Seven, as in Revelation 15:1, signifies everything in an universal sense. The number 'seven' was considered holy, as is well known, because of the six days of creation, and the seventh, which is the celestial self, where peace, rest, and the Sabbath is. The number seven occurs so frequently in the rites of the Jewish church and is held holy everywhere.

So times were divided into seven, longer and shorter intervals, and were called weeks, like the great intervals of times till the coming of the Messiah, in Daniel 9:24-25. The time of seven years is called 'a week' by Laban and Jacob, as in Genesis 29:27-28. So wherever the number seven occurs, it is considered holy and sacred, as in Psalm 119:164, and in Isaiah 30:26.

As the periods of a person's regeneration are distinguished into six, prior to the seventh, or the celestial self, so the times of vastation are also distinguished, until nothing celestial is left. This was represented by the many captivities of the Jews, and by the last Babylonian captivity, which lasted seven decades, or seventy years. This was also represented by Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel 4:16, 22, 29. It also refers to the vastation of the end times, in Revelation 15:1, 7-8. They should 'tread the holy city under foot, forty and two months, or six times seven,' as in Revelation 11:2 and Revelation 5:1. So the severity and increments of punishment were expressed by the number seven, as in Leviticus 26:18, 21, 24, 28 and Psalm 79:12.

(Mga Sanggunian: Apocalypse Explained 5, 7-8, 15; Arcana Coelestia 395; Daniel 9, 9:24, 9:25; Psalms 119)

4635. The preliminary sections of the chapters of Genesis immediately before this one contain explanations of what the Lord foretold in Matthew 24 about the final period of the Church. This being what those sections contain, and because Chapter 25 of that gospel goes on to deal with the same matters, let an explanation now be given of the internal sense of those matters in the order in which they come, which in the letter is as follows,

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the Bridegroom. Five of them however were wise, but five were foolish. Taking their lamps the foolish did not take oil with them, whereas the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the Bridegroom was tarrying they were all drowsy and went to sleep. At midnight there was a shout, Behold, the Bridegroom is coming; go out to meet Him. Then all those virgins were roused and they trimmed their lamps. But the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise replied, saying, Perhaps there will not be enough for us and for you; go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves. While they were going to buy however, the Bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with Him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. Afterwards the remaining virgins came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He replying said, Truly, I say to you, I do not know you. Watch therefore, for you do not know the day, nor the hour, in which the Son of Man will be coming. Matthew 25:1-13.