3845. 'Complete this week' means the continuance of the diligent effort. This is clear from the meaning of 'completing' here as serving or completing by serving, and so as meaning diligent effort, dealt with in 3824; and from the meaning of 'a week' as a state and also a whole period, dealt with in 728, 2044, in this case therefore the state and the subsequent period, and so a continuance. What has been said in 3814 about the meaning of 'a month' applies equally to the meaning of 'a week'. When used in the singular 'week' means the end of some previous state and the beginning of the one that follows it, and so a new state; and by the completing of this is meant from its beginning to its end. The reason why 'a week', like every other time-measurement specifically, means a state and also a period of time is that all states also have their own individual periods of the beginning, the continuance, and the end. In the next life however these are not perceived as periods of time but as states and their integral cycles. Here it is quite evident what 'a week' meant to the ancients, namely - in the proper sense - every period that was divided into seven phases, whether it was a period of seven days or of seven years or of seven ages, and so whether it was a long period or a short one. Here it is plainly a period of seven years. And because 'seven' with those people meant that which was holy, see 84-87, 395, 433, 716, 881, 'a week' therefore meant a holy period, and also the holiness of a period.

3824. 'And said, I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter' means a diligent effort, to be made during a holy state, to the end that it might be joined to internal truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'serving' as a diligent effort; from the meaning of 'seven' as that which is holy, dealt with in 395, 433, 716, 881; and from the meaning of 'years' as states, dealt with in 487, 488, 493, 893. And as anyone may see, such effort was so that the two might be joined together. From these meanings it is evident that 'I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter' means a diligent effort, to be made during a holy state, to the end that it might be joined to internal truth.

[2] Internal truths are said to be joined to the natural when they are learned, acknowledged, and believed. Within man's natural, that is, within his natural memory, both external and internal truths are present. These reside there as religious knowledge, but they have not been joined to the natural man until that person has an affection for them because they have application to his life, that is, life is the reason why he loves them. For when this stage is reached good is coupled to those truths, and by means of that good they are joined to the rational and so to the internal man. By this route life enters into them from the Lord.