8. The second state is when a distinction is made between the things that are the Lord's and those that are man's own. Those which are the Lord's are called in the Word 'remnants', and here they are chiefly the cognitions of faith which a person has learned since he was a small child. These are stored away and do not come out into the open until he reaches this state. Nowadays this state rarely occurs without temptation, misfortune, and sorrow, which lead to the inactivity and so to speak the death of bodily and worldly concerns - the things which are man's own. In this way what belongs to the external man is segregated from what belongs to the internal. Within the internal are the remnants, stored away by the Lord until this time and for this purpose.

647. It is bound to seem strange and very far-fetched to everybody that these details have this meaning, that is to say, that the numbers three hundred, fifty, and thirty mean remnants, and in particular that they were few; also that 'length, breadth, and height' means holiness, truth, and good. But in addition to what has been stated and shown above about numbers at verse 3 of this chapter, where a hundred and twenty means the remnants of faith, this matter may also become clear to anybody from the fact that people who possess the internal sense, as good spirits and angels do, are beyond anything earthly, bodily, or purely worldly, and so beyond anything involving numbers and measurements. Yet the Lord enables them to perceive the Word fully, and to do so quite independently from such concepts. This being so, it becomes quite clear that numbers and measurements embody celestial and spiritual things. The latter however are so remote from the sense of the letter that such things cannot possibly be seen. This applies to every single celestial or spiritual thing. From this also anyone may recognize how insane it is to desire to inquire into matters of faith through sensory evidence and factual knowledge and to refuse to believe unless one grasps them by that method.