In the Lord's Bosom

On December 7, 1830 the Lord gave a revelation to Joseph Smith concerning Sidney Rigdon, a recent convert to the Church.  In it Rigdon received the following commandment, “And a commandment I give unto thee—that thou shalt write for him; and the scriptures shall be given, even as they are in mine own bosom, to the salvation of mine own elect” (D&C 35:20).  Joseph had been working on his translation of the Old Testament since June of 1830, and at this point he had completed Moses 1-6 with the help of various scribes.  Sidney Rigdon became the main scribe at this point, and much of the remainder of Joseph’s translation of the Old and New Testaments were written by him.  What strikes me about this particular verse in D&C 35 is the idea that the scriptures exist in the Lord’s bosom, that the most true version of the scriptures are what is in the Lord’s heart.  Joseph once said about the Bible, “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers.”  Perhaps he may have also said, “We believe the Bible and all the scriptures as they exist in the Lord’s own bosom.”

               I believe that this language of D&C 35:20 was also an allusion to what Rigdon was about to translate.  From the actual document containing the book of Moses available on the Joseph Smith Papers website, we can see that Rigdon started scribing at what is now Moses 7:2 (taking the place of John Whitmer).  The header of Moses 7 suggests that it was translated in December 1830, which fits exactly with the timing of when D&C 35 was given to Joseph.  The documentation suggests that once Rigdon started translating, “Most of the remainder of the sixty-page manuscript is in his hand.”  So this means that Moses 7 was scribed by Sidney Rigdon right after receiving D&C 35 from Joseph, which is very interesting to me because of the way that the chapter in Moses speaks about the Lord’s “bosom” in the powerful language of Enoch’s vision.  We read, “Enoch was high and lifted up, even in the bosom of the Father, and of the Son of Man” (v24).  When he saw the Lord weeping, he cried out, “How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? …  Yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there; and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever; And thou hast taken Zion to thine own bosom, from all thy creations, from all eternity to all eternity” (v29-31).  When Enoch saw the coming of the Savior in the flesh, he rejoiced and said, “The Righteous is lifted up, and the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world; and through faith I am in the bosom of the Father, and behold, Zion is with me” (v47).  The chapter ends with the pronouncement that Zion (the city of Enoch) had been literally taken up to the Lord, “Zion was not, for God received it up into his own bosom; and from thence went forth the saying, Zion is Fled” (v69).  So while D&C 35:20 suggests that the scriptures are in the bosom of the Lord, Moses 7 speaks more broadly of how His people (who the scriptures describe) are in His bosom.  The words of scripture—the words of truth—surely can be thought of as residing in God’s bosom, but even more importantly we, His children, are always in His heart and His love for us is so great that even He, who was “from all eternity to all eternity,” weeps for us.