“Invited to Hearken: The Lord’s Preface to the Doctrine and Covenants,” Liahona, Jan. 2025, United States and Canada Section.
Come, Follow Me
Invited to Hearken: The Lord’s Preface to the Doctrine and Covenants
The Lord Himself teaches us how to approach our study of the Doctrine and Covenants.
In late 1831, Oliver Cowdery convened a meeting of elders to ask Joseph Smith and the others about how to publish revelations Joseph had received. By that time, a few dozen written revelations existed in loose form, usually known to members of the Church through privately held copies or by word of mouth. A local newspaper had recently and erroneously reported that the revelations contained secret plans for settling in Missouri. Some of the elders wanted to publish the revelations, believing an official edition disseminated by missionaries could quell rumors and benefit the Saints. The group voted to print 10,000 copies of the “Book of Commandments”—twice as many as the first edition of the Book of Mormon.
The elders then discussed how they should introduce the book’s contents to a general audience. William McLellin remembered an effort to draft the book’s preface, but the meeting adjourned without success. During the recess, Joseph Smith inquired of the Lord about what kind of preface they should write. Joseph turned suddenly to Sidney Rigdon, asked Sidney to write, then spoke aloud the Lord’s words.
“Hearken,” the Lord began.
The Voice of the Lord unto All
The book of scripture they eventually published, today called the Doctrine and Covenants, holds distinction for opening with the first-person voice of the Lord speaking directly to the reader. The Old Testament famously begins with, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1); the New Testament with, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ” (Matthew 1:1); the Book of Mormon with, “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents” (1 Nephi 1:1); and the Pearl of Great Price with, “The words of God, which he spake unto Moses” (Moses 1:1)—all rendered in a narrative style by various writers.
The Doctrine and Covenants, however, opens with the speaker and the reader sharing the same moment, the Lord addressing the whole world directly: “Hearken, O ye people of my church, … ye people from afar … and ye that are upon the islands of the sea, listen together” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:1). Whereas the revelations that Joseph Smith had previously received responded to individuals on whose behalf Joseph had inquired of the Lord, this revelation speaks to everyone who would ever read it: “The voice of the Lord is unto all men, and there is none to escape; and there is no eye that shall not see, neither ear that shall not hear, neither heart that shall not be penetrated” (verse 2).
I have often wondered about the significance of word one, page one, of the Doctrine and Covenants and the gravity of that revelatory moment. The Lord presents the book to readers and explains what it represents: a book of the Lord’s “commandments,” which He gives to disciples “in these last days … to publish unto you, O inhabitants of the earth” (verses 4, 6). Those disciples are directed to bear “these tidings” (verse 8) to the reader, setting up a unique encounter: a missionary delivers the book to a reader, who, by opening the book, finds the Lord speaking right away.
Beside the burning bush atop a mountain and in the Holy of Holies of the ancient tabernacle, Moses shared the same space as God, entering God’s divine presence. In that shared space of words where the Lord speaks not to a third party but directly to you and me, the Doctrine and Covenants becomes like a textual burning bush or a textual Holy of Holies—a verbal setting where humans meet God.
We Must Search Out the Context of the Revelations
This literary quality of the Doctrine and Covenants is probably not intuitive, because the compilation of separate documents proceeds in no particular order and without a narrative. As intended, the book collects important texts into sections (not chapters) that instruct the Saints how to “lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). Revelations written in the first-person voice of the Lord make up the vast majority of the sections. The rest served different functions or were categorized under a particular heading by their principal writers.
Together, the revelations and this cornucopia of foundational documents invite the reader into an active engagement with the book. Unlike the Book of Mormon, where narrators provide connective tissue and lead us through their presentation of revelations, prophecies, sermons, letters, and histories, the Doctrine and Covenants extends that work to the reader. We must work out the contexts surrounding the sections; we must search out the occasions that gave rise to a revelation; we must discover the inquiries that prophets and disciples took to the Lord. And like Mormon, we get to ponder on meanings and discern where the hand of the Lord was manifest. “Search these commandments,” the Lord encouraged, “for they are true and faithful, and the prophecies and promises which are in them shall all be fulfilled” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:37).
The Invitation to “Hear Him”
To describe that vivid scene in the Book of Mormon when Jesus appeared to people gathered around the temple in the land Bountiful, Mormon consulted records that were potentially 350 years old. The people, he said, “heard a voice as if it came out of heaven” but did not understand it. The voice was neither “harsh” nor “loud.” Even though the voice was “small,” it nevertheless pierced them “to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn.” And yet they still did not understand the voice. It was when they “did open their ears to hear it” and “their eyes were towards the sound thereof” and “did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came,” that they understood Heavenly Father invite them to “behold my Beloved Son” and to “hear ye him.” Once they understood, they saw Jesus descending out of heaven. (See 3 Nephi 11:3–8.)
The Doctrine and Covenants opens with a similar scene, only it appears as a literary here-and-now—the word of the Lord is unto the reader, making the same invitation to “hearken.” The word hearken has a history in a much older Germanic language, where it functioned as the word hear except with added intensity. Scholars of Old and Middle English have found uses of the earliest form of hearken that make multiple meanings, not only to hear but to incline the ear toward and to apply the mind to what is said. In the 1600s, hearken was also used to describe searching out or finding by inquiry or to whisper in one’s ear.
Considering these senses of the first word of the Doctrine and Covenants and the promise that all eyes will see, all ears will hear, and all hearts will be penetrated by the power of the Lord’s voice (see Doctrine and Covenants 1:2), we can consider ourselves like the people surrounding the temple in the land Bountiful. The voice speaks mildly, just words on a page, an invitation to hearken. Will we understand the words? What will we see when we do?