3765. 'Behold, a well' means the Word. This is clear from the meaning of 'a well' as the Word and also as doctrine drawn from the Word, dealt with in 2702, 3096, 3424. The Word is called 'a well' here because the subject is the natural, which by itself can do no more than understand the literal sense of the Word. But the Word is called 'a spring' when the subject is the rational, by which one is able to see the internal sense of the Word.

1260. Since 'nations' in the Most Ancient Church and in the Ancient Church meant goods or good persons, therefore also in the contrary sense they mean evils or evil persons Similarly with 'peoples'; since these meant truths, therefore also in the contrary sense they mean falsities. For in a corrupted Church good is turned into evil, and truth into falsity, as a consequence of which the meaning of nations and peoples in that contrary sense occurs many times in the Word, as in Isaiah 13:4; 14:6; 18:2, 7; 30:28; 34:1-2; Ezekiel 20:13; and in many other places.