Israel’s Festivals, Cumorah’s “Ark,” and the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon By Don Bradley · January 21, 2021

Meridian Magazine

 ...The Days of Awe and the Day of Atonement

After retrieving the plates from their ark, Joseph hid them in the hollowed-out tree for “about ten days,” then returned, wrapped them in the “linen frock” he had been wearing, and carried them home.[9] The timing once again evinces a larger design. The days from the Feast of Trumpets to the Day of Atonement, known as “the Days of Awe” or “Days of Repentance,” are a period of reconciliation and preparation for the Day of Atonement—a preparation period of ten days.[10] At the end of this period, on Yom Kippur/the Day of Atonement, the biblical high priest clad himself in a white linen garment and the breastplate and Urim and Thummim, donned a crown with an engraved gold plate to “bear the iniquity of the holy things” (Ex. 28:36−37), and performed the symbolic sacrifices of atonement. He then entered the Holy of Holies, sprinkling the atoning sacrificial blood on the Ark of the Covenant, propitiating God for the remission of Israel’s sins, and afterward removed his linen garment and washed his body, symbolizing the leaving behind of sin (Lev. 16; Num. 29:7−11).

At this same festival season in 1827, four millennia after its institution by Moses, Joseph Smith took home the golden plates, reuniting them with the Nephite “Urim and Thummim” to translate a book that would “talk of Christ,” “rejoice in Christ,” “preach of Christ,” “prophesy of Christ,” and show the remnant of Israel “to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Ne. 25:26)....