3109. Verses 23-25 And he said, Whose daughter are you? Tell me now, is there at your father's house a place for us to spend the night? And she said to him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milkah, whom she bore to Nahor. And she said to him, There is both straw and also much fodder with us, and a place to spend the night.

'He said, Whose daughter are you?' means further investigation concerning innocence. 'Tell me now, is there at your father's house a place for us to spend the night?' means investigation concerning the good of charity. 'And she said to him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milkah, whom she bore to Nahor' means here, as previously, the whole origin of it. 'And she said to him' means perception. 'There is both straw' means factual truths. 'And also much fodder with us' means the goods that go with these. 'And a place to spend the night' means that state.

3040. 'And you shall take a wife for my son from there' means that the affection for truth came indeed from there, yet from a new source. This is clear from the meaning of 'a wife' as the affection for truth, dealt with above. For 'Rebekah' who is referred to in this present chapter represents Divine Truth that was to be joined to the Divine Good of the Rational, which is Isaac. That the affection for truth comes from there, that is to say, from the things meant by 'father's house' and 'land of nativity', yet from a new source, cannot as yet be fully explained, though the matter is dealt with extensively in what follows. Let just a brief explanation be given here. Every affection for truth in the natural man comes into being through an influx from the affection for good from the rational, that is, from the Divine by way of the rational. The affection for truth which through that influx comes into being in the natural man is at first not an affection for genuine truth, for genuine truth arrives gradually. It gradually takes the place of those things previously there which were not truths in themselves, but only means leading on to genuine truth. This brief explanation shows what is meant by the statement that the affection for truth comes indeed from there, yet from a new source.