Inspire

To inspire is to breathe into, and by extension to quicken a mind with an understanding or a skill it could not have produced unaided. The Latin inspirare preserves the physical image, the Hebrew behind the King James phrase “the inspiration of the Almighty” is nishmat Shaddai, “the breath of the Almighty” (Job 32:8), and the Greek theopneustos, “God-breathed,” lies behind Paul’s description of scripture. Common usage reserves inspiration for prophets, poets, and private devotion. It is striking, then, that the first person scripture describes as “filled with the spirit of God” is a craftsman. Bezaleel received that filling “in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,” that he might “devise cunning works” in gold, silver, and brass (Exodus 31:3-4).

The Spirit of God in All Manner of Workmanship

The tabernacle Bezaleel built followed a pattern shown to Moses on the mount, and interpreters of Exodus have long observed that the account of its making recapitulates the creation of the world. The instructions arrive in a series of divine speeches, the seventh of which concerns the Sabbath, and the same “spirit of God” that moved upon the primordial waters now fills a human artisan, who fashions a dwelling for the Lord. Bezaleel’s endowment extended beyond himself. The Lord gave him Aholiab as a fellow worker and declared that “in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded.” Inspiration in this narrative is a gift distributed across a community of makers.

Elihu, the youngest speaker in the book of Job, invoked the same divine breath to justify speaking before his elders. He had held his peace, reasoning that “multitude of years should teach wisdom,” yet he concluded that “there is a spirit in man” and that understanding comes from the Almighty, since “great men are not always wise.” His claim locates understanding outside age, rank, and learning, and opens it to anyone the Almighty chooses to fill. The craftsman of Exodus and the young counselor of Job together show inspiration at work in workmanship and in judgment alike, each enlarging a faculty already in diligent exercise. Bezaleel cut stones and carved timber, and Elihu had listened through thirty chapters of debate before he spoke.

Scripture Given by Inspiration

The Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, set the breath of God at the origin of the sacred writings: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The verse is often cited as a doctrine of how scripture came to be, yet Paul’s sentence dwells on what scripture does. The breath that entered the writings passes through them into a reader, who is “throughly furnished,” equipped as a workman is supplied with tools. Paul’s image thus returns to Bezaleel’s workshop, where inspiration likewise issued in finished works.

Latter-day Saints hold that this breath was never withdrawn and that the canon remains open. President Joseph F. Smith’s vision of the redemption of the dead, received in October 1918, opens with the aged prophet sitting in his room “pondering over the scriptures.” “As I pondered over these things which are written,” he recorded, “the eyes of my understanding were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me” (D&C 138:11). The revelation came through sustained study of earlier revelation, so that inspired text became the occasion for further inspiration. Joseph Smith’s first vision followed the same course, beginning with a young man’s repeated reflection on a single passage of the New Testament.

Light in the Vessels

The Lord left a striking share of the Jaredite crossing to human invention. When the brother of Jared reported that his barges had no light, the Lord answered with a question: “What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?” He ruled out windows, which the waves would dash in pieces, and fire, and then posed the question again (Ether 2:23-25). Having supplied the design and the air, God now waited on the man’s proposal. The brother of Jared climbed mount Shelem and “did molten out of a rock sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass,” a work of smelting the record reports without comment.

He then carried the stones to the summit and prayed, “touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness,” and the Lord “touched the stones one by one with his finger” (Ether 3:4, 6). The scene unmistakably recalls the Flood. The record compares the Jaredite barges to the ark of Noah, and an ancient Jewish tradition held that Noah’s ark was lit by a luminous precious stone. At that touch the veil fell from the brother of Jared’s eyes, and he saw that the finger was “like unto flesh and blood.” Inspiration in this account culminates in embodied revelation, and it begins with stones a human craftsman had already shaped and carried up the mountain.

Inspiration and the Generative Machine

Since 2022, generative models trained on humanity’s accumulated writing and imagery have taken over a vocabulary once reserved for the muse, and Ethan Mollick of the Wharton School commends working alongside them as “co-intelligence.” Lincoln Cannon places artificial intelligence within a theology of creation, in which God inspires, teaches, and persuades without coercion and His children repeat His creative work. The first careful measurements disclose a hazard. In a 2024 experiment, Anil Doshi and Oliver Hauser found that writers given story ideas by an AI model produced work judged more creative, especially the less creative writers, while the stories as a group grew more alike. Makers who let a model’s fluency displace their own pondering risk exchanging the particular breath Elihu received for a polished consensus.

The sixteen stones of mount Shelem gather the doctrine of inspiration into one image. The brother of Jared smelted them from the rock of the mountain, carried them to its summit, and asked the Lord to touch them, and each shone with a light it could not have produced alone. Inspiration follows this order in Bezaleel’s workshop, in Elihu’s speech, and in President Smith’s room, where a human faculty labors to its limit and the breath of God enters a work already prepared. Generative machines may serve Latter-day Saint makers as furnaces in which such stones are molten. The light that crossed the great deep came from the finger of the Lord, and it came to stones the brother of Jared had prepared with his own hands.