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Book of Moses Essays
Enoch's Grand Vision (Moses 7:18-69)
Essays #25 - #30

Essay #30: Enoch’s Grand Vision: God Receives Zion unto Himself (Moses 7:18–19, 68–69)

Enoch succeeded in bringing a whole people to be sufficiently “pure in heart” to fully live the final celestial law of consecration. In Zion, the “City of Holiness,” the people “were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.” In contrast to Genesis 5:24 where Enoch is said to have been translated by himself, we are told in the Book of Moses that Enoch’s “people walked with God” and that they were eventually taken into heaven with him....

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Essay #26: Enoch’s Grand Vision: The Complaining Voice of the Earth (Moses 7:48–49, 54, 61, 64)

In a previous Essay, we observed that three distinct parties weep for the wickedness of mankind: God, the heavens, and Enoch himself. In addition, a fourth party, the earth, complains and mourns—though she doesn’t specifically “weep”—for her children. In the present article, we discuss affinities in the ancient Enoch literature and in the laments of Jeremiah to the complaint of the earth in Moses 7:48–49....

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Essay #29: Enoch’s Grand Vision: The Earth Shall Rest (Moses 7:60–69)

Having witnessed the abrupt end of the long-awaited coming of the Son of Man in His unexpected crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; and having now understood that His presence on earth would not halt the wickedness of the world, Enoch again “wept and cried unto the Lord, saying? … Wilt thou not come again upon the earth?” In this Insight, we will see Enoch’s anguished hope fulfilled at last when the righteous would be gathered to a Holy City and God would make Zion His abode. As we will see, this prophetic expectation appears elsewhere in the ancient Enoch literature and Jewish tradition. ...

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Essay #27: Enoch’s Grand Vision: The Weeping Voice of the Heavens (Moses 7:28–29, 40, 42–43)

Describing the literal and figurative weeping of the heavens at the time of Enoch, Hugh Nibley writes: “One of nature’s ironies is that not enough water usually leads to too much. Enoch’s world was plagued by flood as well as drought; we are regaled by the picture of lowering heavens ceaselessly dumping dismal avalanches of rain and snow upon the earth. The constant weeping of Enoch and all the saints is matched in the powerful imagery of the weeping heavens and the earth veiled in darkness under the blackest of skies: In the book of Enoch the same imagery is applied to the meridian and the fulness of times as well as the Adamic age.”...

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Essay #25: Enoch’s Grand Vision: A Chorus of Weeping (Moses 7:18–49)

Within the Book of Moses, the stories of rescue and exaltation in the accounts of Noah and Enoch share a common motif of water. On one hand, Noah’s waters are the waters of destruction, the floods of an all-consuming deluge that cleanses the earth as a prelude to a new creation. On the other hand, Enoch’s waters are the waters of sorrow, the bitter tears that precede the terrible annihilating storm. ...

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