3174. 'Her brother said, and her mother' means doubt on the part of the natural man. This is clear from the meaning of 'a brother' as the good within the natural man, dealt with in 3160, and from the meaning of 'a mother' as the truth there, dealt with in 3167. Consequently 'brother' and 'mother' mean the natural man since this is composed of good and truth. The fact that doubt is meant is self-evident, that is to say, doubt whether the girl would stay a few days longer or whether she would go with the man there and then.

''To stop up wells,' as inGenesis 26:15, denotes to be unwilling to know truths, and to deny them, and so to obliterate them. In Genesis 21, 'wells' signify doctrines, both those disputed and not disputed. Without this significance digging wells and disputing about them would have been too trivial to be mentioned in the divine Word.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 2702 [1-17])