S e g u l l a h
Segullah: The Merit of a Peculiar Life
Segullah is not a word you will hear on the streets of Downtown, USA. You're not even likely to hear it in the halls of academia. First of all, it's Hebrew. Secondly, it's based on a concept that is out of style. Segullah is about divinely instituted covenants, and about a people who take them seriously. “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God,” Moses told the ancient Israelites. “And the Lord hath chosen thee to be segullah unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.”[1]
The term segullah is thick with meaning; there is no one English word that can be substituted for it. A Hebrew-English Lexicon provides a base from which to work. Segullah is defined as a noun referring to “possession, property.” And not just any property, but the “valued property or peculiar treasure,” of the king.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary specifies that the word always denotes “belonging exclusively, or specially, to.”[3] Although the seventeenth-century editors of the King James Bible siphoned segullah into numerous phrases (personal treasure, peculiar people, treasured possession, special people) it was always in context of a royal treasure, or more specifically, the treasure of the king. Both metaphorically and literally, the king of the scriptures is Jesus Christ. Segullah is his cache of covenant people.[4]
All those born or adopted into the House of Israel have the potential to become part of the Lord's personal treasury. In Deuteronomy, he assures the Israelites,
The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers.[5]
The same terminology applies to the modern House of Israel—the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. President Hinckley, speaking in General Conference in 1999, concludes, “I believe that Peter was speaking of us when he said, `But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light'.”[6]
We enter the gospel covenant to be refined and purified, to become a “peculiar people.” Because the merits and promises we bring to a covenant with God can never match what he offers, we hope for mercy, rather than an equal exchange. Anciently, treaty-covenants were not made between equals, but between weaker and stronger parties. The former pledged certain obligations in order to enjoy the protection and mercy of the latter.[7] God's covenant with the House of Israel follows the same pattern. We pledge our faith and obedience, “relying alone upon the merits of Christ, who is mighty to save.”[8] The Lord offers us benevolence and grace. His grace comes in two main forms to the House of Israel: a lineage through which flow the rights and privileges of the Priesthood, and the presence of the Lord during mortal life.[9]
Both elements of the Lord's part of the covenant—the priesthood authority, and the opportunity for sanctification—were restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. In 1829, John the Baptist appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, and conferred on them the Aaronic Priesthood.[10] Within a year Peter, James, and John—the last presiding quorum of Christ's church in antiquity—restored the Melchezidek Priesthood. Elijah appeared at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple and restored the sealing power, as Malachi had prophesied.[11] The authority and power to act in God's name were returned to the earth in full.
Those who hold the priesthood, as well as those who are blessed by it, are under obligation to respect and magnify it—to uphold their part of the covenant. At the beginning of this dispensation, the Lord cautioned, “Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men.”[12] The world, it seems, and apparently many of us who have been “called” to make covenants with the Lord, but who balk at being “chosen,” are far too interested in the “honors of men” and the temporal profit margin to focus on laying up treasure in heaven, or more specifically, on becoming part of the Lord's own peculiar treasure.
Paul draws on the image of a “peculiar people” in the New Testament using the word peripoiesis, which indicates not only a valuable, but a purchased, treasure.[13] “For ye are bought with a price,” he reminds the Corinthians, “Therefore glorify God.”[14] The Lord has “purchased with his own blood”[15] his segullah. The atonement fulfills his end of the bargain, offering the House of Israel protection and mercy, purification and sanctification. The House of Israel, in turn, must accept the atonement and follow the commandments associated with it.
Obedience and faith are easier pledged than fulfilled, and the Lord will not purify us against our will. Writing on the subject of consecration, Hugh Nibley warns, “Untold millions have accepted the law, but only a handful of people at brief and scattered intervals have lived up to it.”[16] Take the Israelites of Moses' day, for example. They were bound to a lesser portion of the law of God (the part Moses came back down from Sinai with after smashing the first round of tablets) and still they struggled to keep it, or even to keep track of what it was and what it meant. Forty years after they accepted the law, the Lord lamented that they were “a children in whom is no faith.”[17]
Subsequent generations fared even worse. Although the original Israelite covenant, and the commandments related to it, were compiled and retained, religious and secular leaders almost immediately began wrapping it in oral analysis, legal decisions, and anecdotes.[18] The law of God became so obscured by layers of tradition and interpretation that the Jews, for all their effort, lost sight of the original intent of the covenant. “Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.”[19]
As the modern House of Israel, we have covenanted to keep the law of God, just as the ancient Israelites did. Unfortunately, in our zeal (or ignorance, or apathy), we sometimes take a cue from the generations following Moses and wrap the gospel covenant in what we imagine are protective layers, in order to secure ourselves from breaking it. When the analogies and interpretations, the kitsch and cultural idioms, with which we surround ourselves begin to obscure the law we are under covenant to keep, we earn the same condemnation as the Jewish nation did, and we lose our treasured status.
The Lord expects us to take our covenants seriously and become a “peculiar people.” To be called “peculiar” in twenty-first-century America is not a compliment, any more than “popular” is in scriptural terminology. While the secular definition of the word revolves around “unusual,” “eccentric,” or “strange,” the scriptural definition is a generous accolade. Peculiar appears only seven times in the scriptures, and always as the preface to “treasure” or “people.” In the Lord's terminology, it means “valued,” “made,” or “selected by God.”[20] “Different” or “peculiar,” in a scriptural sense, is not only a compliment, it's a commandment.
Different, however, does not mean aloof. Anciently, and even in the early days of the church, the Lord did command Israel to withdraw not only spiritually, but physically, intellectually, and politically. Today we are commanded to engage. For us, being segullah means turning away from the world's enticements, not from its problems. “Go forth,” the Lord says again and again. “Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves.”[21] The Lord's segullah is not for static display. We must be an active influence in our communities, our nations, and the world. We must go forth not only to shed light but also to gather others in to its full source, so that they too may receive covenant blessings: the merits of Christ, which bring sanctifying and glorifying power to the soul.
[1] Deut. 14:2. Italics added.
[2] Francis Brown, ed., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 688.
[3] Oxford English Dictionary, 1989, s.v. "segullah."
[4] LDS Bible Dictionary, “Peculiar.” Compare the various translations of the same word in Ex. 19: 5; Ps. 135: 4; Eccl. 2: 8; Mal. 3: 17. Titus 2: 14 and 1 Pet. 2: 9 should carry the meaning of the saints’ being the Lord’s own special people or treasure.
[6] Hinckley, Gordon B., “Thanks to the Lord for His Blessings,” Ensign, May 1999, 88. Italics added.
[7] Brent L. Top, “A Peculiar Treasure: The Blessings and Responsibilities of a Covenant People” (speech, Brigham Young University-Hawaii, Laie, Hawaii, February 21, 2002).
[9] Thomas, M. Catherine, Selected Writings of M. Catherine Thomas (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 11.
[13] Top.
[16] Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1989), 422.
[18] Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 152-3. The Lesser Law was compiled as the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament. Together the Pentateuch and Books of the Prophets (Joshua through Malachi) form the Torah. The Mishna, meaning to “repeat” or “study,” was created in the second century from interpretations of the Pentateuch, legal decisions on specific points of both the Oral Law and the Pentateuch, and anecdotes and legends meant to aid understanding. As soon as the Mishna was complete around 200AD, another generation of Jewish scholars began interpreting and commenting on it, producing yet another layer of Oral Tradition known as Gemara, which was eventually canonized along with the Mishna as the Talmud.
[20] Nelson, Russell M., “Children of the Covenant,” Ensign, May 1995, 32.
ALLYSON SMITH now calls the cornbelt home, after thirty years in the mountainous west. She lives in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband Bryan and their four children. An historian by training, she spends the bulk of her time writing non-history and trying to keep the home front intact.
