3096. 'And ran again to the well' means a lower affection for truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'a well' as truth, dealt with in 2702, but truth that is lower. And as the subject here is the introduction of truth, a lower affection for truth is meant, as stated just above in 3094. For the difference in meaning in the internal sense between 'a spring' and 'a well' see the paragraph just referred to, where it is explained that the expression 'a spring' is used in reference to purer and higher truth, but 'a well' in reference to truth that is not so pure and is lower, as in the present chapter also where 'a spring' is used at one point, 'a well' at another. Natural truth is a lower variety of truth, and the affection for natural truth a lower kind of affection for truth. This truth enables general facts to receive light most nearly, and that enlightenment penetrates further and affects more deeply, see 3094.

3422. 'Like the names which his father had called them' means meaningful signs of truth. This is clear from the fact that the names which were given in ancient times to persons, places, and things all carried spiritual meanings, see 340, 1946, 2643. Thus the names given to springs and wells were meaningful signs of the things which springs and wells had been used to mean in former times; and those things were matters of truth, as shown in 2702, 3096. And because names carried a spiritual meaning, the expressions 'name' and 'calling by name' also mean in general the essential nature either of a real thing or of a state, as said immediately above in 3421. That being so, any name used in the Word does not in its internal sense mean some person, or some nation, or some kingdom, or some city, but in every case some real thing. Anyone may deduce from this that 'wells' here means something belonging to heaven, for if this were not the case, so many details concerning wells would not have been worth mentioning in the Divine Word - since knowledge of them would be no use at all, such as that the Philistines stopped up the wells which Abraham's servants had dug; that Isaac dug them again and called them by names like those they had had previously; and that after that Isaac's servants dug a well in the valley, a well over which the herdsmen disputed; and that he dug yet another, which they also disputed over; and following that another which they did not dispute over; and yet another; and at length that they gave him an account of the new well, verses 15, 18-22, 25, 32-33. But the thing belonging to heaven that is meant by these is now evident from the internal sense.