The Gulf of Misery and Woe

In the ancient world, another interesting symbol associated the temple itself as “the rock,” “the hill,” or “the mountain.” Psalm 24 states, “Who shall ascend into the hill [mountain] of the Lord?” This Psalm is speaking of the temple. In Jerusalem today, the location where the temple of Herod once stood is known as the Temple Mount—and it is a big rock. The scriptures talk about this rock as being—to put it in modern vernacular—the plug that sits on top of the underworld that prevents the floods from coming up and destroying the world. If the rock were not there, there would be no plug to prevent destructive floods from coming up out of the underworld.

These ancient people believed that they lived within an ecosphere with water above that was held off by the firmament and water below that was held off by the plug. If the windows of heaven were opened, the rains would come down—as occurred with the floods of Noah. In their view, there had to be the right balance between the heavenly waters and the subterranean waters. The temple was what maintained that order, according to the ancient mind. The rock, which represented the Lord, prevented them from being overwhelmed by the storm and by the hail, and from being dragged down into the gulf of misery—those underworld waters that would consume them.

In Christ’s parable given in the Sermon on the Mount, the man who built on the rock was safe. When the storm came down and the floods happened, his house stood firm. Alternatively, the opposite would happen if he built on a sandy foundation—he would be destroyed.

Several Book of Mormon writers spoke of the “gulf of misery.” Besides Helaman’s use of this phrase in chapter 5 verse 12, there are other places in this book of scripture where the “gulf of misery” is discussed:

• Nephi reported that the angel who reviewed his father’s vision mentioned that "a great and a terrible gulf divideth [those in the great and spacious building from the word of God]" (1 Nephi 12:18);
• Nephi gave an interpretation of his father’s dream to his brothers and stated “that it was an awful gulf, which separate the wicked from the tree of life” (1 Nephi 15:28).
• Lehi must have used this phrase when describing his vision because of two scriptural narratives which appear to support this fact: (1) the angel referred to the "gulf" when reiterating the vision to Nephi; and (2) Lehi stated the following when speaking to his sons near the time of his death: "O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of men, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal gulf of misery and woe" (2 Nephi 1:13).
• Ammon mentioned the gulf in his famous joyous speech in Alma 26:20: "Behold, [the Lord] did not exercise his justice upon us, but in his great mercy hath brought us over that everlasting gulf of death and misery, even to the salvation of our souls."
• Mormon used the gulf imagery very effectively in one of his "thus we see" interludes: "Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God" which will "lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked" (Helaman 3:29).