The Angel 1 - Moses 5:1-6

After being given the animal skin coats made for them by God, A&E are escorted out of the garden and into the “lone and dreary world.” When I was getting ready to go through the temple for the first time, the stake president who was giving me my temple recommend interview said that he considered the garment that we wear after being endowed to be representative of the animal skin coats made for A&E by God before being cast out of the garden. What’s interesting about that is that those coats were made in order to provide protection and comfort to A&E when they went out in the world, in the same way that our garments were ordained by God to provide protection and comfort to us. Just an interesting connection that I just recognized. A&E are able to “have dominion over all the beasts of the field, and to eat his bread by the sweat of his brown.” I’ve always wondered how the figured out what they could eat etc. They didn’t have anyone there with them to show them what was safe to eat and what was dangerous, how did they figure it out without starving to death first? Just like, how did Eve know how to have her babies and how to feed them etc? She was alone without anyone else who had experienced this before, I guess childbirth, like sex, is instinctual, the body knows what to do. They work for survival, and they have a lot of kids. One thing my brother said once was really profound to me, and that was to just imagine the kind of emotional and spiritual pain it would cause someone to go from actively having God physically present in your life all the time to not having Him physically present at all. He said that it must have caused A&E to curl up into a ball and cry from how much they missed Him, and that made sense to me. They had to have been very specially selected for this position because only a very certain type of person could have endured that and still thrived. A&E had kids and in any creation story that starts with a single pair of people, then marriage among siblings has to happen because they are the only other people on earth. This story is no different, and we learn that “the sons and daughter of Adam began to divide two and two in the land, and to till the land, and to tend flocks, and they also begat sons and daughters.” It seems like it’s pretty organized as far as a couple pairing off and staying with each other as a family, as opposed to it just being a giant free-for-all with everyone having kids with various people, as is portrayed in other creation stories. It makes it seem like an after-thought, that “Adam and Eve, his wife, called upon the name of the Lord, and they heard the voice of the Lord from the way toward the Garden of Eden, speaking unto them, and they saw him not.” This is like when we pray and hear God’s voice, but don’t see Him. And it’s important to note that A&E prayed to Him first and he responded, God didn’t just start randomly talking to them, they had to want his influence in their lives. Speaking to them, God “gave unto them commandments, that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flocks, for an offeringunto the Lord.” This is important to note because it will be important coming up in the story later. Adam (and presumably Eve) is obedient to the commandments for sacrifice given to him by God’s voice, and then something interesting happens, “after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why doest thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.” Here we have a guy who eats food “by the sweat of his brow,” and he has a huge family to feed. The animals that he has and the foods that he harvests are very important to his survival and that of his family, it really probably has meant the difference between having something for the sacrifice and going to bed hungry, but Adam makes the sacrifices anyway. To be clear, these sacrifices were certainly crucial to his family’s survival, especially in the beginning, and he obeyed God first, what an interesting commentary on priorities. That would be very difficult for me to do, but another important note is that Adam knew God personally and had spends a really long time with Him building a relationship with him in the Garden, so he knew God intimately and trusted Him completely. So when God told him to sacrifice, Adam automatically knew that it was going to be for his benefit, regardless of the personal loss that he would suffer. We don’t remember the time that we spent creating a relationship with Heavenly Father, so when we are given commandments, we don’t have the experience of eons of time spent personally with God to draw on. But this doesn’t mean that we can’t create a relationship with Him now and have that serve as a foundation of trust and faith and obedience.