Shall Surely Make Restitution

Exodus 22 contains a number of laws governing situations in which one Israelite will be required to make restitution to another (for instance, if your animal gets into someone else's field (v. 4), if a fire on your land spreads to a neighbor's (v. 5), if an animal in your care is stolen (v. 11)).

In English, this stuff is dry and doesn't seem relevant, but a look at the Hebrew shows something interesting.  "Restitution" comes from the root SH-L-M, and the repeated phrases in Exodus 22 are yeshalem (he shall make restitution) and shalem yeshalem (he's really going to make restitution, emphatic).  Restitution is paying back, making whole, redeeming.

This is really interesting, because I think that Matthew 5:48 in Hebrew, as Nephi knew it, had people pronounced shalems as they transitioned to the second room of the temple.  With Exodus 22 as the background, one of the associations the initiates made must have been that they were becoming redeemers.  Similarly, Melchizedek, melekh shalem, must have been heard to be the redeeming king, as well as the initiated king and the peaceable king.

Lest Any Man Fail

The author urges his audience to watch over each other.  They are a temple community.

If Ye Endure Chastening

"Chastening" and "chastisement" are translations of paideia, a Greek word meaning instruction or training.  The Worship of the Shalems is the process of being trained to be God's children.

They Without Us Should Not

Perfection (teleiosis), the promise (not the commandment) of Matthew 5:48, is not accomplished as a single person.  It is obtained as a community, as a lineage.

He That Cometh to God

Faith is the motive power by which one approaches God, "seeks" him, and asks for a reward.  This is the same thing we are told by the Brother of Jared and also by Matthew.

It Is a Fearful Thing to Fall into the Hands of the Living God

Hebrews reminds its shalem audience of the covenant penalty.

Meats and Drinks, and Divers Washings

The apostate services, though they include meat, drink, and washing, are unable, without the mission and presence of Christ, to make the worshippers "perfect" (teleiosai) (compare with Matthew 5:48).

The Law Made Nothing Perfect

Jesus is a Judahite, of whose priesthood "Moses" said nothing.

Moses' law made nothing perfect, teleios (the same word that appears in Matthew 5:48).  Perfection comes by the better hope, by which one approaches God.

The Earth Which Drinketh

The earth drinks and is dressed, either gloriously in herbs or in thorns, awaiting rejection.  This too is a reminder of the Worship of the Shalems, in which the initiates succeed the earth (Adam) by being dressed in a garment more glorious than Solomon's.

Him that Had the Power of Death

Jesus overcomes the devil, and delivers the shalems from bondage.  He must do this by paying the uttermost farthing.

Partakers of Flesh and Blood

There's a playful ambiguity in verse 14.  On the one hand, Jesus took a body of flesh and blood like any mortal.  On the other hand, the writer alludes to the feast of the flesh and blood of Melchizedek, the bread and wine eaten in the hekal.

All Ministering Spirits

The mere angels are not anointed as Melchizedek-the king.  Here again is a quotation from Psalm 110.

The writer of Hebrews wants to make sure we don't miss what he's talking about.  The Son-Melchizedek-the Lord-the king and the angels are all "ministering spirits," leitourgika pneumata, sent forth to the service, diakonian, of those who will inherit salvation.  This is a straightforward statement that he is talking about priests in temple functions who will help worshippers through an ordinance in which they will inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Thou, Lord, in the Beginning

The Melchizedek priest is the creator.  The Greek, both here and in Psalm 102, says not "in the beginning" but "according to dominions," showing again that the Melchizedek priest always acts by power, authority, and dominion (the Hebrew doesn't have this phrase at all).

Psalm 102, by the way, is a "prayer for the ptochos."  The ptochoi are the "poor in spirit" of Matthew 5.

The garments of the Melchizedek priest are eternal.  The garments of others are mortal, and will pass away.

Let All the Angels of God Worship

Liturgical quotations continue.  Who worships the Son?  In Hebrews and the Greek of Psalm 97, the angeloi, angels.  In the Hebrew of Psalm 97, it's the "Gods," elohim.  In the Greek of Deuteronomy 32:43, the huioi theou, sons of God.  (This line is missing from the English translation and the Masoretic Hebrew, but it appears in Deuteronomy as discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.)

These are all the same thing.  The Worship of the Shalems ordinance is how one becomes the light, which is to say, the Son, and a teleios / shalem, like the Father.

The "angels" in verse 7 are parallel and equivalent to the "ministers," which in Greek are leitourgoi, priests who perform ordinances.  So we see for the umpteenth time that angels are priests.

Whatsoever Adam Called Every Living Creature

Adam's ritual journey begins with his naming lesser orders of creature.  It will climax in his asking to be given a new name by the order of creature above him, and being judged as to his worthiness.

The Judge Executed Authority

Interesting how much this discussion of legal procedure tracks with this element in the Worship of the Shalems.  There are judges and officers, and in Matthew 5 an adversary -- an antidikos, the person opposite you in a lawsuit, or in Hebrew a satan.  In Alma 11 the passive voice formulation "he was complained of to the judge" hides the necessary counterparty, which in the narrative is of course Zeezrom.

So we see that the scene between Alma and Amulek on the one hand and Zeezrom on the other looks like a stop in the worship of the shalems, with Zeezrom playing the role of Satan.  No wonder Zeezrom is an expert in the "devices of the devil," and a "child of hell."

Amulek's response to Zeezrom is interesting.  Does his description of himself as "the righteous" mean that Alma has made him a Melchizedek priest?  Is he jolting the scene out of joint by telling the Satan Zeezrom that he's tempting the wrong person, trying to test the angel-priest rather than the initiates?

In My Hands

Amulek says angel-priests announce the Lord's coming with "equity and justice" in his hands.

In the Worship of the Shalems, initiates are taught to do eleemosyne (verse 1) and dikaiosyne (verse 2). These are both translated as "alms," but a better translation would be "equity" and "justice."  How do they do these things?  With both their hands (verse 3) and in secret (verse 4).

By Thy Throat

Cain learns an oath from Satan.

It's the one forbidden to the shalems, and the one Akish employed for the same purpose as Cain... to take a head.

Fowl Which May Fly

The fowls of the air are also part of both the creation and the Worship of the Shalems.  In the latter, whereas grass is clothed, the birds are fed.

Let the Earth Bring Forth Grass

The earth brings forth grass (as it does in Genesis).  This is provocative because in Isaiah 40, following the revelation of the "glory of the Lord" the shalems collectively compare themselves, and all flesh, to grass.  The self-humiliating comparison to grass is part of the Worship of the Shalems, connected with the appearance of the Lord and the shalems' clothing at his hands.