4162. 'And he searched and did not find the teraphim' means that they were not his, that is to say, that those truths were not Laban's. This is clear from the meaning of 'searching and not finding'. The implications in the external historical sense are that they really were Laban's and had therefore been hidden away, but in the internal sense that they were not his; for 'the teraphim' means truths from the Divine, see 4111. What all this implies, that is to say, how these truths did not belong to the good meant by 'Laban' but to the affection for interior truth, may be seen from what has been stated above in 4151. From all this it is evident which particular arcanum lies concealed within these details which are recorded concerning the teraphim.

[2] The reason why 'the teraphim' means truths from the Divine is that those who belonged to the Ancient Church gave to the Divine or the Lord various illustrious names which were descriptive of His different attributes as these manifested themselves in outward effects. The name God Shaddai, for example, was descriptive of the temptations in which the Lord fights on man's behalf and after which He bestows benefits, see 1992, 3667. His providence guarding against man's entering of himself into the mysteries of faith they called 'cherubim', 308, and Divine truths which they received through answers they referred to as 'teraphim'. And for every other Divine attribute also they had a specific name. But the wise among them did not understand by each of those names anything but the one and only Lord, whereas the simple made images for themselves which were representative of that Divine, as many images as were those names. Then, when Divine worship began to be converted into idolatry, they invented as many gods for themselves. This was how many forms of idolatry arose among the gentiles, who added to the number of these gods. But because in ancient times Divine attributes had been meant by those names, some were retained, such as Shaddai and also 'cherubim' and 'teraphim', and when used in the Word mean the kinds of things that have been mentioned. By 'the teraphim' are meant Divine truths contained in the answers given by them, as is evident in Hosea 3:4.