Led by an Angel from on High
At that terrifying moment [as his religious rite had been interrupted by the appearance of birds of prey], Abraham heard the voice of God directing an angel to go and strengthen him. Abraham even heard God call the angel by name: “Iaoel [or “Yahoel” [1] ] of the same name.” [2]
The same name as whom? Of God Himself, who will later in the Apocalypse of Abraham be called by this very name. [3] In fact, the name is a combination of the two divine names from the Hebrew Bible: the Greek form of Yahweh (transliterated by the King James translators as “Jehovah,” the name of the God of Israel [4] ), along with the word El, meaning God. [5]
So who was this angel that was privileged to bear the Lord’s own name? It was none other than Enoch, whose first of the seventy other names listed in 3 Enoch is Yahoel. [6]
The twentieth century’s leading authority on the Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, has similarly shown that the angel who appears to Abraham in the Apocalypse is indeed the same that later Jewish sources call Metatron, or Enoch. [7] It was the same angel who had rescued Abraham from the altar in Ur and had later delivered to him the patriarchal authority and the ordinances, including “the baptism of life and the right hand.” [8]
The first thing Enoch does upon arrival is to cast out Satan from Abraham’s presence. “Depart from this man!” [9] declares Enoch. “Depart, for you can never lead him astray!” [10] Enoch then extended his right hand to Abraham (an indication that this was no spirit, but rather a translated being of flesh and bones [see D&C 129:4-9], for as yet there were no resurrected beings serving as angels to planet earth).
As told by Abraham, the angel “took me by the right hand” and “said to me, Stand up, friend of God, who loves you … I am sent to you to strengthen you and to bless you in the name of God, who loves you. . . . It is for your sake that I have made the journey to earth … Take courage and come; rejoice and be glad of heart; and I will rejoice with you; for eternal honor has been prepared for you by the Eternal One.” And “come with me to meet him with all speed,” but first “carry through the sacrifice as you have been commanded; for behold, I am appointed to be with you and with the people who are to spring from you.” [11] “And with me Michael blesses you forever.” [12] “Take courage: come.” [13]
As Abraham relates in the Apocalypse, “I got up and looked at him who had taken my right hand and set me on my feet. [14] And his body was like sapphire, and his face like chrysolite, and the hair of his head like snow; and there was a linen band about his head, and it was like a rainbow, and the robes he was wearing were purple, and he had a golden staff in his hand.” [15]
Not only does his apparel have “strong priestly associations,” [16] but the rainbow surrounding his head seems to be a sign that he is from God’s throne, which was surrounded by a rainbow. Medieval Jewish texts associate Enoch (Metatron) with the rainbow, [17] which in restored scripture figures prominently as a sign of the covenant that God had made with Enoch that in the latter days he and his city would return to the earth (JST Gen. 9:21-24). Enoch thus exhibited around his own person the very sign portending his latter-day return to the earth.
Enoch explains that Abraham will be allowed to see “what is in heaven and on earth … and in the fulness of the universe and its circle: you shall see it all.” [18] Enoch then takes Abraham to a holy mountain from where he sees hell and its tortures, a sight that leaves Abraham weak [19] – apparently similar to what Moses would experience when he “began to fear exceedingly” and “saw the bitterness of hell” (Moses 1:20).
Enoch also introduces Abraham to other men, at which point, according to Nibley, “Abraham … receiv[es] instruction at an altar … surrounded by men … form[ing] a circle around [him].” [20] These men are not otherwise named or described, but they are apparently some of Enoch’s colleagues from the translated city of Zion, including perhaps some from Melchizedek’s Salem.
Then came “the sign of the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the form of a dove,” [21] as Abraham was caught up by the Spirit and accompanied by Enoch to heaven. [22] He had glimpsed God’s abode from afar on the night before he had entered Egypt, but now was being taken there following the pattern of his righteous forefathers Enoch, Seth, and Adam.
In heaven, Abraham sees glory like a great fire approaching, and hears the voice of the Lord like “the voice of many waters” [23] or “the sound of rushing waters,” [24] the same description given by Joseph Smith of the Lord’s voice in the Kirtland Temple. [25] Then, “clad in the garment of glory, Abraham becomes like one of the glorified beings and takes part in the song of praise chanted by them in heaven to God.'” [26]
The profound effect of this experience on Abraham may be surmised by the later experience of his descendant Alma who, upon seeing the same scene and hearing those same celestial strains sung at the throne of the Almighty, felt that “my soul did long to be there” (Alma 36:22). Such also was the righteous King Benjamin’s greatest desire, that he might one day “join the choirs above in singing the praises of a just God” (Mosiah 2:28).
And such was the Prophet Joseph Smith’s great desire for himself and all the Latter-day Saints, “that we may mingle our voices with those bright, shining seraphs around thy throne, with acclamations of praise, singing Hosanna to God and the Lamb” (D&C 109:79).
Abraham had spoken face to face with the Lord before, but never in the Lord’s own abode. Having received the fulness of the temple ordinances from Melchizedek, Abraham was qualified to be ushered into the presence of the Lord. And so it is, as Enoch takes Abraham to the divine throne, where he saw four fiery winged creatures and behind them “a chariot with fiery wheels … And above the wheels was the throne … covered with fire and the fire encircled it round about.” [27]
It was the same blazing chariot-throne that would be seen by Abraham’s descendants Daniel (Dan. 7:9) and Ezekiel (the latter also reporting the presence of four creatures protecting the throne; Ezek.1:1-25; 10:6-12). [28] Abraham now understood the significance of the chariot of fire that he had once seen and that the Lord had mentioned in Haran: it was an image of the divine throne, as imitated extensively by rulers throughout the ancient Near East [29] and as Abraham himself had probably seen in the courts of Nimrod and Pharaoh.
4. Transliterated as “Jehovah” by the King James translators.
5. See Hannah, Michael and Christ, 52.
6. As pointed out by Hannah in his discussion of the angel Yahoel in the Apocalypse of Abraham. Hannah, Michael and Christ, 53. For the list of these names, see 3 Enoch 48D.1, in Odeberg, 3 Enoch, part 2, 172-74, and see note on verse 1, especially on p. 174.
7. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, 41-42. Scholem specifically concludes that the angel in Chapter 10 of the Apocalypse of Abraham is the same angel known in later Jewish tradition as Metatron.
8. Budge, Book of the Mysteries, 147.
9. Apocalypse of Abraham 13:12, in Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:695.
10. Graves and Patai, Hebrew Myths, 153, citing Apocalypse of Abraham.
11. Apocalypse of Abraham 10:5-8, 15-16, in Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 376-77.
12. Apocalypse of Abraham 10:17, in Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:694.
13. Apocalypse of Abraham 10:18, in Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 377.
14. This is what Enoch/Metatron would also do later for Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, the High Priest, who in 3 Enoch reports that “Metatron the Prince of the Presence, came and restored my spirit and put me upon my feet.” 3 Enoch 1:9, in Odeberg, 3 Enoch, part 2, 4-5.
15. Apocalypse of Abraham 11:1-2, in Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 377.
16. “The linen band around his head recalls Aaron’s headdress of fine linen (Ex. 28:39); the rainbowlike appearance of this linen band brings together the two central color schemes employed elsewhere in the description of God as high priest, whiteness and the multicolored glow. The purple of Iaoel’s robe is one of the colors of the high-priestly garments of Exodus 28. The golden staff, like other aspects of the description, is not only obviously royal, but also priestly; Aaron’s rod figures prominently in the story of the confrontation with Pharaoh (Ex. 7:9, 19-20; 8:1, 12), and in the wilderness . . . it sprouts to indicate the choice of Aaron and his descendants as priests (Num. 17:16-26).” Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 62.
17. See Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines, 334.
18. Apocalypse of Abraham 12:9, in Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 378.
19. See Apocalypse of Abraham 15; 16:1, in Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:696.
20. Nibley, Mormonism and Early Christianity, 60. Nibley is citing and paraphrasing (in a targumic type manner) Apocalypse of Abraham 12:9.
21. <a href="www.
<hr class=’system-pagebreak’ />meridianmagazine.com/books/071031zionch7p2.html#_ftnref21″ name=”_ftn21″ title=””>Book of Abraham, Facsimile 2, explanation of figure 7. See following note.
22. They ascended, says the Apocalypse, on the wings of a pigeon and a dove. Apocalypse of Abraham 15, in Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 378-80. Facsimile 2 of the book of Abraham shows, according to Nibley, that “the dove that takes one to heaven is the Holy Ghost.” Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, 56.
23. Apocalypse of Abraham 17:1, in Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:696.
24. Apocalypse of Abraham 17:1, in Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 380.
25. Doctrine and Covenants 110:3: “his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters.”
26. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 5:229 n. 114.
27. Apocalypse of Abraham 18:12-13, in Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:698.
28. The four faces seem to be the four main signs of the Zodiac. L’Orange, Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, 50.
29. L’Orange, Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, 42-79, especially 44-50.
