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Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Keywords

poor and oppressed, covenant obligation, fatherless, widows

Document Type

Article

Abstract

On January 14, 1847, President Brigham Young, who was at Winter Quarters organizing the Saints for the trek west, received a revelation from the Lord that would become section 136 of the Doctrine and Covenants. The revelation was entitled “The Word and Will of the Lord concerning the Camp of Israel in their journeyings to the West” and commanded the Saints to “be organized into companies, with a covenant and promise to keep all the commandments and statutes of the Lord our God.” The “covenant and promise” included the commandment to care for each and every one of the Saints. In this revelation the Lord alluded to and quoted from Exodus 22, which was addressed to covenant Israel, when he commanded the Latter-day Saints to care for “the poor, the widows, the fatherless, and the families of those who have gone into the army, that the cries of the widow and the fatherless come not up into the ears of the Lord against this people” (Doctrine and Covenants 136:8). In this study we will examine the theological basis of God’s concern for the poor and oppressed and the laws given for their care, and we will also examine how this concern was to be implemented by society in general and by the individual—as exemplified by Job—and how the concern for the poor expressed in the law of Moses was embodied by the Messiah. In the Old Testament the covenant community is charged with the care of the poor and the helpless, the oppressed and the disenfranchised. When the members of the covenant community do not fulfill their obligation, the Lord hears the cry of the oppressed and responds by sending his prophets to call the people to repentance. This study will look at how this charge was central to the law of Moses and how it was an important feature of other ancient Near Eastern law codes as well.

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