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.

881. 'Seven' means that which is holy because now charity is the subject. This is clear from the meaning of the number seven, dealt with already in 395, 716. Furthermore 'seven' has been brought in here so that all things may be linked together as though they were historical events, for in the internal sense 'seven' and 'seven days' contribute nothing more to the meaning than a certain holiness which this second state possesses from what is celestial, that is, from charity.