seven' means a whole period from start to finish, thus a complete state, 728, 2044, 3845. Numbers in the Word express spiritual realities, see 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, 3252, 4264, 4495, 4670, 5265, 6175; and compound numbers have a similar meaning to the simple ones of which they are the product, 5291, 5335, 5708, so that seventy is similar in meaning to seven.

[2] The fact that 'seventy' means a whole period, thus a complete state, is further evident from the following places: In Isaiah,

It will happen on that day, that Tyre will pass into oblivion for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre [according to] the song of the harlot. For it will happen at the end of seventy years, that Jehovah will visit Tyre. Isaiah 23:15, 17.

'Tyre' stands for the cognitions of what is good and true that are known to the Church, 1201, which 'will Pass into oblivion'. 'Seventy years' stands for a whole period from start to finish. 'Like the days of one king' stands for a state of truth within the Church, for 'days' are states, 6505, and 'king' is truth, 1672, 2015, 2069, 3009, 5044, 5068, 6148. Anyone who gives the matter careful consideration can see that 'Tyre' is not used here to mean Tyre, and that without the internal sense one cannot understand what is meant by 'Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years' and that this will be 'like the days of one king', or by the rest of what is said.

[3] In Jeremiah,

The whole land will be a desolation, a devastation, and these nations will serve the king of Babel seventy years; and it will happen, when the seventy years are fulfilled, that I will visit the king of Babel and this nation for their iniquity. Jeremiah 25:11, 21; 29:10.

'Seventy years' stands for a complete state in which there is desolation and devastation. This is what was meant by the seventy years of captivity that the Jewish people underwent.

[4] In Daniel,

Seventy weeks have been decreed concerning your people and your holy city to bring transgression to a close and to seal up sins and to atone for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting justice, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. Daniel 9:24.

'Seventy' plainly stands for a complete state, thus for a whole period prior to the Lord's Coming, which explains why it is said that He came 'in the fullness of time'. The fact that 'seventy weeks' means a complete state is evident from the details of this verse - that so many weeks have been decreed 'to bring transgression to a close', also 'to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting justice, to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the Most Holy Place'. These details imply fullness; and something similar is also meant in further details coming immediately after them,

Know therefore and perceive that from the going forth of the Word to restore and build Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks. Daniel 9:15.

Here 'seven' stands for a complete state; for as may be seen just above, 'seven' means a complete state in the same way as 'seventy' does. Here 'Jerusalem' plainly stands for a new Church, for at the time the Messiah came Jerusalem was not built but destroyed.

6175. 'And the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred and forty-seven years means the state in general and its essential nature. This becomes clear if the meaning of the numbers seven, forty, and a hundred is brought out. ¹ For what seven means, see 395, 433, 716, 728, 881, 5165, 5268; for what forty means, 730, 862, 2272, 2273; and for what a hundred means, 1988, 1636, 4400. But no easy explanation of the sum of these numbers is possible, for they contain far more than anyone can calculate or explain intelligibly. In general these numbers contain the entire state of the reality represented by 'Jacob' and its essential nature. The angels can see these things in their entirety simply from that number; they can do so because with the angels all numbers in the Word pass into ideas about spiritual realities. This has also been made evident to me by the fact that on several occasions a long sequence of numbers has appeared in front of me, and whenever they have appeared the angels have told me that the numbers held, in sequence, the realities which they were talking about to one another. This in addition explains why the most ancient people who belonged to the celestial Church also had a way of calculating that consisted of numbers employed to express heavenly things which could barely be understood by the use of ideas in the natural mind. But after those people's times such evaluations perished, along with the perception of heavenly things. All that remained was a knowledge of the general meaning of the simple numbers, such as three, six, seven, and twelve, but not much knowledge of the meaning of compound numbers. At the present day however even the idea that numbers in the Word mean something more than their numerical values is quite unknown, and therefore the idea will probably be treated as one of those that are unbelievable.

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