In Genesis 29:29, Bilhah signifies exterior affections, which are subservient in nature. (Arcana Coelestia 3849)

Bilhah is the maidservant of Rachel, Jacob's second wife. Jacob's first wife is Rachel's sister, Leah, and she has a maidservant, too, named Zilpah. In the polygamous culture of Mesopotamia at the time, maybe it wasn't that unusual that Jacob would father children by all four women - as he did. It's an important story; the 12 sons of Jacob and these four mothers become the founders of the 12 tribes of the Children of Israel.

There's a lot going on in this story in the internal sense, as you can imagine from the web of relationships. Leah represents external truth - a state that we begin in. She's the first to have children. Rachel, her younger sister, represents internal truth - a state that is supposed to develop within us. Ultimately, as we develop spiritually, our external truths should become conjoined to our internal ones. There's a gap, though, and it can be hard to bridge. The maidservants in the story represent states that make a bridge between the external mind and the internal mind. Bilhah represents an affirmative attitude towards interior truth - which allows good to start flowing in from the Lord. A Bilhah attitude might be something like this: "I can see that there might be some deeper, inner truths that I need here. I don't necessarily believe them all yet, but I am open to learning them and trying to use them in my life.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 3913)