3676. 'To Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean' means a parallel good. This is clear from the representation of 'Laban' as a parallel good that springs from a common stock, also dealt with above in 3665, and from the representation of 'Bethuel' as good existing with those who make up a first group of gentiles, dealt with in 2865, 3665, from which good, as from a common stock, comes the good which 'Laban' represents. The reason Bethuel is here surnamed 'the Aramean' is that 'Aram' or Syria means cognitions of good and truth, 1232, 1234, 3249, and these cognitions are the subject here.

[2] The external truth from which good springs, meant by 'Jacob' here, is nothing else than cognitions, for cognitions are the truths that are absorbed first by anyone. Cognitions are also what people in the earliest stage of regeneration possess instead of truths. Cognitions however are not in themselves truths, yet they are such by virtue of the Divine things present within them; and only when these shine through them are they first made truths. Till then they are no more than general vessels by means of which and within which truths can be received, as those cognitions are which have been referred to already at the end of 3665, and as all the facts are that one learns at first.

1234. That 'Aram' means cognitions of good has been shown just above, from which it follows that 'the sons of Aram' are derivative cognitions and the products of cognitions. Derivative cognitions are natural truths, while the products of cognitions are deeds done in accordance with them. The fact that these things are meant cannot be confirmed so easily from the Word, for they are not among the names that are mentioned frequently. Uz alone is mentioned, in Jeremiah 25:20 and Lamentations 4:21. From this then it follows that 'Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash' mean just so many types of these cognitions, and of deeds done in accordance with them.