3919. 'And Bilhah conceived, and bore Jacob a son' means reception and acknowledgement. This is clear from the meaning of 'conceiving' as reception, and from the meaning of 'bearing' as acknowledgement, dealt with in 3860, 3868, 3905, 3911. For in the spiritual sense conceptions and births are receptions of truth from good, and consequent acknowledgements.

3911. 'Who is withholding from you the fruit of the womb' means that it had to originate in what was internal. This is clear from the meaning that results from the internal sense of these words. 'The fruit of the womb' is similar in meaning in the internal sense to birth, namely the acknowledgement of truth and good in faith and action, 3905. Indeed it means more than this, namely the joining together of truth and good as a result of that acknowledgement. Such acknowledgement and joining together cannot begin in the external man, only in the internal; for all good flows in from the Lord by way of the internal man into the external and adopts the truths which have been introduced through the sensory experiences of the external man, causing the person to acknowledge them in faith and action and causing them to be joined together and so made the person's own. The truth that all good from the Lord flows in by way of the internal man into the truths gathered together in the memory belonging to the external man has been shown many times already. This is what these words mean when explained - that it had to originate in what was internal.