In Genesis, eastward movement usually
coincides with the themes of exile or apostasy. . . . For example, the “eastward”
location of the Garden of Eden may thus be explained by its position relative
to the Creator, who is “in the midst,” meaning literally in Hebrew “in the
center” (Moses 3:8-9). Note that the initial separation of Adam and Eve from
God occurred when they were removed from His presence to be placed in the
garden “eastward in Eden” (Moses 3:8)—that I, east of the peak of the “mountain”
where, in some representation of the symbolic geography of Paradise, He is said
to dwell. This interpretation also seems to be borne out in later events, as
eastward movement is repeatedly associated with increasing distance from God.
after God’s voice of judgment visited Adam and Eve from the west (Moses 4:14),
they experienced an additional degree of separation when, after the Fall, they
left the garden through its eastern gate (Moses 4:31). Cain was “shut out from
the presence of the Lord” as he went eastward to dwell “in the land of Nod” (Moses
5:41). The journey of Cain’s posterity continued in the same direction—“from
the east” to the “land of Shinar”—toward Sodom and Gomorrah when he separated
himself from Abraham (Genesis 13:11).
On the other hand, westward movement
is often used to symbolize return and restoration of blessings—that is, atonement.
For instance, according to B[ook of]G[iants], Enoch gathered his
people west (W. B. Henning, Book of the Giants, Text G (Sogdian), p. 69; M.
Goff, Sons of the Waters, p. 125; J. M. Bradshaw, Moses 6-7 and the Book of Giants,
pp. 1132-33). Abraham’s “return from the east is [a] return to the Promised
Land and . . . the city of ‘Salem’” (Genesis 14:17-20), being “directed toward
blessing.” The Magi of the Nativity likewise came “from the east,” westward to Bethlehem,
their journey symbolically enacting a restoration f temple and priesthood blessings
that had been lost from the earth (Matthew 2:1; J. M. Bradshaw, God’s Image 1,
pp. 161, 673-74). Additionally, the glorious return of Jesus Christ when He “shall
suddenly come to his temple” (Malachi 3:1) is likewise represented as an
east-to-west movement: “For as the light of the morning cometh out of the east,
and shineth even unto the west, and covereth the whole earth, so shall also the
coming of the Son of man be” (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:26). (Jeffrey M. Bradshaw,
Enoch and the Gathering of Zion: The Witness of Ancient Texts for Modern
Scripture [Orem, Utah: The Interpreter Foundation, 2021], 35, 238 n. 175)