What Can We Learn From the Old Temple: The Menorah

The Menorah is iconic, easily the most exotic and recognizable item associated with the Old Temple (and possibly all Judaism). Its parallels to scriptural objects and imagery are numerous. (The shape of the Menorah itself is a model for the literary device of chiasmus.) If we think of the path through the Temple as the course of a person’s spiritual life, I believe that the Menorah is symbolic of the point at which a person is spiritually reborn. Jesus said we must be born of water, and of the Spirit. The Font, Laver, or Brazen Sea, resting on the backs of twelve bronze oxen, represents that birth by water; the Menorah, with its seven lamps of gold, each branch decorated with almonds, resting on two six-sided hexagonal bases (twelve again) represents the birth of the Spirit.

Alma 5:14, "And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?" Matt. 6:22, "The light of the body is the eye..." D&C 88:67, "And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things." D&C 50:24, "That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day." Whenever I am aware of the light (or darkness) in another person’s countenance, I am reminded of Alma’s phrase, “O then, is not this real?” I cannot deny it. There is more to a person than a body. Physical light allows us to see clearly, to discern what is real. Spiritual light allows us to discern truth.

Numbers

Numbers dominate the structure of the Menorah. It has larger and smaller hexagonal bases, so we get the number twelve, along with seven lamps. There are twelve tribes of Israel, twelve apostles, as well as twelve signs of the Zodiac. (The images carved in the Arch of Titus, depicting the triumphal return of Roman soldiers from Jerusalem, show a Menorah with Zodiacal signs on the panels of the Menorah's base. It is easy to forget that the Bible takes place in the context of ancient cultures of the real world, rather than in complete insulation from them.)

The number seven has many natural and scriptural references. There are seven vertebrae in the neck, which rest upon the twelve thoracic vertebrae in the back. There are seven points of light on the Menorah, and seven stars comprising the Big Dipper and Orion. We read of seven days of creation. There are seven "planets," bodies in our solar system visible to the naked eye. The Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, give us the names of our seven days of the week. Christ has seven wounds (two in the feet, two in the wrists, two in the palms, and one in the side). Revelation gives us seven thousand years of history represented by a book with seven seals, and seven angels around the throne of God, along with the seven churches. Isaiah speaks of seven women taking hold of one man. Seven years of plenty and seven years of famine plagued Pharoah's troubled dreams.

A Golden Pearl of Great Price

There are seven dispensations (Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith). Each of their testimonies is recorded in the Pearl of Great Price, our most exotic book of scripture. Joseph Smith receives revelation about the lost writings of Moses, which contain the words of Enoch, who tells Adam’s story about his spiritual rebirth. Moses writes of being a son of God, while Abraham writes of seeking for the blessings of the fathers. (Father and Son are both titles of Jesus.) Jesus Christ prophesies of the future destruction of Jerusalem, and prefigures the destruction before His Second Coming. While it is not overt, the undertones in the Pearl of Great Price are procreative, a succession of generations, lineages of priesthood passed through the eons of time. The story of the Creation and Adam and Eve is recapitulated not once, but twice. Begetting life makes more people, who multiply and multiply. Finally, Joseph Smith records the greatest theophany in scripture, the First Vision.

The Pearl of Great Price gives details about our premortal existence not found anywhere else in scripture.

Jesus is the Son of God, but also the Father of our spiritual rebirth: "I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was crucified for the sins of the world, even as many as will believe on my name, that they may become the sons of God, even one in me as I am one in the Father, as the Father is one in me, that we may be one" (D&C 35:2).

Oil Olive

Pure olive oil, specially prepared, fueled the seven lamps of the Menorah. Olive oil was also used to anoint, and the title of Messiah, or Christ, means “The Anointed One.” In 1Ne. 11, Nephi asked to know the meaning of the glorious, glowing tree of life in his father’s dream, and he was shown the newborn Savior, Jesus, in Mary’s arms. He immediately (mysteriously, to me at least) understands that the tree represents "the love of God," shedding "itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men." In the previous chapter, He is referred to as the Messiah eight times, and an olive tree is mentioned twice.

These intersecting themes of trees, anointing, olive oil, procreation, birth, etc., link Christ to the Menorah, and identifies Him with it inextricably. In a sense Jesus IS the Menorah. Jesus Christ is depicted as being in the midst of the seven candles in the Book of Revelation (1:13), further tightening the association between Him and the Lamps. Jesus is the Light of the world, the Light of Life, and the Light of Truth. Just as the Table of Shewbread is counterpoint to the Menorah, the Forbidden Fruit contrasted with the Tree of Life, so the world we live in stands in contrast to the world Jesus will bring about in the Second Coming.

His mortal ministry demonstrates that He is able to reverse the conditions of Adam’s fall—He reverses death, reverses the need to sweat for food, reverses the diseases that afflict the body, gets rid of Satan and replaces his lies with the truth, teaches peace instead of war, and ends spiritual death, our separation from God, by bridging the gap separating us from God via the Atonement. He dies so that we can live; He suffers so we can avoid punishment; He carries our sicknesses and infirmities so we can be healed. This chiastic symmetry echoes the symmetry of the Menorah, the Tree of Life. He is the main symbolic reference of the Menorah.

A Flaming Sword

Just as the tree of life had a flaming sword about it, so all this procreation and begetting of life has a darker aspect, violence. Biologically, the two are linked; testosterone increases sexuality and aggression. Animals duke it out in mating season to demonstrate their fitness to mate. Sex and violence form comorbid intersections in the scriptures as well.

Commandment number six tells us not to kill, while number seven tells us not to commit adultery.

David’s life reads like a soap opera, filled with passion, murder, betrayal and intrigue.

James 4:1 warns us that wars proceed from our lusts that war in our members.

Alma 39 records an outrageous, grievous violation of the law of chastity—a missionary, Corianton, seeks out the harlot Isabel—and we get a hint that it was not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern, a blossoming industry ("...she did steal away the hearts of many...," Alma 39:4). The exchange of money for sex is a prelude to a violent cultural shift. The war chapters immediately follow.

The great promises regarding exaltation and eternal increase recorded in D&C 132 are made contingent on committing "no murder whereby to shed innocent blood..." (vs. 19).

The woman taken in adultery in John 8 is about to be stoned to death. She is dragged before Jesus, who (we suppose) wrote the sins and transgressions of the accusers on the ground. Her accusers dismissed themselves, and Jesus dismissed her. After a debate about sonship and being Abraham's seed, minutes later the people are ready to kill Jesus instead.

Lust sees people as objects, things to be used for gratification, or expendable obstacles to selfish ends. The natural consequence of this objectification is to disregard others, hence to disregard the sanctity of human life. Almost all convicted prisoners in America are male. The cure for all of this? Individually, it is spiritual rebirth; universally, it is Jesus’ millennial reign: "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks—nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord; yea, come, for ye have all gone astray, every one to his wicked ways" (Isaiah 2:4-5).

Spiritual rebirth for an individual signals the end of "lusts that war" in our members; this parallels the Second Coming’s effect on the whole earth.