“A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”

How long we have wandered as strangers in sin and cried in the desert for thee!

Redeemer of Israel, verse 3

3 ¶ The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Isaiah 40

This post will outline a covenant symbol with a dual meaning — what Stisa and I refer to as a ‘bivalent covenant symbol’ — and offer examples of how this dual meaning is used in the scriptures and in the symbolism of the temple.

The big picture here is that when mortals cry out to God for deliverance (often in the wilderness or some other less-than-ideal circumstance), He responds by sending messengers who cry [repentance] in the wilderness. This paired set of symbols can be thought of as the gate to the temple, or the first step on the covenant path. An important lesson we see, especially in the Book of Moses and the Book of Mormon, is that those who receive the messengers of God in the wilderness begin a process by which they transform into heavenly messengers.

I won’t attempt to create an exhaustive list of examples in this post — there are far too many. Rather, I’ll highlight several notable ones and then connect this to the temple.

Mortals cry to God [in the wilderness]

1 Nephi 2

16 And it came to pass that … I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers.

1 Nephi 2

Nephi sets the tone very early in his writings. Even before this verse we have already seen a miraculous experience in Lehi’s life as a result of his cries to the Lord, which came about as a result of prophets coming to Jerusalem and preaching repentance (see 1 Nephi 1:4-6).

1 Nephi 8

It’s not surprising that Lehi’s dream begins in a wilderness. He follows a man ‘dressed in a white robe’ and ends up in a ‘dark and dreary waste’ (1 Nephi 8:4-7). Next comes Lehi’s prayer to God for deliverance, followed by his journey to the tree of life, a sublime experience of transcendent joy, and ultimately his transformation in one who ‘beckon[s]’ to those who ‘[know] not wither they should go’ … ‘with a loud voice that they should come unto me, and partake of the fruit, which was desirable above all other fruit’ (1 Nephi 8:14-15).

In this example we see yet again how the symbol of crying to God for deliverance in the wilderness is paired with the cry of a divine messenger to those in the wilderness.

God speaks [in the wilderness]

I’ll give three examples here. First, Moses:

1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
2 And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
4 And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

Exodus 3

Second, this famous verse from Isaiah which is quoted in each of the four New Testament Gospels:

3 ¶ The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Isaiah 40

And finally, Enoch:

37 And it came to pass that Enoch went forth in the land, among the people, standing upon the hills and the high places, and cried with a loud voice, testifying against their works; and all men were offended because of him.
38 And they came forth to hear him, upon the high places, saying unto the tent-keepers: Tarry ye here and keep the tents, while we go yonder to behold the seer, for he prophesieth, and there is a strange thing in the land; a wild man hath come among us.

Moses 6

Hebrew Connection — ‘midbar’ (wilderness) and ‘dabar’ (voice)

Interestingly, there is a close linguistic connection in Hebrew between the words for wilderness and voice, and the Old Testament gives us a few examples where these two words appear together in the same verse. Knowing the linguistic connection adds depth to the words. In the first example, a covenant theme is easy to detect:

14 ¶ Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness (‘midbar’), and speak (‘dibarti’, from the root ‘dabar’) comfortably unto her. …
18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them … and will make them to lie down safely.
19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.
20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord. …
23 …and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

Hosea 2

2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness (‘midbar’), to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word (‘dabar’) that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

Deuteronomy 8

The Endowment Pattern

I’ve posted before about what I call ‘the endowment pattern’ in the scriptures, a process by which a new covenant people is established. One of the first steps in this pattern is hearing the voice of God in the wilderness.

In the Book of Moses, we learn that Adam and Eve find the voice of God in the form of an angel, who visits them after their expulsion from the garden and teaches them about sacrifice.

6 And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.
7 And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth.
8 Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore.
9 And in that day the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam, which beareth record of the Father and the Son, saying: I am the Only Begotten of the Father from the beginning, henceforth and forever, that as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed, and all mankind, even as many as will.
10 And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.
11 And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.
12 And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters.

Moses 5

The cry in the desert of the earnest seeker of truth is answered by the cry in the desert of the heavenly messenger, and the one who cries is transformed through covenant into the one who bears the glad tidings.

Getting back to the first example I cited above, notice how Nephi masterfully uses poetic parallelism to illustrate how his willingness to hearken to God (in the form of his father’s prophetic words in the wilderness) resulted in his own visionary experiences and instantly led him to speak the words of salvation, which also caused a division in his family.

• A  being large in stature,
  • B  and also having great desires to know of the mysteries of God, 
    • C  wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord;
      • D  and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that
        • E a  I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father;
        • b  wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers. And I spake unto Sam making known unto him
          • F the things which the Lord had manifested unto me by his Holy Spirit.
        • E’ a  And it came to pass that he believed in my words.
        • b  But, behold, Laman and Lemuel would not hearken unto my words;
      • D’ and being grieved because of the hardness of their hearts
    • C’  I cried unto the Lord for them.
  • B’ And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Blessed art thou, Nephi, because of thy faith, for thou hast sought me diligently,
• A’  with lowliness of heart.

(Credit to Stisa for outlining this poetic form years ago.) Notice how the top half focuses on Nephi’s own journey, and the bottom half shifts focus to his efforts to speak the word of God (and the inevitable divisive result).

1 Nephi 2:16-19 and Moses 5:6-12 contain many parallels contexts and themes:

• Wilderness setting: See 2 Nephi 2:6 and Moses 4:29
• Altars, sacrifices: See 2 Nephi 2:7 and Moses 5:5
• Filled with the Spirit: See 2 Nephi 2:17 and Moses 5:9
• Receiver of the word becomes giver of the word/prophecy: See 2 Nephi 2:17 and Moses 5:10-12
• The word of God creates a division: See 2 Nephi 2:17-18 and Moses 5:13

Conclusion

I’ve believed for some time that the purpose of the temple is to learn to proclaim the glad tidings and become a heavenly messenger. This theme is found in many scriptures. We’ll close this post with the words of Nephi and President Nelson:

2 Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of angels save it were by the Holy Ghost?
3 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.

2 Nephi 32

Most certainly, the adversary does not want you to understand the covenant you made at baptism or the profound endowment of knowledge and power you have received or will receive in the temple—the house of the Lord. And Satan certainly does not want you to understand that every time you worthily serve and worship in the temple, you leave armed with God’s power and with His angels having “charge over” you.
Satan and his minions will constantly contrive roadblocks to prevent you from understanding the spiritual gifts with which you have been and can be blessed.

“Spiritual Treasures” October 2019