3933. 'And Zilpah, Leah's servant-girl, bore Jacob a son' means acknowledgement, that is to say, of external truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'bearing' as acknowledgement; from the meaning of 'a servant-girl' as an affirmative means joining two together; and from the meaning of 'a son' as truth, dealt with in 489, 491, 533, 1147.

533. Since nothing further is mentioned about Lamech apart from the fact that be beget sons and daughters, who are the conceptions and births of such a Church, there is no need to pause any longer over him. What these births, or sons and daughters, were, becomes clear from the Church, for the character of a Church determines that of its offspring. Both those Churches called Methuselah and Lamech breathed their last just before the flood.