Spiritual Meaning of
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That fifty signifies what is full, comes from its following next after the product of seven into seven, or forty-nine, so that it is the impletion of this number, on which account there was in the Representative Church the festival of the Seven Sabbaths on the fiftieth day, and the Jubilee in the fiftieth year. As regards the festival of the seven sabbaths we read in Moses:--
Ye shall count unto you from the morrow of the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering, seven entire sabbaths shall there be, even unto the morrow of the seventh sabbath shall ye count fifty days, and ye shall offer a new offering unto Jehovah (Lev. 23:15).
And concerning the Jubilee:--
Thou shalt count for thee seven sabbaths of years, seven years seven times, and they shall be to thee seven sabbaths of years, nine and forty years, and ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty in the land to all the inhabitants thereof it shall be a jubilee unto you (Lev. 25:8, 10),
which shows that the fiftieth is what is full in relation to sad baths.
[4] Moreover, wherever fifty is mentioned in the Word, it signifies what is full; as when it is said that The Levites were numbered from a son of thirty years and upward, even unto a son of fifty years (Num. 4:23, 35, 39, 43, 47; 8:25); meaning the full or final state of discharging the ministry. That a man lying with a damsel, a virgin, shall give unto the damsel's father fifty pieces of silver, and she should be to him for a wife, nor could be put her away (Deut. 22:29), which denotes a full fine and full restitution. David's giving to Araunah for the threshing-floor where he built the altar to Jehovah, fifty shekels of silver (2 Sam. 24:24), denotes a full price and a full purchase. Absalom's preparing for himself a chariot and horses, and having fifty men running before him (2 Sam. 15:1), and in like manner Adonijah's having chariots and horsemen, and fifty men running before him (1 Kings 1:5), denotes full excellence and greatness. For they had from the ancients certain representative and significative numbers, which they observed, and which were also commanded in their rites; but most of them did not know what they signified.
[5] And in the same way, as fifty signifies what is full, and as this number was also representatives--already said--the same thing is signified by it in the Lord's parable of the steward, who said to him that owed the oil:--
How much owest thou unto my lord? and he said, a hundred baths of oil. And he said unto him, take thy bond, and sit down quickly, and write fifty (Luke 16:6);
fifty denoting full payment. As fifty is a number, it indeed appears to involve nothing beyond the number; whereas in the internal sense what is full is everywhere meant by it, as in Haggai:--
One came to the wine-press to draw out fifty out of the wine-press; there were twenty (Haggai 2:16),
that is, instead of fullness there was not much. Fifty could not have been mentioned here in the Prophet unless it had been significative.
from AC 2252
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