3298. 'Her days for bringing forth were completed' means the first state of the effect. This is clear from the meaning of 'days' as states, dealt with in 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788. The first state of the effect is meant by 'the days for bringing forth were completed' because 'bringing forth' in the spiritual sense has to do with good and truth, and means in that sense the manifestation of these, 2621, 2629. Good and truth are similar to offspring, in that they are conceived, carried in the womb, born, and after that grow to maturity. After conception the efficient, or conceived, seed starts to produce the effect. This takes place in the womb. Once these states have been completed and the time to give birth is at hand, the effect at that point begins to exist, which is called the first state of the effect. For at that point the offspring begins to act independently so to speak and to strive to reach that state which is called the state of the effect.

3288. 'And Rebekah his wife conceived' means from Divine Truth as the mother. This is clear from the representation of 'Rebekah' as the Divine Truth of the Rational, dealt with in the previous chapter, and from the meaning of 'conceiving' as the first beginnings of the rise of the Divine Natural, as from the mother. For as stated just above, the Divine Natural came into being from the Divine Good of the Rational as father and from the Divine Truth of the Rational as mother. Scarcely anybody knows that this is so, especially since few know that the rational is distinct and separate from the natural. None but those who are truly rational know of that distinctness, and none are truly rational but those who have been regenerated by the Lord. People who have not been regenerated do not grasp it since to them the rational and the natural are one and the same.