Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

32:25-35 – Moses has destroyed the golden calf and has convinced God to spare the people, and now sees “that the people were naked.” I had not idea what this meant, but the IM makes an interesting point saying, “’Naked’ can be understood in the same sense as when Adam was ashamed and hid himself from God because he was naked. The expression can also mean ‘exposed in guilt before God’s wrath.’” I thought that was an interesting explanation. So Moses has God on one hand saying, “that’s it I’m killing everyone,” and the people not wanting to die, but also not being willing to be obedient and from that perspective it makes the next part make a little bit more sense. Moses “stood at the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me.” Next is mentioned that “all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him,” and I took that to mean that only Levite’s went to Moses and that might be true because Moses was a Levite, so TB suggests that it was Levites wh...

32:7-18 - While all this hubbub is going on down in camp, Moses is still up on the mount talking to God. God of course knows what’s going on, and tells Moses, “Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.” TB makes a funny comment saying, “God informs Moses of what ‘YOUR’ people are doing. I think that’s kinda funny that God calls Israel ‘YOUR’ people.” Like this whole time, God’s saying “my people” and now that they are doing wrong, it’s “your people.” But TB says that he’s now calling them Moses’ people because God has disowned them. God tells Moses that the people have made themselves “a golden calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto.” God says that He’s going to come up with a way to destroy these wayward Israelites, and Moses pleads with God to spare the people, citing all the promises He made with Abraham, and all the miracles He showed in Egypt, which I thought was an interesting strategy. Go...

32:1-6 - The whole time that Moses was up on Mount Sinai, 40 days, the people were down below the mountain getting antsy. I’ve always wondered why exactly they were feeling weird about Moses being gone, especially because I believe that there was still God’s cloud of fire up on the top of the mountain where Moses was. If I had seen that, knowing that I had never seen that kind of phenomenon before, I would just think “yeah, Moses is still talking to God” and left it at that. I’m not exactly sure what the people were getting upset about, but hey that’s just me. The people go to Aaron and tell him that because Moses is still up on the mountain “Make us gods, which shall go before us.” Interestingly, right before Moses goes up to the mountain, God gives the people the Ten Commandments and they agree to those terms, but here we are not even 2 months later and they are trying to break commandment #2, no graven images. Maybe they go to Aaron because he’s Moses’ brother, his second in comman...

31:1-11 - Chapter 31 is pretty short but has a few important points that are interesting. This is also the last chapter that Moses spends on Mount Sinai before coming back down, and he’s been up there since chapter 24, so quite some time. The Lord had given Moses all these instructions about how to construct the tabernacle, but there are some parts that aren’t explicitly spelled out, like exact what a Cherubim looks like, the intricacies of the menorah, etc. These are all going to require an artistic component that Moses might just not have. The Lord solves that problem by telling Moses “I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri… I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of work-manship.” God has chosen this man, along with an assistant “Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan: and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee.” Moses i...

30:17-21 - Next comes the instruction for the laver, which is I guess like a wash basin, it’s meant to be used for the ritual washing of the priests before they serve in the tabernacle. I don’t know if they climb into it like a bath tub or if they stand next to it, but the instructions are kind of weird if they just stand next to it. It doesn’t say explicitly in the scriptures but TB says that they are to “dip their right hands into the Laver washing their right hand first, and then their right foot. Then they washed their left hand and their left foot. Just so you don’t get the wrong picture, only their hands dipped into the water; they washed their feet WITH their hands.” Clean hands would have been important, and the feet thing makes sense too I guess because I think the people mostly wore sandals so their feet would have been dirty which is why in Jesus’ time washing feet was such a big deal. 30:22-33 - Next we come to the anointing oil that is used in the ceremonies. I don’t kn...

30:11-16 - When I first read starting in verse 11, I thought that it was just talking about a money sacrifice that is being required, but it seems like it's more of a census thing as well. The Lord is requiring half a shekel to be paid by, what seems like, every male over the age of 20, regardless of how rich or poor they are, as “a ransom for his soul unto the Lord.” This is another way to teach the people that the Messiah that they are going to be waiting for is going to be the ransom for them, in the eternal sense. TB points out that that this is a one tie occurrence and that the money collected “would be used to form the sockets for the posts of the sanctuary.” So like they are going to be melted down and used as part of the tabernacle structure.

30:1-10 - Now God starts instructing Moses on the design, purpose, and use of the different objects that are to be used inside the tabernacle. The first is “an altar to burn incense upon.” This is different than the altar for animal sacrifice that’s used outside of the tabernacle, but there are some similarities. It’s built different for a different purpose, but there was one thing that I saw that I thought was really powerful. The social media algorithm is really interesting and I’ve been trying to shape mine to show me things that are less political and rage inducing and there are so many interesting things out there. For instance, I ended up on like “Old testament” side of Instagram and there were multiple people who were talking about different things in in Exodus which was very specific but I appreciated it very much. One of the guy’s videos that I saw was him explaining the alters and he noted that with the gold overlay and how it was designed, the altars would have weighed 1,8...

Before putting Aaron and the other priests into their temple clothes, God commands Moses to publicly do certain things, as a one time event, in order to kind of “dedicate” Aaron and the temple and all of it’s parts. TB compares it to a “ribbon cutting for a new ship or a highway opening.” He also gives some context of where we still are in the chronological scheme of things, “Moses is STILL up on the summit of Mt. Sinai so the narrative we’ve been reading since chapter 24 amounts to God being quoted as He instructs Moses. In a few more chapters, and AFTER the coming Golden Calf incident, THEN all of these instructions will actually be put in place so that they can be carried out.” That was nice to be reminded that these weren’t instructions being given as they were happening, like a narrated play by play, but instead were still before the golden calf thing happened. Moses is to do these things because he’s the guy in charge and there is yet to be any formal priesthood that can take ov...

I want to talk about the most interesting discovery that I made in chapter 28, which was reference to the Urim and Thummim. The only context I had for the Urim and Thummim was it’s use during the translation of the Book of Mormon, which were two stones set in some type of spectacle setting fastened on to a breast plate that Joseph Smith wore while he read the gold plate engravings and spoke the English translation. This was all I had ever heard of about them and the concept is really weird. Imagine my surprise when I was listening to the lecture by TB about the priestly temple clothes and I hear him talk about the “oo-reem and thoo-meem.” I was like “wait that sounds familiar, so I rewind it a bunch of times and listen to it again and went and looked at verse 30 and sure enough, right there was spelled out by the Lord “Urim and Thummim.” This was such a testimony strengthening thing for me because this weird, obscure concept that was rooted in the gospel’s restoration was suddenly tied...

One thing that I have absolutely just loved about these last few chapters has been being able to link the ancient gospel as established among the Hebrews to the gospel that we have today and this chapter is one of the best that for in that way that I have come across. Chapter 28 deals with the temple clothing that Aaron and his descendants were to wear while officiating in the temple. TB notes that one reason why specific temple clothes might have been required was because “many of the pagan religions of that day had their priests serve their gods naked or they wore something very sensual and erotic.” That makes sense, that there would be a sexual component to a lot of religious expressions, and this would make it VERY not sexy. Here and Here are a couple of really good links to describe the temple clothes in better detail. TB speaks on the clothing from the inside out, which is what I’ll do because it makes sense and it’s easier for me to follow him that way: - Breeches – this i...