D&C 110: Ten Verses Before Moses Shows Up

D&C 110 comes straight after the dedication prayer we spent Sunday on, and it usually gets taught as if it started at verse 11. Moses, Elias, Elijah, the keys, done. The ten verses before that get a nod on the way past, which is a strange way to treat most of a chapter, so that's where I'm starting. Caleb and Lily are off for fall break and the house is loud, so I'm staying close to the text today.

Before anyone is handed a key

Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery open by saying the veil was taken from their minds. Verse 2 puts the Lord on the breastwork of the pulpit with a paved work of pure gold under his feet. Verse 3 stacks up the description, with eyes like a flame of fire, hair white like snow and a voice like the rushing of great waters, and it ends on "saying." So the Lord's own words run from verse 4 through verse 10. In verse 4 he gives himself names: the first and the last, he who liveth, he who was slain, their advocate with the Father. Then this:

Behold, your sins are forgiven you; you are clean before me; therefore, lift up your heads and rejoice.

D&C 110:5

Nobody in that room gets a key or an assignment first. Two men are told they're clean and to lift their heads, and the "therefore" makes the rejoicing depend on the forgiveness. Moses doesn't appear until verse 11, and by then the Lord has finished.

Two sections earlier Lyman Sherman gets the same order. His revelation opens by telling him his sins are forgiven, and the ordination he's waiting for doesn't come up until verse 4. I wrote about that one in D&C 108: Lyman Sherman Is Forgiven for Coming.

Verse 8 has an "if" in it

Verse 6 turns to the people who built the house: "let the hearts of all my people rejoice, who have, with their might, built this house to my name." Verse 7 follows with the sentence most of us remember.

For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here; and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house.

D&C 110:7

Verse 8 starts with "Yea," which sounds like more of the same, and then it adds a condition.

Yea, I will appear unto my servants, and speak unto them with mine own voice, if my people will keep my commandments, and do not pollute this holy house.

D&C 110:8

The acceptance in verse 7 has no condition on it. What carries the "if" is the appearing, the speaking with his own voice. The chapter doesn't say what polluting the house would look like, so I won't supply a list. The sentence is there, though, between the forgiveness and the rejoicing, with two conditions attached.

The prayer that this follows is the dedication in D&C 109, where the people ask him to accept the house (109:4). I spent Sunday's post on D&C 109 and the Mob Who Get Mercy First, and the vision here comes a week later, after the dedication was over. People sometimes fold them into one service. The Church's introduction to the section gives April 3, 1836 for this and March 27 for the dedication.

Verses 9 and 10 finish the Lord's part with the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands rejoicing, the endowment they've received and the fame of the house spreading to foreign lands. "The beginning of the blessing," he calls it, in verse 10. The verse closes with "Even so. Amen," and verse 11 opens with the heavens opened again. If you read only from verse 11 you'd never know the people in that room had just been told they were clean and that the house was accepted. That's the cost of starting late, I think. The keys land on men who've just been told they're clean, and the chapter is built in that order.

Three visitors, one at a time

Now the last six verses. What I notice first is the pacing. Verse 11 opens "After this vision closed," and Moses appears. Verse 12 is just "After this," and Elias appears. Verse 13 goes back to "After this vision had closed," and Elijah stands before them. Nobody overlaps. Joseph and Oliver get each visitor alone, and each one leaves before the next arrives.

Moses commits "the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north." Elias commits "the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham," with the promise that in them and their seed all generations after would be blessed. Neither is given a line of direct speech. Elias's promise comes to us reported ("saying that"), and Moses's verse has no speaking in it at all.

Elias is the one I can't tell you much about, because the Church doesn't settle who he is and I've seen three or four confident answers over the years that rest on nothing in this chapter. Matthew 17:3 has Moses and Elias together with Jesus on the mountain, in the same order as here, and in verses 10 through 12 Jesus answers a question about Elias. That's another occasion, so I'm treating it as a similar pair and not an identification.

Elijah is different, since his are the only words given in direct speech. He points to Malachi: "Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi." Then verse 15 gives the turning of the hearts, and verse 16 hands over the keys of this dispensation.

Malachi's own text has a small difference, and this is my observation, not anyone's teaching. In Malachi 4:6 the Lord says Elijah will turn the heart of the fathers to the children "lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." In D&C 110:15 the same ending reads "lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse." Same curse, but the "I" has dropped out of it. When the Lord says it in Malachi he's the one coming. When Elijah says it in Kirtland, the earth is simply at risk of being smitten, and nobody is named as the one doing it. Malachi 4:4 also says "Remember ye the law of Moses my servant" right before the Elijah verses, and in the vision Moses comes before Elijah too. That could be coincidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who appeared in the Kirtland Temple in D&C 110?

Joseph and Oliver describe the veil lifting in verse 1 and the Lord stands before them in verses 2 and 3. He speaks in verses 4 through 10. Then Moses in verse 11, Elias in verse 12 and Elijah in verses 13 through 16. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery are the two who saw all of it.

What are the keys Moses, Elias and Elijah gave?

Moses gave the keys of gathering Israel and leading the ten tribes from the north. Elias gave the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham. Elijah's keys are the ones the Church teaches as the sealing power, the authority that binds families and temple ordinances. If you want the longer version of the Elijah promise, it starts back in D&C 2:1, where the Lord says he'll reveal the Priesthood by Elijah's hand.

Who was Elias?

I don't know, and the Church's own study material doesn't claim to. It leaves open whether Elias is a title, a forerunner or an ancient prophet. Any one answer is a guess.

Did the vision happen during the dedication?

No. The dedication was March 27, 1836 and the vision was the following Sunday, April 3.

Does verse 16 say when the great and dreadful day comes?

It says near, even at the doors. It gives no date, and nobody who gives you one is reading it from this verse.

The one part of this chapter I still don't like is that last verse. It was said in April 1836 and it's now October 2026, a hundred and ninety years later, and nothing in the verse tells me what "near" meant to the two men who heard it. I'd like it to have said more, and it doesn't.

— D.