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.

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

In Genesis 25:16, because they were outside the cities, signifies the external things of the church. (Arcana Coelestia 3270)

In Joshua 21:12, this signifies again a new church which was both internal and external. (Arcana Coelestia 2909[3])

In Exodus 8:13, this signifies the exteriors of the natural mind (because they were Egyptian Villages) (Arcana Coelestia 7407)

In Isaiah 42:11, this signifies natural knowledges, and memorized things. (Apocalypse Explained 405[12])

In Matthew 9:35, this signifies that a new church was to be proclaimed both in heaven and on earth. (Apocalypse Explained 612[7, 8])

'Villages,' as in Exodus 8:13, signify the exteriors of the natural mind.