The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 1 opens the final volume of the Book of Remembrance, as the seer Ben Elim approaches the Covenant Tablet given to Moses on Sinai — a stone his community has possessed and studied by the Spirit alone for over thirty-five years, but never before seen through the Urim. He describes a companion piece bound to it: a stone written literally by the finger of God on its reverse side, called the little book of John the Revelator, containing revelation both sweet and bitter concerning the wicked and the righteous in the end of days, which he hopes to include once the Covenant Tablet proper is finished. Trembling with the weight of the undertaking after five years of preparation, Ben Elim receives an extraordinary charge from the Lord: he is being asked to speak on behalf of the Eerkodeshoi — to become their voice to all the peoples of the earth, expressing the feelings and perspective of creation, since mankind’s wickedness, false traditions, and religious assumptions have all but extinguished any clear understanding of what creation itself thinks and feels. Overjoyed, Ben Elim accepts immediately, and afterward is startled and a little embarrassed at his own boldness in doing so so quickly — though it was, he confesses, the very thing he had longed all his life to be asked.

The Lord then begins teaching him about the sanctity of agency. Agency, He explains, is the God-given ability to choose freely and intelligently, and it is not only a human dynamic confined to mortal life — it is exercised continually in heaven, by Anokeesed Himself, by Motsah, by the angels, by the Eerkodeshoi, and even, in its corrupted form, by the devil and his angels. There is a holy way of deciding, called the sanctity of agency, which always leads to greater and greater freedom, and a wicked way, called the depredation of agency, which always leads to the loss of freedom. The Lord reveals the pattern underlying every holy decision, carved as four words on a stone wall in the vision — say, feel, do, and be, in that exact order — explaining that Yaatsekawd himself could always know what God would say, what God would feel, what God would do, and what God would be. Motsah tells Ben Elim that He ordered His own earthly life after this very pattern: He is the Word of God, so He taught the Truth to the multitudes from His youth; He felt compassion for the poor, the broken, and the forsaken, so He is what God would feel for them; He healed, raised the dead, and forgave, so He is what God would do; and in submitting Himself even to the will of sinful mankind for the sake of the truly lost, He became what God would be. Overwhelmed by the richness of what he has seen and heard, Ben Elim closes the chapter feeling more prepared than ever before to continue receiving the vision still to come.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 2 opens with Ben Elim caught up by the Spirit into Elda itself, trembling before the overwhelming Presence of Anokeesed, to witness a council held before the beginning of creation. There, an angel of light — Zathan — raises the hardest question of all: since agency means Anokeesed’s children will be free to choose against His love, will not the day come when some choose sin, become unclean, and be lost to Him forever, since nothing unclean can enter His Presence? Anokeesed, in a childlike innocence Ben Elim finds unbearably moving, receives this question to heart and cries out, “Oh woe is me, what shall I do when I am bereft of my children?” His answer becomes the very foundation of salvation: He declares that the part of His own soul capable of not fully knowing, of wondering, of feeling joy or sorrow alongside His children, will leave Elda and enter the edge of eternity to walk among them — to save them when they sin, forgive them, and redeem them back to holiness. This part of Himself, sharing His words, His feelings, and His very actions, will become a Man, called His Son — and through Him, Anokeesed’s own soul will spill out like living water into the midst of His children, walking with them in every act of their becoming, for good or ill. In this single declaration, made before creation itself existed, the possibility of Anokeesed remaining a true Father to sinful mankind is secured.

Later, after heaven itself has been created, a second council convenes — the Council of Heaven — to settle where the spirits of men should actually be created, since this choice bears directly on whether redemption can succeed. Motsah stands before the assembled Watchers as spokesman for all mankind, resolved that it must be by the power of righteousness, insisting to His Father that every spirit — of both men and the Watchers — be created in Elda itself, in the light of Anokeesed’s own Presence, so that not one particle of any person’s being could ever be unworthy to dwell there. In this way, He explains, every baby is born with a spirit whose true native land is Elda itself, born in complete innocence just like the Father, meaning any person who sins must actively go against their own created nature to do so — a truth that will vindicate mankind at the final Judgment. Anokeesed then asks a piercing follow-up question: since He is present in every element of creation, where will His children go when sin causes them to depart from an awareness of His presence? The answer given is the very definition of righteousness itself — that spirit and element, inseparably joined together, constitute the fullness of the gift of life, and that no measure of sin can undo this fundamental joining.

Upon hearing this, Anokeesed takes up the golden censer of righteousness and worships with such joy that the smoke of it fills all eternity — Elda, Olam, Eden, and the Earth alike — becoming the very force by which He bestows the gift of life on all His righteous children, and through it Motsah becomes the Son of His Right Hand, the Prince of Righteousness, receiving all power in heaven and on earth. Ben Elim learns that two of the four spirits of life woven into every living thing arose from the Council of Elda and two from this Council of Heaven — the spirit of Anokeesed, each thing’s own defined nature, the vision of its created purpose, and the presence of Motsah — built permanently into the fabric of creation. The chapter closes with the whole company of heaven falling still and sober as the spirits of mankind are finally created before their eyes, the Eerkodeshoi looking on with full awareness that they themselves are meant to be the eternal home for these very souls — even as, unnoticed by most, the seeds of jealousy that will one day cause a third of the Watchers to fall already begin to stir among a few who are present.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 3 opens with Ben Elim, still reeling from what he witnessed at the Council of Heaven, longing to see creation from an entirely different vantage point: how did the grass, the trees, the rocks, the hills, the rivers, the clouds, and the oceans themselves experience being created? Motsah answers that no created thing can know who it is or what its purpose is on its own — every spirit of life must first encounter both the Man who created it and the man or woman for whom it was made, so that it can be awakened and instructed by both. Ben Elim is shown the joyous moment this awakening occurs: when Anokeesed tells the newly created Eerkodeshoi that they may remain forever in their place as the home of mankind, the wind sings, the mountains rejoice, the hills dance, the fountains weep for delight, the thunder claps her hands, and the trees carry the news abroad in celebration, each declaring in their own way that they never wish to leave this calling.

From this joyous scene, the Lord opens up the deep structure of what He calls the four spirits of life present within every human being. The first is the Spirit of Anokeesed Himself, since all creation was made to be humanity’s home with Him. The second is the spirit of Motsah, present as the Living Water, sustaining a person continually through reproval, repentance, and forgiveness. The third is each person’s own vision of created purpose — their true, individual reason for being, first revealed and settled in Elda before birth. The fourth is simply the fact of being created human, carrying the instinct to survive and to seek dominion for one’s family’s welfare. The Eerkodeshoi, by contrast, carry only three of these spirits as their own, since they have no personal vision of created purpose — instead, they carry humanity’s vision alongside the Spirit of Anokeesed and the spirit of Motsah, along with whatever individual form their own creation has taken, whether rock, tree, cloud, or hill. Motsah teaches Ben Elim, with real gravity, what happens when a person turns away from these gifts one by one: rejecting one’s own vision of created purpose together with Motsah leaves a person diminished and vulnerable to wickedness, and in the rare, most desperate extremity where even the instinct for survival is lost alongside everything else, a person can feel they no longer wish to go on living — a sober warning, offered here as part of the deeper structure of why these four gifts matter so much to guard and nurture, both in oneself and in the children being raised.

The chapter closes by explaining the two distinct pathways by which any being comes into its final, settled nature. For the Watchers of Heaven — both the faithful Eerkodeshoi and the fallen Decadarchoi — agency is fulfilled through “sevening”: making a determination and repeating it seven times until the choice becomes permanently fixed, a pattern set by all the Watchers during the first seven generations of mankind, meaning the Eerkodeshoi, having chosen good, remain good forever, while the Decadarchoi, having chosen evil, remain evil forever, past all forgiveness. Mankind, by contrast, retains an ongoing, lifelong vision of created purpose that can be strengthened or lost through the choices of an entire life, meaning people can and should seven themselves repeatedly in holiness — through marriage, through raising children, through every phase of life — to safeguard that vision continually rather than settling it once and for all. With this foundation laid, the chapter turns at last to the beginning of the Watchers’ own choices during this First Great Sevening, as the Eerkodeshoi Anahiel begins to recount how the one-third who would fall away made their fateful first decision, rejecting the very goodness the faithful Watchers chose to treasure and protect.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 4 continues Anahiel’s account of the First Great Sevening, moving to the second decision the Watchers of Heaven ever made: whether to become the storehouse of the Holy Spirit or the storehouse of mere possessions. At the request of a man named Mykar, Anokeesed asks the Eerkodeshoi to serve as a living reservoir for His Spirit, letting the presence of Motsah flow freely to any humble, repentant soul who seeks Him — and because Anokeesed is One, He does not have to divide His attention, but can give each single person who seeks Him the whole of His Voice, as though they were the only child He had. The faithful Watchers embrace this joyfully, resolving to remain the constant companions of anyone who loves Anokeesed; the Decadarchoi, by contrast, choose to become the storehouse of the satisfaction of possessions instead, establishing what Anahiel calls the divisions of Bad, denying agency wherever they can and setting loose war, racism, and brokenness upon the earth. Anahiel adds a striking, almost incidental detail: Bad, the devil himself, understands nothing of the idea of possessions at all, since he originated as nothing more than a meteorite, and those who turn from virtue toward him inherit an emptiness they can never actually fill.

Anahiel then turns to teach Ben Elim about sound itself, since as a listener she is especially attuned to it — sounds of life and sounds of death, both of which move the Eerkodeshoi to act, whether in joyful chorus or in decisive intervention on behalf of Anokeesed’s children. The sounds of life include dripping rain, birdsong, sincere prayer, gurgling water, children’s laughter, tender words spoken within the bounds of marriage, gentle wind, rolling waves, a parent’s high, loving voice to an infant, songs of praise, the earth’s own heartbeat, respectful greeting, and words of repentance before Motsah; the sounds of death include loud arguing, prayers of vengeance, raucous music, shouting, deceit, cries of distress, footsteps fleeing in fear, the commands of armies, the noise of weapons, the crackle of destructive fire, and harsh accusation. From here the chapter moves into the deep mechanics of spiritual rebirth, explained as having two distinct parts, tied to the same two spirits that once transformed Olam into Eden: the spirit and presence of Motsah, sought and restored first, leading a person into the covenant of water and the Holy Drink; and the vision of one’s own created purpose, sought and embraced second, leading into baptism by fire and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Food — the wine recalling Motsah’s compassionate forgiveness, the bread recalling the deep fulfillment of redemption, together completing a person’s rebirth in Him.

The chapter closes with a now much older, more confident Emoriy teaching a gathered people how to use these same four spirits of life in their daily walk, illustrating them on her own four fingers — the little finger for the Eerkodeshoi, the next for Anokeesed, the next for Motsah, and the index finger for one’s own vision of created purpose. Her teaching lays out a simple spiritual pathway: when troubled, seek first the quiet serenity of the Eerkodeshoi, since they carry no chaos of their own; that stillness draws a person close to Anokeesed and His vast love; feeling that love awakens the desire to please Him, which in turn draws a person into the humble repentance of Motsah; and repentance at last releases and enlarges one’s own vision of created purpose — the whole sequence amounting, Emoriy says, to nothing less than coming home, which is the very essence of Redemption. She closes by prophesying that these four spirits of life correspond precisely to thinking, feeling, doing, and being, echoing the pattern Ben Elim was first taught in Chapter 1.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 5 follows the third decision of the First Great Sevening as it unfolds through the quiet example of two children, Zakar and Ri’hiy, the twelfth of Cavah‘s children. Each morning the two practice their own small rituals with element and water: Zakar sprinkles element into water as he greets the sunrise, drinking in his own perfect self and, when shared from the cupped hands of a spouse or dear friend, drinking their soul into his; Ri’hiy, by contrast, gazes into the still water not to see her physical reflection but to behold her true self living there with Motsah, a discipline that keeps her forever oriented toward repentance rather than the world’s judgment of her appearance — Ben Elim notes the Lord’s counsel that mirrors, by contrast, only draw a person toward conforming to the sensitivities of society. Married at the rocks of the brook Simca, the couple’s daily, deliberate practice of drinking in Motsah becomes the founding example the entire people of Ma’een come to follow, so that these two children, more than any adult, quietly lead the righteous of Nod and Ma’een into a life of shared, communal righteousness.

Among their many children is Zanak, whose story becomes the chapter’s cautionary heart. He marries Didi, a little girl left behind and deeply traumatized during the panic that followed Matteniah’s murder, raised into adulthood by grandmother Ri’hiy but never fully healed of her fear of abandonment. As Zanak and Didi begin their own family, Didi’s insecurity hardens into a hunger to possess and control, a longing the community of Nod can only watch with bewildered sorrow, since nothing temporal can ever satisfy a spiritual or emotional wound. Hearing his grandfather Zakar’s old stories of the rich hunting grounds where two streams join to form the river Simca, Zanak eventually removes his family from the shared life of Nod altogether to live alone and self-sufficient — the family’s first quiet step toward private ownership. Yet when the community eventually seeks them out, it is not as a prodigal returning in shame but as someone actively pursued and loved back home: gifts, seasons of shared labor, and patient healing ceremonies at Nod slowly restore Zanak to a full, grateful rebirth in Anokeesed’s love, and in time Didi, too, learns at last to see her own true, forgiven self reflected in the water rather than her wounds. Their family becomes known ever after as the family of deliverance, among the very first to return to Eden alongside Yaatsekawd and Cavah.

From this intimate story, the chapter draws out its central teaching: the Eerkodeshoi, moved by the daily righteousness of children like Zakar and Ri’hiy, make their third decision of the First Great Sevening — to support communities forever, embracing the righteous in simple, shared love where possessions are given only to reveal and sustain a person’s true vision of created purpose, never to feed the mere satisfaction of ownership. The Decadarchoi, meanwhile, make the opposite choice: to support cities instead, built on the honor of personal wealth and the ambition to own the very earth itself — cunningly designed, Ben Elim learns, to leave the multitudes who pursue such possessions permanently empty, unhappy, and estranged from their true gift of life, with poverty, sorrow, jealousy, and violence following inevitably in their wake. The chapter closes by naming the city founded by Enoch, son of Kenneh, as the very first city ever to embody this tool of evil upon the earth — the dark mirror image of the gentle community life Zakar and Ri’hiy first modeled as children.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 6 opens with Ben Elim lifted high over the region of Ma’een, tracing the course of the river Bedal down toward the little village of Nagash — a name meaning either “to worship God” or “to attack an enemy,” fittingly foreshadowing the chapter’s central conflict. The Lord reveals the origins of the fourth decision of the First Great Sevening: the use of element in worship, which magnifies the intention behind it whether for righteousness or wickedness. The righteous use elements like the waters of baptism, the holy meal of bread and wine, anointing oil for healing and setting apart, all carrying the spirits of the Eerkodeshoi to bless and expand salvation; the wicked use elements of their own, carrying the spirits of the Decadarchoi, chanted with hateful sounds and vengeance to enlarge hatred and bind souls to Bad. As the righteous of Ma’een make personal use of element a constant part of daily worship — treating every act of the day as worship before Anokeesed — the Decadarchoi grow bitter and resentful, unable to counter or reverse it, since living water can never be twisted into a curse. Bad crafts a new strategy instead, whispering lies into the ears of the wicked in Towah and Heleah that the people of Ma’een possess dangerous “magic” powers with elements that threaten to dominate them, stoking fear and humiliation among the wicked.

When the wicked attempt to steal righteous elements for their own dark purposes, they find limited success only by unknowingly using innocent followers of the Eerkodeshoi — until the Council of the Eerkodeshoi learns of it and warns their own, causing every element used by the wicked to simply withdraw itself, leaving them empty-handed and humiliated before their fellows. Furious, the Decadarchoi turn to Bad and Asael, who counsel them to abandon the light altogether and dig instead into the darkness of the earth itself, cutting roots and crafting entirely new elements of their own making — completing the fourth decision, in which the Eerkodeshoi choose to follow the light and honor the definitions Motsah assigned them, while the Decadarchoi choose to twist their own definitions into darkness, becoming the element of wickedness themselves. Bad’s scheming escalates further: he spreads rumors throughout Towah about the supposedly magical children of Ma’een — a boy able to show his grandfather Yaatsekawd a vision of Eden, a girl who learned of life after death by peeking through a doorway, two children who seemed to cast a spell over water, and children who stopped a great fire simply by speaking a word — until the Secret Society of Saycoo begins plotting to steal children from Ma’een outright to seize their perceived power. In response, the righteous organize the Asoopah, commissioning bands of rescuers led by Amazyadad to recover any children lured or stolen away, an effort that becomes the forerunner of unified Sabbath worship and knits the spiritual power of the people of Ma’een more tightly together than ever.

As the winds of oppression turn away from Ma’een and blow instead into Towah and Heleah, the Decadarchoi seize eagerly on a new evil in their fifth decision: the satisfaction of dominance through slavery, which provides them endless misery to feed upon like vultures over a carcass. Asael teaches the beautification of women, the art of war, and the taking of plunder, until every woman in Towah is reduced to nothing more than a possession — the wicked’s fifth decision fully realized. The Eerkodeshoi respond with their own fifth decision, choosing the freedom to become through maturity, learning, and intelligence, delighting instead in the dignity and sweet dominion of women after the pattern of their first mother Cavah, setting firm protections in place and promoting compassion and tender consideration among the righteous. As instructions go out to every host of the Eerkodeshoi to undergird the sanctity of life for all creation, the chapter closes with the winds of freedom blowing gently through all of Ma’een.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 7 opens with the sixth decision of the First Great Sevening: the four mothers of the earth — the same four grandmothers recorded in the Book of Remembrance of our Ancient Grandmothers — standing in authority to declare where every living spirit of creation would dwell. The Eerkodeshoi are assigned to places of light and delight, while the Decadarchoi are consigned to darkness and dread, a division so powerful that the wicked of Towah are compelled, against their own judgment, to abandon their homes and gather into the valleys of Heleah, some even forced to leave their slaves behind. Every mother in creation stands with the four mothers of Ma’een in this task — the living spirits of mountains, hills, trees, insects, plants, animals, and clouds — and even the Aral Sea herself, as mother of all water and its creatures, turns the winds of fear that swept over Towah and Heleah into winds of confidence blowing instead toward Ma’een. This is the sixth decision: the Eerkodeshoi choose peace and the confidence of walking in the perfection of their way, gathering the wicked into Heleah seven full years before the Flood finally bursts upon them there.

The chapter’s darker heart is the account of the seven evil grandfathers who rise up during this same period to aid Bad in his war against Anokeesed’s holiness, intending to hide His feelings from mankind entirely and replace humanity as the true objects of creation with their own false gods, the Decadarchoi. Ben Elim is shown the first of them: Kazab, elder of Baqod and father of Kohath the wicked, a vile, twisted old man known to Motsah as Kazab, to the Eerkodeshoi as Melchiresa — “my king is wickedness” — and to men simply as Abra, the father of evil, whose lies are laid so permanently and deceptively that his foundation for evil is built to endure far into the future. His son Kohath, called Kohathola by the Eerkodeshoi and Zamam the Plotter by Motsah, builds upon this foundation in turn, while the fifth grandfather, Mahujael, discovers how to combine slavery with fornication through dark chanting, defining rape, adultery, and whoredom as tools to magnify the satisfaction of dominance in warfare — a wickedness so consuming that he and Zillah eventually die together in agony from a loathsome sickness. The sixth grandfather, Gadad, son of Kohath, builds armies and defines racial supremacy, turning every man of war into a slave to violence himself, while the Eerkodeshoi round about can only wring their hands and weep softly in the trees, both in heaven and upon the earth.

The chapter closes with the Decadarchoi’s climactic seventh decision: conceiving the Niphilim, deceiving the wicked into believing that a Niphilim bearing the spirit of a falcon could carry a dying person’s spirit into the next life along with their hoarded wealth and dominance, training these Niphilim to attend the burial of the dead and enriching their masters enormously through the false hope of possessions preserved beyond death. By the time of the Flood, some forty different Niphilim have been conceived across this long history, though never all at once, and four of their spirits remain upon the earth even after the Flood as demons that only men of service can cast out through righteousness and the authority of Elda. Against this rising darkness, Anokeesed’s answer is the establishment of the twenty-four conditions of protection, penetrable by no evil, available to men of service to dispel wickedness and defend righteous communities both before the ancient Flood and before the Arm of the Lord is revealed in the last days.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 8 opens with Motsah reflecting to Shem — also known as Melchizedek, son of Noah, and called Michael by Anokeesed — and to Ben Elim on the tasks He has already fulfilled as the second and third spirits of life: giving element form to righteousness and redemption, and walking as a Man among mankind to bring salvation through forgiveness, while the vision of created purpose has likewise already been secured through His obedience. But the fourth spirit of life — the Eerkodeshoi’s own task as a unified holy community — remains unset, even after their seven great determinations during the First Great Sevening. Motsah charges Melchizedek directly: he will one day call all the Watchers of heaven by the sound of a trumpet for a jubilee of days, present their task to them, and establish Shabuwa among the Eerkodeshoi in his own time. Turning to Ben Elim, Motsah explains that Melchizedek’s work belongs to the ancient past, while Ben Elim’s own parallel task, in far more tumultuous days, will be to establish Shabuwa among the righteous peoples of the whole earth.

After Motsah and Shem depart, the Eerkodeshoi Ebedel remains to teach Ben Elim about the eight children of Yaatsekawd and Cavah who scattered at Matteniah’s death — four bent toward light, four toward darkness — paired into only four marriages, since marriage itself is the very element that carries a person’s influence forward through the generations, joining them either to the Eerkodeshoi or to the Decadarchoi, without which any single life’s influence would simply fade with time. Alongside the already-known corruption of Kenneh and Awan, Ebedel reveals the fall of Yakol and Rebabah: Rebabah, named by Cavah to embody a vision of multiplying comfort and tranquil, holy marriage, instead multiplies rituals of lust and fornication under the tutelage of the Decadarchoi Zeqel, eventually becoming associated with the false goddess Ashtoreth, “queen of heaven,” and earning the title mother of darkness — a corruption that in time becomes a factor in Israel’s own exile. Yakol, whose name meant to be capable and to endure and prevail, is instead taught false star-gazing by the Decadarchoi Kokabel, who convinces him the heavens can reveal a person’s created purpose better than the Holy Spirit — a deliberate lie. By contrast, the righteous couples Mykar and Arookah, and Azan and Emoriy, depart Nod not in fear or shame but as a mission for Motsah, and from their line comes the entire practice of righteousness that flourishes in Qatar, just as the wicked line becomes the foundation of everything corrupt in Heleah.

Ebedel goes on to teach that the Holy Spirit, called the Comforter, covers the whole earth like an available blanket of comfort and enlightenment for every soul, righteous or wicked — though only genuine repentance and humility allow it to actually flow into conscious awareness, and the wicked, having openly rejected Motsah, are left with no portion of the Word dwelling in them at all, effectively the living dead. Moved deeply by this teaching, Mykar resolves to establish the Storehouse of the Holy Spirit among the Eerkodeshoi himself, building an altar of prayer on a high outcropping overlooking the Shaman Sea, beside a small spring seeping from beneath a rock. There, fasting and praying in earnest, he is given a vision of the Rock of Ariel and sees, for the first time with his own eyes, his mother Cavah bowed low in guilt and shame before receiving Motsah’s cleansing forgiveness — the very story he had heard told many times but never before truly understood.

The chapter closes with the remarkable ministry of Peyida — named Rak by his parents but called Peyida, “one who will not walk in the way of the people,” by the Eerkodeshoi — a powerful prophet raised largely alone in the wild, much like John the Baptist, wearing a leather girdle and eating only what grows freely upon the earth, famous for cultivating apricots no one had seen before. Taught directly by the Eerkodeshoi through the inherited Storehouse of the Spirit, Peyida teaches that there are four kinds of reproval. The first is the reproval of Anokeesed Himself, calling a person to remember how deeply loved and treasured they are and leading them back to a continual newness of life through repentance — the very reproval Motsah expressed so often in His earthly ministry, as with Zacchaeus. The second is the reproval of Motsah, addressing specific sins that diminish one’s walk with His Spirit, always gentle yet sometimes urgent, always honest and compassionate, urging repentance joined inseparably with forgiveness. The third, entirely new even to Ben Elim, is the reproval of the Eerkodeshoi themselves, calling a person back into oneness with the holy spirits of creation, with one another, and above all with their own true vision — demonstrated when Peyida disguises himself among a group of women, children, and slaves from Towah gathering roots for winter, sharing his apricots with them and gently teaching them the healing properties and true spiritual meaning of the very roots in their hands, bringing them unexpected light from the Lord.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 9 opens with Motsah walking Ben Elim through the symbols carved into the Covenant Tablet to reveal the seven foundations of Shabuwa. The first is that the righteous covenant to join with the Eerkodeshoi in rich bonds of mutual affection, walking together as companions who hearken to one another’s truth — for the Eerkodeshoi are, in a sense, Motsah’s own bride, destined to join with Him and the righteous in one holy relationship at the last. The second foundation is Motsah’s own Creatorship, His duty to enter every element of creation to give it life so He could redeem His children; the third calls the righteous to study and learn how He fulfilled His mission as Savior and Redeemer, covenanting to love and worship that fulfilled vision, grieving with Him in His burdens and rejoicing with Him in His triumphs. The fourth foundation calls each person to diligently seek out and fulfill their own vision of created purpose, so that in the end their own vision may stand equal to Motsah’s own after what is called the Seventh Advocacy. The fifth calls the righteous to safeguard for their children and people the conditions needed to bond with Anokeesed amid the sounds of life, all such moments recorded eternally in the Book of Life; the sixth calls them to make the languages of repentance and glory the very foundation of daily living, learning to listen to the Spirit and see the guidance of the Eerkodeshoi; and the seventh calls every family to bequeath to their children a full knowledge of righteousness and salvation, teaching them to feel the Spirit, know forgiveness, and love repentance and reproval wherever it can be found. Motsah is clear that any true covenant community, however its particular rules may vary by need, must be built upon all seven of these foundations together, and that taking this covenant is no light thing but a lifelong commitment.

Motsah continues explaining the tablet’s remaining symbols: the dot held within the circle in His carved hands represents mankind, held safely in the space between the Father’s all-encompassing circle of presence and the Eerkodeshoi who occupy the space between; the twelve stones or tabs at the tablet’s base represent the Council of Elda, who listened attentively to His founding covenant with the Father and remain diligent to guide, support, and oversee all of creation’s structure on His behalf. Every human soul, He explains, emerged out of the Eerkodeshoi themselves — light, water, wind, and every green thing giving birth to temporal mankind after sin entered the world — while the Decadarchoi, by contrast, gave life to no one, but only follow mankind about, seeking to tear them down from their high station and alienate them from their true source of life.

The vision then turns tenderly to Melchizedek’s own life. Ben Elim is shown the creek where young Melchizedek — called Shem by his people — was first taught by his grandfather Peyida, and the Eerkodeshoi Kabodiel recounts what she calls one of the most tender stories she knows: at this very stream, Peyida taught Shem the “top half” of the information that would one day be carved upon the Covenant Tablet, giving him a life-changing understanding of the Living Water as it relates to salvation and righteousness, causing him to be born again in relation to what Anokeesed meant to him from that day forward. Even though no Covenant Tablet yet existed, Melchizedek continued eagerly seeking greater understanding, and in his eighteenth year Peyida taught him the “bottom half” of what would become the tablet’s teaching, completing his rebirth and giving him full understanding of what he himself meant to Anokeesed.

The chapter closes with the wedding of Shem and his bride Shum — otherwise known as Melchizedek and Zedeqetelebab — conducted entirely by the Eerkodeshoi themselves. As the wedding procession arrives, they sing the ancient wedding song first sung in Eden and carried back by Enoch, while rain falls steadily around the couple seated in a half circle against a cliff overhang. Rak has brought a pot of water for washing and drinking, but the rain grows heavier, forming a small cascading stream that falls in droplets right between the bride and groom, the wind blowing it back and forth to wet them both amid the quiet laughter of onlookers. Rak declares plainly that the Eerkodeshoi themselves are conducting this wedding and that he is present only as a witness, using the rainwater itself for their washing and marriage drink — and in that moment, the Eerkodeshoi feel as though they, too, are being married alongside the couple, a truth that will prove literally so once Shabuwa is finally established. Witnesses Mattie and Mosia are profoundly moved by what they see, each born again in their understanding of what God truly means to them, with Mosia declaring that from that day forward no one will be his master save Anokeesed alone.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 10 opens with Melchizedek and Zedeqetelebab — together called Zakarihiy by their people — teaching in a casual gathering full of questions and lively discussion. When a young man, the firekeeper at their own wedding, asks about his father’s teaching that the Second Decree of Creation is the true source of the sanctity of marriage, Zedeqetelebab rises, draws out the sacred tablets from a box, and unwraps them across her lap as the whole gathering leans in, sensing the teaching is about to turn serious. She reviews for them the story of the eight children of Yaatsekawd and Cavah — four righteous, four wicked, joined into only four marriages — explaining that marriage itself is the element that carries a person’s influence forward through the generations, joining them either to the Eerkodeshoi or, if the marriage is profane, to the Decadarchoi instead, without which any single life’s influence would fade away entirely with time.

Zedeqetelebab goes on to teach the different ways the Eerkodeshoi speak to women and men. Women, she explains, tend to see virtue directly and carry a special gift for moving fear out of the present through confidence and the renewal of forgiveness — illustrated by the way the esseeb dances in the summer winds, reassuring women that peace and assurance are the Eerkodeshoi’s watchwords to them even as winter approaches. Men, by contrast, hear a call to action: when they see that same esseeb dancing, they are moved to make practical plans and preparations, unafraid of the coming winter because the Eerkodeshoi teach them how to carry out their labors — which is why, she notes, Yaatsekawd was never as deeply troubled over his own sin as Cavah was, since the Eerkodeshoi speak gentleness, patience, safety, and comfort into men’s ears in ways that move them toward action rather than lingering sorrow. In this way, she teaches, the Eerkodeshoi become the sons of heaven for men and the daughters of heaven for women, ever faithful companions to both — though those whose marriages are profane become subject instead to the Decadarchoi, who despise any vision of holiness tied to maleness or femaleness.

The chapter’s second half moves to a great Ingathering much like those once held at the old Pool of Heaven. There, the aged and much-traveled Arvade reports that Phut has passed away, and hints that this Ingathering may be her own last before she retires to end her days in Lebanon. Melchizedek — called Shem here — rises to teach once more, bringing forward a tablet written by Enoch himself, brought to him by his own son Shayiree, showing the division of days as a solemn call to repentance. He tells the gathered people that the richest blessing they can offer their heavenly Father is their own faithfulness, and that the reproval to come will bring wholeness to the whole community of the righteous; he notes, too, that the spirit of Reshuya is present among them, since it was the deepest longing of Reshuya’s heart in life to see the righteous use of element firmly established among his own people. Melchizedek teaches that every one of Anokeesed’s holy days is accomplished only through the intervention of agency, that they are all forms of formal worship, and that every one of them is undergirded fundamentally by the sanctity of marriage, which itself arises from the Second Decree of Creation.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 11 opens with Ben Elim beholding a great mountain that carries the Lord’s burden for the people of the valley of Heleah — a burden the Lord clarifies is never with those who knowingly choose sin, but always with the innocent that sin injures: not the slave masters but the slaves, not the adulterous parents but their children, and always with the poor, beleaguered Eerkodeshoi themselves. In the vision, the Lord approaches Noah at the ark and silently touches his forehead with two fingers, then does the same to Melchizedek, joining father and son in shared understanding; when Ben Elim cries out to be touched as well, the same vision bursts open before him. He sees the valley of Heleah stretching out farther than any eye could naturally see, revealed to be Eden itself in its original glory — every bird, every leaf, every peal of thunder resounding with joy at the prospect of becoming the future home of the image of God, each spirit of creation declaring aloud what it intends to contribute: fruit trees promising delightful nourishment, fountains promising to accompany marriages in purity, the wind promising to guide toward lovingkindness, the moon promising to watch over sleep. All of Heleah delights in the news that Yaatsekawd and Cavah have named and defined them, believing Eden itself has truly come.

But the vision turns dark as Kenneh, Awan, and their kind arrive instead — loud, rude, disrespectful before God, cruel to their own children with impatience and accusation, striking one another while the watching Eerkodeshoi cringe in horror. In the days that follow, more of the wicked arrive who know nothing of reproval, repentance, or forgiveness, and the Eerkodeshoi are forced, to their everlasting sorrow, to become acquainted for the first time with deceit, jealousy, greed, hatred, lust, and violence, though they continue faithfully in their determination to remain the home of the image of God despite having no cause left for rejoicing. A flicker of hope arrives with Amazyadad and his band of rescuers, whose loving morning prayers, grateful washing in the lustral waters, and complete unity of spirit stand in stark, luminous contrast to everything around them — the Eerkodeshoi become fixated on learning everything they can about this small righteous company, who blend so completely with the spirits of life around them that they appear and vanish like ghosts, quietly rescuing anyone who might yet be righteous or who had been taken there against their will. But this only deepens the Eerkodeshoi’s grief, since every soul Amazyadad manages to save is immediately carried to safety elsewhere, meaning Heleah itself never gets to keep even the smallest seed of righteousness — and the wind begins to blow in sorrow, the thunder to crash in grief.

The valley’s despair reaches its breaking point: every trickling stream and flowing water cries out to Anokeesed begging Him to stop their flow entirely, to cover their shame, to bring them home to eternity rather than continue in such futility, while the trees cast down all their fruit in despair. Melchizedek, witnessing this, cries out to the Lord asking how His own creation — a valley made to be Eden itself — could come to wish for its own death, giving up its very mission to be the home of the image of God. The Lord’s answer becomes the theological heart of the chapter: because no righteous people actually dwell in Heleah, the Eerkodeshoi there have no one to affirm the spirits that give them life, no one to join them together in bonds of love so they might draw strength from one another — and without the daily influence of the righteous interacting with them in holy relationship, acknowledging and using their created definitions, the Eerkodeshoi simply cannot live. Since the last vestiges of Eden have vanished from Heleah entirely, its Eerkodeshoi must be continually exposed to the experience and example of those who know how to cross over, so they can encounter the unshakeable presence of Anokeesed at the edge of eternity, where evil has no power to touch, challenge, or persuade Him. In the temporal world, the Lord explains, it is mankind who must lead the way in restoring this — a leading role called dominion — and the same truth holds for human society itself: without holy relationships lived out daily, any society, like the wicked of Heleah, cannot long endure upon the earth, which is why the wicked are so often swept away throughout history and left plagued by many fears.

From The Book of Remembrance of Melchizedek — The Covenant Tablet of Shabuwa

Chapter 12 records the founding of the covenant of Shabuwa, named for being acted upon every seventh day across seven weeks of days. Shem teaches the gathered people that above all things they must love the Man Anokeesed became, drawing near to Him constantly, holding Him as a treasure, feeling and grieving and rejoicing with Him as their all in all and their example in everything — and that this covenant is one of bonds of affection between mankind and creation, in which the righteous pledge first loyalty to Anokeesed, unbroken friendship to the Eerkodeshoi, and faithfulness to whatever the men of Abarah decree under Motsah’s direction, decrees to which even nations and their rulers will one day be made subject. As Shem speaks, a man is seen quietly approaching the altar from the back of the congregation, moving with unmistakable authority; the people step back to give him place, not yet realizing who he is, as he declares that he has come to establish the order of service after the Order of Melchizedek — the very men of Abarah, now to be known from this day forward by that new name.

The stranger, soon revealed to be Motsah Himself, explains that this order was called and ordained by Anokeesed from the foundation of the world, its members often identified even in the womb, called directly by God rather than through mortal lineage. Those of the Order of Melchizedek live continually through the Living Waters of repentance and are given extraordinary power: to break mountains, to stand in Anokeesed’s presence, to subdue principalities and powers, to divide or dry up or redirect the very waters of the earth, to break every band of evil’s dominance, and to set creation in order according to the Father’s will — their righteous decrees binding even nations to Anokeesed’s purposes. Motsah then establishes a second, equally vital part of the Holy Order arising directly out of the sanctity of marriage: the Order of Zedeqetelebab, named for the woman who will lead it, though Anokeesed privately calls her and her husband by their true heavenly names, Michael and Ge’iyra — Michael to one day marshal all the hosts of the Eerkodeshoi to Motsah’s aid when His Arm is finally revealed in the last days, and Ge’iyra to govern the Abiding Angels, bringing help and protection especially through times of tribulation. Women of this order perform Matriarchal Blessings, preside over Safe Delivery Ceremonies, bring the Abiding Angels’ influence into Ceremonies of Joining, and lend strong protection to Separation Ceremonies, working alongside all the women’s clans to protect, nourish, and strengthen the righteous — restoring, in its fullness, the same wholeness of marital bonding Yaatsekawd and Cavah once knew in their separate dominions in Eden.

The whole company kneels in reverence before this Man at the altar; when at last they look up, He has vanished, and they understand fully that it was Motsah Himself who had come among them. Zedeqetelebab — called Shum by her people — turns to declare that their Redeemer has this day become the very foundation of Shabuwa, joining Himself to them so that three now stand together in the covenant, just as Motsah is ever a third part of any true marriage bound in sanctity. She teaches that three elders of the Council of Elda — the fountains, the hills, and the wind — will now serve as guides by example, safeguarding the definitions of every spirit of life in creation, and she establishes an annual covenant of renewal at each New Year: the people will renew their determination to hear the Holy Spirit with the wind as their guide, marked by a painting upon the ear; renew their resolve to walk in holiness toward Anokeesed with the hills as their guide, marked upon the toe; dedicate their hands to pure service and the teaching of righteousness to their children, marked upon the thumb; and renew their inclusion of the Eerkodeshoi in the sanctity of marriage with the fountains as their guide — small physical reminders meant to keep the people daily mindful of everything this covenant of Shabuwa now asks of them.