D&C 1:1-10
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Lexical notes
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Exegesis
Verse 2
The mention here of the eye, the ear, and the heart is clearly reminiscent of Isa 6:9-10. The question here is, not the prophetic mission of Isaiah, but the "voice of the Lord" Himself. However, if one considers the implications of Isaiah's prophetic call (see the commentary for Isaiah 6 at Isa 6:1ff), there is little apparent difference between the message in this passage and the message there: the "voice of the Lord" in Isaiah 6 is a voice of silence that only becomes spoken when taken into the mouth of the prophet (cf. 2 Ne 32:3, etc.), and something similar seems to be at work here in this revealed preface to the Doctrine and Covenants. Perhaps most significant in the phrasing of this issue as it appears in this verse is the concluding "be penetrated." Whereas "see" and "hear" match up perfectly with Isaiah's wording, "penetrate" is unique here. At the same time, however, it beautifully expresses the same spirit that permeates Isaiah: the violence of "penetrate" matches the (necessary) violence of the message, and the saturation implied in Isaiah's babbling manner of delivering the message is powerfully embodied in "penetrate." In short, the voice comes to all just to penetrate, to find its way to the penetralis, the inner shrine or the Holy of Holies.
Curiously doubling this is the phrase in the first half of the verse: "there is none to escape." Rather than the more common "there is none that shall not hear," etc., the Lord phrases this concept in terms of escape. Those who hear the voice are without means of escaping, without means of getting out of the hold of this "voice of the Lord." Doubling the penetration, which works its way to the inner recesses of one's person, is a hold (a "cape") out ("es" or "ex") of which none can get, an outward seizure accomplished by the freezing voice of the Lord. It might be well to parallel this hold to the "eye" and "ear" of the second part of the verse: this voice will take hold on the eye and on the ear, will take up a hold that cannot be undone by those thereby held. The voice will come in such complete saturation that those hearing and those seeing will be frozen and held.
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