4168. These twenty years have I been with thee. That this signifies His own, is evident from the signification of "twenty," as being the good of remains (n. 2280). But when predicated of the Lord these remains are nothing else than His own (n. 1906). "Twenty years" signify the states of this own. (That "years" denote states, see above, n. 487, 488, 493, 893.) In the supreme sense the things contained in Jacob's words to Laban treat of the own in the natural which the Lord acquired for Himself by His own power, and in fact of the various states of this own.
