Pots" and other large vessels in the Bible represent facts and factual ideas, which serve as containers for truth the same way pots serve as containers for water or wine. Pots fill their function because they are hard, strong and impervious; facts are also absolute and unchanging, filling their function the same way. And pots must be filled to serve any use, just as facts must be filled with truth to serve any purpose. To some extent this meaning also applies to cups, bowls and other smaller vessels, though it is a little more immediate. Generally you don't fill a cup so you can store a liquid; you fill it to drink it. Smaller vessels then often take more of their meaning from the substance they contain, and in many cases ("cup" and "wine" especially) actually mean the same thing.

4237. 'And he called the name of that place Mahanaim' means the nature of that state. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling the name' as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009, 3421, and from the meaning of 'place' as state, dealt with in 2625, 2837, 3356, 3387. In the original language Mahanaim means the two camps, and 'the two camps' means both heavens, or both kingdoms of the Lord - the celestial and the spiritual - and in the highest sense the Lord's Divine celestial and Divine spiritual. From this it is evident that the nature of the Lord's state when His Natural was being enlightened by spiritual and celestial good is the meaning of 'Mahanaim'. But this - that is to say, the nature of that state - cannot be described because the Divine states which the Lord experienced when He made the Human within Him Divine do not fall within the mental grasp of any man, or indeed of any angel. They can be seen only by means of appearances when enlightened by the light of heaven received from the Lord, and by means of the states which a person experiences when being regenerated since the regeneration of man is an image of the glorification of the Lord, 3138, 3212, 3296, 3490.