Awake, arm of the Lord!

My last post, "Wounded Rahab," quoted this verse from the Book of Mormon, in which Jacob quotes Isaiah:

Awake, awake! Put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days. Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? (2 Ne. 8:9)

Today I had a nasty migraine and spent most of the day sleeping and vomiting. When I woke up around 9:30 p.m., I finally felt better and was able to tolerate light and sound again. Thus, although it was late in the evening, I had just woken up when I checked Synlogos and found a link to an Ann Barnhardt post titled "Sexagesima Sunday: Wake up! Why are you sleeping, Lord? Wake up!" Calling the Lord himself to wake up seems like a pretty unusual theme -- we associate that more with Elijah's taunts to the prophets of Baal -- so I clicked through. She quotes two passages from the Bible:

At that time, Jesus got into a boat, and His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was covered by the waves; but He was asleep. So they came and woke Him, saying, Lord, save us! we are perishing! But He said to them, Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there came a great calm. And the men marvelled, saying, What manner of Man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him? (Matt 8:23-27)

and

Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, and cast us not off to the end.

Exsurge; quare obdormis, Domine? exsurge, et ne repellas in finem.

Why turnest thou Thy face away? and forgettest our want and our trouble?

Quare faciem tuam avertis? oblivisceris inopiae nostrae et tribulationis nostrae?

For our soul is humbled down to the dust: our belly cleaveth to the earth.

Quoniam humiliata est in pulvere anima nostra; conglutinatus est in terra venter noster.

Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for Thy Name’s sake.

Exsurge, Domine, adjuva nos, et redime nos propter nomen tuum.

(Ps. 44:23-26, numbered Ps. 43 in the Vulgate)

The passage from Matthew seems particularly synchronistically relevant, since after Jesus wakes up he "rebuked the wind and the sea." Rahab in the Isaiah passage is generally understood to be a monster representing the chaotic sea, the Hebrew equivalent of Tiamat. Marduk's battle with Tiamat is central to the Babylonian creation story, and hints of a story of that kind can still be seen in the Genesis 1 creation story.

Bible critics have noted that the "Sea" of Galilee is in fact just a lake, comparable in size to Lake Tahoe, and that the description of the "great storm on the sea" must be an exaggeration. Or a supernatural attack.

As mentioned in "Rock my Audible," I have been listening to an audio version of the Book of Mormon. Today I started playing it where I had left off yesterday and found that, strangely, it was in the middle of a verse, so that the very first word I heard was Awake.

And the things which I shall tell you are made known unto me by an angel from God. And he said unto me: Awake; and I awoke, and behold he stood before me (Mosiah 3:2)

.

Here it is not the Lord being called to awake but a man, Mosiah. What about the Isaiah passage, though. Isaiah actually apostrophizes the arm of the Lord, which is why the King James Version says, "Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?" The Book of Mormon changes that it to he, implying that the Arm of the Lord is a person.

If the Arm of the Lord is not the Lord himself, who might he be? The most obvious guess would be Michael, who in Revelation is given the role of fighting the dragon:

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him (Rev. 12:7-9)

Here, as in Isaiah, the dragon is not killed but "cast out" and presumably wounded.

The dragon combat alluded to by Isaiah probably has to do with the creation story, but the Mormon temple ceremony gives Michael a role in that story as well -- and also has him fall asleep and wake up:

NARRATOR: Brethren and sisters, this is Michael, who helped form the earth. When he awakens from the sleep which Elohim and Jehovah have caused to come upon him, he will be known as Adam, and having forgotten all, will have become a little child. Brethren, close your eyes as if you were asleep.

ELOHIM: Adam, awake and arise.

NARRATOR: All the brethren will please arise.

ELOHIM: Adam, here is a woman whom we have formed and whom we give unto you to be a companion and help meet for you. What will you call her?

ADAM: Eve.

The first word Michael says after awakening as Adam is, "Eve." As it happens, those names are juxtaposed in an image I included in my last post:

The ceremony says that when Michael becomes Adam, he "will have become as a little child." Mosiah 3 (the chapter with that "Awake" verse) also refers to this idea, shortly after a reference to Adam:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father (Mosiah 3:19).