The brother of Jared saw, as Enoch before had seen (Moses 7:4, 21) and as Moses would later see (Moses 1:8, 27–28), a panoramic vision of the entire history of the world and every person who ever did or ever would live on this earth. We do not know how many souls that would be, of course, because our earth is not finished being populated, but a conservative estimate might be 125 billion inhabitants. If the brother of Jared saw each person for only one second, the vision would have been 125 billion seconds in duration. But 125 billion seconds is over 3,963 years! Therefore, he saw them all in a whole different time reference than we mortals can understand.
Moses 1:28 indicates that Moses, when he saw every soul created for this earth, “discerned them by the Spirit of God.” In other words, he was overshadowed by the power of the Holy Ghost; that is, he was transfigured (Moses 1:11). So was Joseph Smith, when the grand vision of the degrees of glory (D&C 76) was opened up to him. “By the power of the Spirit our eyes were opened and our understandings were enlightened, so as to see and understand the things of God” (D&C 76:12; see also vv. 116–118).
“All the Inhabitants of the Earth Which Had Been”
The brother of Jared saw, as Enoch before had seen (Moses 7:4, 21) and as Moses would later see (Moses 1:8, 27–28), a panoramic vision of the entire history of the world and every person who ever did or ever would live on this earth. We do not know how many souls that would be, of course, because our earth is not finished being populated, but a conservative estimate might be 125 billion inhabitants. If the brother of Jared saw each person for only one second, the vision would have been 125 billion seconds in duration. But 125 billion seconds is over 3,963 years! Therefore, he saw them all in a whole different time reference than we mortals can understand.
Moses 1:28 indicates that Moses, when he saw every soul created for this earth, “discerned them by the Spirit of God.” In other words, he was overshadowed by the power of the Holy Ghost; that is, he was transfigured (Moses 1:11). So was Joseph Smith, when the grand vision of the degrees of glory (D&C 76) was opened up to him. “By the power of the Spirit our eyes were opened and our understandings were enlightened, so as to see and understand the things of God” (D&C 76:12; see also vv. 116–118).