7984. 'Four hundred and thirty years' means the essential nature and state of them. This is clear from the meaning of 'thirty' as a state when the quantity of remnants is complete, for that number is the product of three and ten multiplied, and 'three' means a state made complete, 2788, 4495, 7715, and 'ten' means remnants, 576, 1906, 2284 (what a state made complete is will be explained below); and from the meaning of 'four hundred' as the duration of vastation, dealt with in 2959, 2966, and from this the joining together of goodness and truth, 4341, The fact that all numbers mean real things and states, and that a compound number is similar to the simple ones of which it is a product, see above in 7973.

[2] As regards vastation, meant by 'four hundred years', there are two kinds, namely the vastation of evil and falsity and the vastation of goodness and truth. With those suffering damnation it is the vastation of goodness and truth, but with those who are being saved it is the vastation of evil and falsity, vastation being the taking away of those things. So far it has been shown that the evil who have belonged to the Church undergo vastation of all goodness and truth, for stages of vastation one after another are meant by the plagues in Egypt. But the good undergo vastation of evil and falsity. Evil and falsity residing with them are gradually separated, that is, removed to the sides, and forms of good and truths are gathered towards the middle. The term 'remnants' is used to describe goodness and truth gathered together in that way. And when their state of remnants has been made complete the good are raised to heaven. This state is what is meant by 'thirty', and vastation what is meant by 'four hundred'. With the good the vastation of evil and falsity and the instilling of goodness and truth is effected by means of molestations and by means of temptations. By means of both these, falsities and evils are removed and forms of good and truths are inserted; and this process continues until the state is made complete.

[3] What a state made complete is must also be explained briefly. Everyone, whether damned or saved, has a certain measure that can be made complete. The evil, or those who are damned, have a certain measure of evil and falsity, while the good, or those who are saved, have a certain measure of goodness and truth. This measure that everyone has is made complete in the next life, though with some the measure may be quite large, with others rather small. People acquire that measure in the world through the affections belonging to their love. The more anyone has loved evil and the falsity arising from it, the greater is the measure acquired by him; and the more anyone has loved good and the truth springing from it, the greater is his measure. The breadths and heights to which that measure can go are clearly apparent in the next life. These limits cannot be exceeded there, but they can be reached, and in fact are reached; that is to say, those whose affection has been for goodness and truth have their measure made complete with forms of good and truths, while those whose affection has been for evil and falsity have theirs made complete with evils and falsities. From this it is evident that this measure is a propensity acquired in the world to receive either evil and falsity or goodness and truth.

[4] This state is what a state made complete refers to and what is meant by 'thirty'. It is described by the Lord in the parable of the talents, Matthew 25:14-30, and in that of the minas, Luke 19:11-27, and at length by these words in Matthew,

To everyone who has, it will be given, so that he may have in abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Matthew 25:29.

And in Luke,

To those standing by he said, Take the mina from him, and give to him who has ten minas. They said, Sir, he has ten minas. I say to you, that to everyone who has, it will be given; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Luke 19:24-26.

That everyone's measure is made complete is the Lord's teaching elsewhere in the same gospel, Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over they will give into your bosom. Luke 6:38.

From all this one may now see what is meant by a state made complete.

4341. 'And four hundred men with him' means a state, in this case the state when Divine Good and Truth within the Natural are joined together, since that joining together is the subject. In the Word 'four hundred' means a state of temptation and the duration of it, 1847, 2959, 2966. And since every joining together of good and truth is effected by means of temptations it is the state of temptations that is meant here. For temptations are the means by which goods are joined to truths, see 2272, 3318, and temptations come when good starts to play the leading role, 4248, 4249; also the union of the Lord's Divine Essence with His Human Essence was effected by means of temptations, 1737.

[2] It is not the good itself which is to be joined to truth that is tempted, but the truth. Nor is truth tempted by good but by falsities and evils, and also by misconceptions and illusions, and by the affection for these, which cling to the truths within the natural. For when good flows in, which it does by an internal route, that is, through the internal rational man, the ideas possessed by the natural man which have been formed from the misconceptions of the senses and from illusions resulting from these cannot bear the approach of it, for they do not accord with it; and this gives rise to distress within the natural and to temptation. These are the factors which in the internal sense of this chapter are described by the fear and therefore the distress that Jacob felt, and his consequent state of submission and humiliation when Esau was coming with four hundred men. For the joining together of good and truth is never effected by any other means. From this it may be seen that 'four. hundred men' means a state of temptations - 'four hundred' the actual state itself, 'men' rational truths which have been joined to good when this flows into the natural. For 'men' means things of the understanding and of the rational, see 265, 749, 1007, 3134.

[3] But these considerations are such that they pass into the unlit parts of the human mind, the reason being that while a person is living in the body the difference between the rational and the natural cannot be seen. It is not seen at all by those who are not regenerate, and barely so by those who are, since they neither reflect on nor are even interested in the matter. For knowledge of the interior aspects of the human being has been virtually wiped out, yet in former times that knowledge constituted the whole of intelligence among people within the Church. Those considerations are however able to be substantiated to some extent from what has been shown already about the rational and its influx into the natural, that is to say, from the explanation that the natural is regenerated by means of the rational, 3286, 3288, and that the rational receives truths before the natural does so, 3321, 3368, 3671. It is these truths which flow, accompanied by good, from the rational into the natural that are meant in the internal sense by the four hundred men who accompanied Esau.