4112. 'And Jacob stole the heart of Laban the Aramean' means a change, as regards good, of the state meant by 'Laban'. This is clear from the meaning of 'stealing' as taking away that which is cherished and holy, and so changing the state, dealt with immediately above in 4111; from the meaning of 'the heart' as that which proceeds from the will, and - when the will desires good - as good, dealt with in 2930, 3313, 3888, 3889; and from the representation of 'Laban' as intermediate good which is now being separated. And because it is being separated Laban is now called the Aramean, as also in verse 24 below, for 'Laban the Aramean' means, as previously, a kind of good which does not have any Divine Good and Truth within it. The reason why this is meant is that Aram or Syria was separated from the land of Canaan by the river, namely the Euphrates, and so lay outside the land of Canaan which in the internal sense means the Lord's kingdom and in the highest sense the Lord's Divine Human, see above in 4108.

[2] Specifically 'Aram' or Syria means cognitions of truth and good, see 1232, 1234, 3051, 3249, 3664, 3680. The reason why it has this meaning is that the Ancient Church existed there also, with remnants of it remaining there for a long time, as is evident from Balaam who came from there and who was acquainted with Jehovah and also prophesied concerning the Lord. But after the growth of idolatry in that country, and after Abram had been summoned from it and the representative Church was established in the land of Canaan, 'Aram' or Syria took on the representation of a region outside the Church, that is, of a region separated from the Church and as a consequence remote from the things that constituted the Lord's kingdom. But it continued to mean cognitions of good and truth. The reason why Jacob is said to have 'stolen Laban's heart' by not giving any indication that he was fleeing is that immediately above a change of state as regards truth was spoken of, and therefore a change of state as regards good is spoken of here. For when truth is dealt with in the Word so also is good, on account of the heavenly marriage, which is the marriage of truth and good, present in every individual part of the Word, 683, 793, 801, 2516, 2712.

3888. Those two kingdoms manifest themselves in man through the two kingdoms which exist within him - the kingdom of the will and the kingdom of the understanding which constitute man's mind, indeed man himself. It is the will to which the beating of the heart corresponds, and the understanding to which the breathing of the lungs corresponds. Those two kingdoms also manifest themselves in man's body, where again there are two kingdoms - that of the heart and that of the lungs. Anyone who knows this arcanum is also able to know about the influx of the will into the understanding and of the understanding into the will and consequently to know about the influx of the good of love into the truth of faith, and vice versa, and so about the regeneration of man. But people who are restricted solely to bodily ideas, that is, people who have evil as the object of their will and falsity the object of their understanding cannot grasp these matters, for they cannot think about spiritual and celestial things except with the senses and the body. Consequently they cannot think of those things except from a thick darkness concerning the things that constitute heavenly light, which is the truth of faith, and from a coldness concerning the things that constitute heavenly flame, which is the good of love. Those two - the thick darkness and the coldness - so blot out celestial and spiritual things that they do not seem to those people to be anything.