The Book of Enoch Commentary - Chapter 41

The Book of Enoch Commentary - Chapter 41

Chapter 41 source

 

1. After this I beheld the secrets of the heavens and of paradise, according to its divisions; and of human action, as they weigh it there in balances. I saw the habitations of the elect, and the habitations of the holy. And there my eyes beheld all the sinners, who denied the Lord of glory, and whom they were expelling from thence, and dragging away, as they stood there; no punishment proceeding against them from the Lord of spirits.

2. There, too, my eyes beheld the secrets of the lightning and the thunder; and the secrets of the winds, how they are distributed as they blow over the earth: the secrets of the winds, of the dew, and of the clouds. There I perceived the place from which they issued forth, and became saturated with the dust of the earth.

3. There I saw the wooden 1 receptacles out of which the winds became separated, the receptacle of hail, the receptacle of snow, the receptacle of the clouds, and the cloud itself, which continued over the earth before the creation of the world.

4. I beheld also the receptacles of the moon, whence the moons came, whither they proceeded, their glorious return, and how one became more splendid than another. I marked their rich progress, their unchangeable progress, their disunited and undiminished progress; their observance of a mutual fidelity by a stable oath; their proceeding forth before the sun, and their adherence to the path allotted them, in obedience to the command of the Lord of spirits. Potent is his name for ever and for ever.

Whoa! Whence the moons came? Whither they proceed? Their glorious return? How one becomes more splendid that another? The obvious parallel is the degrees of glory and how Paul describes one body differeing from another in gloy in the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15.) However, what if this is all meant literally? The obedience of the moon before the Sun.  

Jeremiah 31:35 ¶ Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name:

36 If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.

5. After this I perceived, that the path both concealed and manifest of the moon, as well as the progress of its path, was there completed by day and by night; while each, one with another, looked towards the Lord of spirits, magnifying and praising without cessation, since praise to them is rest; for in the splendid sun there is a frequent conversion to blessing and to malediction.

6. The course of the moon’s path to the righteous is light, but to sinners it is darkness; in the name of the Lord of spirits, who created a division between light and darkness, and, separating the spirits of men, strengthened the spirits of the righteous in the name of his own righteousness.

7. Nor does the angel prevent this, neither is he endowed with the power of preventing it; for the Judge beholds them all, and judges them all in his own presence.

 

Consider the Book of Enoch was not available to Joseph Smith, ye the parallels to what Enoch saw and what Joseph Smith revealed Abraham saw are incredible!

Abraham 3:13 And he said unto me: This is Shinehah, which is the sun. And he said unto me: Kokob, which is star. And he said unto me: Olea, which is the moon. And he said unto me: Kokaubeam, which signifies stars, or all the great lights, which were in the firmament of heaven.

What are the ordinances of the moon? Do moons vary from world to world? What's interesting is that the Lord quotes from Song of Solomon twice regarding the "fair as the moon" and "clear as the sun." The Lord attributes the female gender to the moon here with the word "fair" as well as the obvious links to the female engendered church that is sent into the wilderness in Revelation 12. ZION is also referred to as a "she" as in D&C 113 - all three--moon, church, and ZION--drawing parallels of motherhood, and caretaking. Without the moon, after all, the Earth could not sustain life just a child cannot be sustained without his mother.

D&C 109:73 That thy church may come forth out of the wilderness of darkness, and shine forth fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners;

74 And be adorned as a bride for that day when thou shalt unveil the heavens, and cause the mountains to flow down at thy presence, and the valleys to be exalted, the rough places made smooth; that thy glory may fill the earth;