8587. 'And he called the name of the place Massah' means the essential nature of the state of the temptation. This is clear from the meaning of 'name' and 'calling the name' as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009, 2628, 2724, 3006, 3421, 6674, 6887; and from the meaning of 'the place' as the state, dealt with in 2625, 2837, 3356, 3387, 4321, 4882, 5605, 7381. The reason why the essential nature of the state of the temptation is meant is that the temptation is the subject. The essential nature of its state is meant by 'Massah'; also Massah in the original language means temptation. The essential nature of it will be stated in what follows next.

3356. The reason 'a quake' means an alteration of state is that a quake occurs within the space-time continuum, and in the next life there is no concept of space and time, but instead of these the concept of state. In the next life it does indeed appear as though all things exist within space and follow one another in a time-sequence, but in themselves they are alterations of state, for space and time there are the products of these. This is very well known to all spirits, even evil ones, who by means of alterations of state effected in others cause them to appear somewhere other than where they in fact are. Man too is able to know of this from the fact that insofar as his state is one of affection and therefore of joy, or insofar as it is one of thought and therefore of withdrawal from the body, he is outside time. For while such a state lasts, many hours seem to him to be as scarcely one hour. The reason for this is that states belong to his internal man, which is his spirit, to which states intervals of space and periods of time in the external man correspond. 'A quake' therefore, being one of the consecutive events that occur within space and time, in the internal sense means an alteration of state.