3933. And Zilpah Leah’s handmaid bore Jacob a son. That this signifies the acknowledgment of external truth, is evident from the signification of “bearing,” as being acknowledgment; from the signification of a “handmaid,” as being an affirmative conjoining means; and from the signification of a “son,” as being truth (n. 489, 491, 533, 1147).

533. As nothing more is related concerning Lamech than that he begat sons and daughters, which are the conceptions and births of such a church, we shall dwell no longer on the subject. What the births were, or the “sons and daughters” appears from the church; for such as is the church, such are the births from it. Both the churches called “Methuselah” and “Lamech” expired just before the flood.