488. The symbolism of days as general states and of years as specific states can also be seen in the Word, as I said [§§482, 487]. Take these words in Ezekiel:

You have made [the end of] your days approach and have come all the way to [the end of] your years. (Ezekiel 22:4)

This is about people who do loathsome things and fill their quota of sin, so in regard to the state of such people, days describes its general outlines and years its specific nature. In David:

You will add days to the monarch's days; the monarch's years will be like those of generation after generation. (Psalms 61:6)

This is about the Lord and his kingdom. The days and years stand for the state of his kingdom. In the same author:

I thought about the ancient days, the years of old. (Psalms 77:5)

The ancient days are the states of the earliest church, and the years of old are the states of the ancient church. In Isaiah:

The day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come. (Isaiah 63:4)

This stands for the final times; the day of vengeance stands for a state of damnation, and the year of the redeemed, for a state of blessing. In similar words from the same author:

... to proclaim a year of good pleasure for Jehovah and a day of vengeance for our God, to comfort all who mourn. (Isaiah 61:2)

Here again, both the word day and the word year are used, and they symbolize states. In Jeremiah:

Renew our days as in ancient times. (Lamentations 5:21)

Here the days obviously stand for the state of those people.

[2] In Joel:

The day of Jehovah has come, because it is near: a day of shadow and darkness, a day of cloud and haze. One like it has not occurred for ages, and after it one will not occur again for the years of generation after generation. (Joel 2:1-2, 11)

Here a day stands for a state of shadow, darkness, cloud, and haze for each person in particular and everyone in general. In Zechariah:

I will carry off the wickedness of that land in one day. On that day you will shout, a man to his companion, to [come] under the grapevine and under the fig tree. (Zechariah 3:9-10)

And in another place:

There will be a single day; it is known to Jehovah; it is not day or night. And it will happen that at the time of evening there will be light. (Zechariah 14:7)

Plainly this is about some state [of mind], because it says that there will be a day that is not day or night, and that there will be light at the time of evening. ¹ Statements in the Ten Commandments provide further evidence:

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be lengthened and so that it may be well with you upon the ground. (Deuteronomy 5:16; 25:15)

The lengthening of days does not symbolize long life but a happy state.

[3] On a literal level, no other meaning for a day can be seen than that of time, but in an inner sense it means a state. Angels, who focus on the inner meaning of the Word, do not know what time is. They have no sun or moon to divide time into units, so they do not know what a day or a year is, only what a state and changes in state are. ² For this reason, whatever partakes of matter, space, or time dissolves under the gaze of angels alive to the Word's inner meaning. The literal sense of these words from Ezekiel does so, for instance:

The day is near; yes, the day of Jehovah is near. The time of the nations will be a day of cloud. (Ezekiel 30:3)

And from Joel:

Oh my, the day! For the day of Jehovah is near, and [it comes] as devastation. (Joel 1:15)

The day of cloud stands for a cloud, or in other words, falsity. The day of the nations stands for the nations, or in other words, wickedness. ³ The day of Jehovah stands for devastation. When the notion of time is laid aside, there remains the notion of the state that things were in at that time. The situation is the same for the days and years mentioned so frequently in this chapter.

Fotnoter:

433. For the meaning of Cain will be avenged seven times as the placement of a sacred ban on violating the detached faith meant by Cain, see what was shown at verse 15 [§§392-396]. The symbolism of seventy-seven times as being far more sacrosanct and resulting in damnation can be seen from the symbolism of seventy-seven times.

Seven is a holy number because the seventh day symbolizes the heavenly person, the heavenly church, the heavenly kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord himself. Therefore the number seven means something holy or sacrosanct wherever it occurs in the Word. The holiness or heinousness belongs to the qualities under discussion and is determined by them. Seventy is also holy because it covers seven "ages," an "age" in the Word being ten years.

When anything extremely holy or positively sacrosanct was expressed, the words seventy times seven times were used. The Lord, for instance, said that we should not forgive our brother or sister up to seven times but up to seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21-22). This means that we should forgive as often as our brother or sister sins, without limit, or to eternity, which is holy. And the fact here that vengeance would be taken seventy-seven times means damnation, because violation was absolutely forbidden.