4857. 'Behold, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his flock' means that the Jewish Church had a wish to consult its own interests. This is clear from the representation of 'Judah' as the Church among the nation descended from Jacob, specifically among that descended from Judah, dealt with in 4815, 4842, 4852 (here the expression 'father-in-law' is used because there was some kind of communication with the Church that was representative of the spiritual and celestial things meant here by 'daughter-in-law'); from the meaning of 'going up' as some kind of raising up, dealt with just above in 4853; and from the meaning of 'shearing a flock' as consulting the interests of the Church, dealt with above in 4853, the state when those interests were consulted being meant by 'Timnah', 4855.

[2] Such is the internal sense within these words, but this sense cannot in any way be seen from the letter, for when these descriptions are read the mind thinks of Judah, Timnah, and the shearing of a flock, not of spiritual entities separate from person, place. or worldly use. But living as they do amid spiritual things, angels do not perceive from these descriptions anything else than the spiritual realities that have been mentioned. For when the literal sense passes over into the spiritual sense the things descriptive of person, place, or the world fade and those descriptive of the Church, its state, and the uses served there take their place.

[3] It indeed seems to be unbelievable that all this can be so. But it is so because, as long as a person is living in the world, his thought is based on natural and worldly ideas, not on spiritual or celestial ones. Also, those who are immersed in bodily and earthly interests do not even know of the existence of anything spiritual or anything celestial, let alone that these are distinct and separate from what is worldly or natural, when in fact they are as distinct as a person's spirit is from his body. Nor do they know that the spiritual sense lives within the literal sense as a person's spirit does within his body, and that like a person's spirit the spiritual sense continues to live when the literal sense fades away. Therefore the internal sense may be called the soul of the Word.