4855. 'To Timnah' means the state, namely the state when the interests of the Church were consulted. This is also evident from the Book of Judges, where Samson is described as going down to Timnah to take a wife there from the daughters of the Philistines. Judges 14:1-4, 7. There likewise 'Timnah' means a state when the interests of the Church are consulted. The wife he took from the daughters of the Philistines is in the representative sense truth received from what is not good, and so is truth rendered obscure, which is also represented here by 'Tamar' - the Philistines being those who have a knowledge of matters of doctrine regarding faith but who do not lead lives in accordance with these, 1197, 1198, 3412, 3413. In addition to this, the name Timnah appears among the places belonging to the inheritance of the tribe of Dan, Joshua 19:43. All place-names in the Word have spiritual realities and states as their meaning, see 1224, 1264, 1888, 3422, 4298, 4442.

1224. From these considerations it is clear what these names mean in the internal sense, namely that the Ancient Church, which was an internal Church, was endowed with wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, and cognitions of truth and good. Such things are contained in the internal sense even though merely names occur from which nothing is seen in the literal sense, apart from these being just so many origins, or fathers of nations, and so nothing of a doctrinal nature is seen, still less anything spiritual and celestial. The same applies in the Prophets where lists of names are sometimes given which in the internal sense mean real things following one after another in a lovely order.