See – Seer – Seem – Seek

While reading about Enoch this past week, I noticed something. The Lord tells Enoch in Moses 6:35, “…Anoint thine eyes with clay, and wash them, and thou shalt see. And he did so.”

In essence, the Lord said, put earth, or the world, in your eyes, and then wash away the world to let your spiritual eyes see. Become a seer.

I went to reference Mosiah 8:13-17 where Ammon the explorer tells King Limhi that King Benjamin is a seer and has a Urim and Thummim to translate the ancient records they had found.

I decided to look up seer in the Topical Guide and Bible Dictionary to see what other entries were there. After opening Study Helps in Scripture Notes, I started to type “seer” and after only typing “see,” as it filtered the words I happened to notice the word “seem.”

Seem

I immediately noticed that “see” was the root of “seem.” My mind started going on this idea that seem is just a mental seeing. We imagine up something that “seems” to be.

I clicked into the Topical Guide entry for seem and the first verse was to Genesis 29:20. I opened it and clicked the link to open the verse in the Blue Letter Bible site to read the Hebrew meaning.

The Hebrew word for “seemed” is “ayin.”

עַיִן

It is most often translated eye (495x), then sight (216x), then seem (19x). Other words it is translated as are color, fountain, well, face, pleased, presence, displeased, before, conceit, and think.

Strong’s primary definition is a literal or figurative eye, by analogy, a fountain (as the eye of the landscape).

It reminds me of Lehi’s visionary experience where he used the word, “methought” which seems a lot like seems.

Seer

The word for seer in Hebrew is “ra-a.”

רָאָה

It is most commonly translated as “see” (879x), look (104x), behold, shew, appear, consider, seer, spy, etc… It literally or figuratively means to see. A seer is a see-r, like a hearer, is a hear-er.

The first use of this word in the Bible is in Genesis 1:4 which starts, “And God saw the light, that it was good…” In Genesis 1:9 is it used again when God commands “…let the dry land appear” or be made visible to the eye.

As I’m typing this I also see the word “seed” and “seek” in the list of words in the topical guide.

Seed

The Hebrew word for seed is “zera.”

זֶרַע

It’s almost exclusively translated as seed, but implies seed in fruit, the ground, or seed in procreation.

What is a seed? An idea, something that contains a pattern within itself, posterity… Do we see-d our mind with good ideas? Alma told us to experiment on the word and likened it to a seed (Alma 32) and to let that faith grow into a tree. He asked us if we could “look forward with an eye of faith” and “view” (see) our own resurrection (Alma 5:15)? He asked if we could “imagine” (mental seeing) hearing the voice of the Lord (Alma 5:16) speaking to us. “Can we look up” and “can ye think” in Alma 5:18-20.

From the Lectures on Faith, 7^th lecture, 3^rd paragraph, we read:

3. Let us here offer some explanation in relation to faith, that our meaning may be clearly comprehended. We ask, then, what are we to understand by a man’s working by faith? We answer, we understand that when a man works by faith he works by mental exertion instead of physical force. It is by words, instead of exerting his physical powers, with which every being works when he works by faith. God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” Joshua spake, and the great lights which God had created stood still. Elijah commanded, and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain: he again commanded and the heavens gave forth rain. All this was done by faith. And the Savior says, “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, say to this mountain, ‘Remove,’ and it will remove; or say to that sycamine tree, ‘Be ye plucked up, and planted in the midst of the sea,’ and it shall obey you.” Faith, then, works by words; and with these its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed.

If a mustard seed can exercise faith and understand and hold the pattern of what it may become from the divinely implanted DNA in those tiny cells, how much more can we do with the creativity God has endowed us with? It’s truly a matter of choosing to exercise faith and take the time to mentally exert ourselves through focused effort and create something in our mind’s eye. Seeing that see-d of an idea, seeing the accomplishment of the desired goal before it happens (Ether 12:19), feeling the joy of its completion in our soul, and then asking for the Lord’s help in bringing it about, is powerful and rare faith.

Should we not see-k for these experiences?

What do you desire? Gifts of the Spirit? To bring souls to Christ? To learn a language? To see visions? To be redeemed from the fall?

Do we take the time in our mind to imagine and see the gifts of the Spirit operating in our lives and ask God to bring them about? Perhaps it’s time we devoted ourselves to the experiment upon the word that promises these blessings. President Nelson said the Lord loves effort, and exertion is definitely a word that implies effort.