Isaiah class 7

Thoughts from the seventh of ten classes, Thursday, November 19, 2009

I took fewer notes this week than in any of the previous classes, partly because I was busy looking up other references as the discussion moved along, a lot of it question-and-answer stuff that I gather was not exactly what Brother Gileadi had originally intended to cover. And partly because we were just reading selections from various chapters of 1 and 2 Nephi that quote or paraphrase Isaiah's teachings on the events at the end of the last days.

Some of the Book of Mormon passages we specifically looked at all describe or refer to the same latter-day scenario:

• 1 Nephi 22:8–19 Correlated with other passages of scripture, particularly as presented throughout Isaiah, these latter-day events are all presented as a part of a single scenario.
  
• 2 Nephi 6:4–13
  
• 2 Nephi 10: 7–19
  
• 2 Nephi 25:1–8
  
• 2 Nephi 28:26–29 It is a most damnable attitude to say "we have received enough and need no more." Intelligence is not just acquiring information but what we do with it.
  
• 2 Nephi 29:1 This single verse contains three events from the list we began constructing last week of things that will happen at the last day: a marvelous work, the covenants of the Lord, and the Lord setting His hand a second time to recover His people.

Isaiah class 6

Thoughts from the sixth of ten classes, Thursday, November 12, 2009

The passages from Isaiah most quoted in the Book of Mormon (primarily by Nephi, Jacob, and the Savior) are chapters 48–55. They all refer to events in the last days. Interestingly, Isaiah 53, the one chapter that is clearly about the Savior, is not quoted (except as paraphrased by Abinadi) because that chapter has nothing to do with the last days. Book of Mormon writers, knowing that their writings would come forth in the last days, actually talk a lot about the last days.

Isaiah is pretty much the only Old Testament frame of reference to the last days that the Book of Mormon writers had.

There are relatively few Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament as we have it today. The Book of Mormon at least is pretty much silent on them. Given that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Christ, and that one of its central purposes is "to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations" (Book of Mormon title page), then it is curious that it would not have quoted more Messianic prophecies unless they were pretty much absent from the record. Some Messianic prophecies that are quoted, such as by Zenock and Zenos, do not appear in our current Old Testament.

It is important, however, to remember that another one of the Book of Mormon's central purposes is "that they [the house of Israel] may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever" (Book of Mormon title page). The Isaiah passages, together with prophetic commentary on them by Nephi, Jacob, and the Savior, speak much about the covenants of the Lord with His people and that because of those covenants they will not be cast off forever. That is what the prophecies concerning the last days are all about. And why they figure so prominently in their writings.

The Prophet Joseph Smith understood that he was just laying a foundation, the beginning of restoration. The Lord's latter-day servant, still yet to come, is also a restorer. The Savior's quoting of Isaiah in 3 Nephi 21 makes clear that this all comes at the end of the last days. We need to tie down to what scriptures actually say.

In a revelation the Lord gave in September 1832, the Lord spoke of a condemnation resting upon His people for treating lightly the things they had received, particularly the Book of Mormon (see D&C 84:54–58). President Ezra Taft Benson applied the same warning against the Latter-day Saints in the day that he presided over the Church. Perhaps a part of our condemnation for treating these things lightly is our ignoring Isaiah, whose teachings figure so prominently in the Book of Mormon.

Isaiah, given the way it is constructed, is a whole tapestry; all the threads run together. We cannot take bits and pieces out of context. One remarkable things the Book of Mormon writers do is to take different parts of Isaiah and treat them as one single scenario. That is a key to understanding Isaiah.

We started on a list of events that all happen together, that are all a part of one scenario, that occur in the last days.

1. A great and marvelous work (Isaiah 29: 14 / 1 Nephi 14:7)
   
2. Covenants of the Lord (Isaiah 54:10 / 1 Nephi 14: 5, 8, 17)
   
3. Fighting against Zion (Isaiah 29:8 / 1 Nephi 22:14, 19; 2 Nephi 6:12–13; 2 Nephi 27:3)
   
4. The house of Israel being nourished by the gentiles (Isaiah 49:22–23 / 1 Nephi 22:8)
   
5. The Lord making bare His arm (Isaiah 52:10 / 1 Nephi 22:10–11) ["Arm" signifies divine intervention, the revealing of the Lord's servant]
   
6. An endowment of power (Isaiah 52:1; Isaiah 51:9 / 1 Nephi 14:14 and 22:17)
   
7. Conversion of the house of Israel to the gospel (Isaiah 52:7–8)

We did not finish our list because we ran out of time.

Isaiah class 5

Thoughts from the fifth of ten classes, Thursday, November 5, 2009

This past week has been like no other we have experienced in a long, long time, if ever, so I am very tardy in reporting on last Thursday's session with Brother Avraham Gileadi, but I thought I should do so before going off to the sixth class tonight.

Although we are studying Isaiah, we spent much of the two hours in our fifth class reading and discussing parts of five chapters from two other Old Testament prophets: Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The intent, as I understood it, was to illustrate that Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah were all on the same page, as prophets of the Lord were all teaching the same message, and were all seeing down to the end of times, our dispensation, and prophseying of the Lord's latter-day servant who would assist in the gathering of Jacob or Israel.

We need a foundation in the Old Testament, Brother Gileadi affirmed, in order to understand the rest of the scriptures.

Old Testament > Book of Mormon > New Testament > Doctrine and Covenants

The Book of Mormon, for example, as the above little diagram illustrates, begins in and grows out of an Old Testament setting and culture. It assumes a deep familiarity with the Old Testament. Then as a premier witness of Christ and His mission, the Book of Mormon prepares us for and helps us really understand what the New Testament is about. And so forth.

We read from Ezekiel 34. Sheep are a metaphor for the Lord's people. Beasts are a metaphor for Satan's people. The word "meat," as translated in the King James Version of the Bible, signifies "food." Mountains and hills signify nations.

The Lord is always looking out for the poor. The Lord will search for and deliver them from all the places "where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day" (see verse 12). Causing them to "lie down," as in verses 14 and 15, signifies rest, peace, and security. The "deep waters" mentioned in verse 18 refers to the deep things of God. Joseph Smith once wrote that he was wont to swim in deep waters (see D&C 127:2). The shepherds of the people were privy to the deep doctrines, the deep things of God, but muddied it up for others.

The Lord is always gathering. Verses 23 and 24 reference the latter-day servant of the Lord, who will be called David. Verse 25 and beyond describe the Millennial era, when evil will be gone from the earth, when there will be no more telestial people around, and the Lord's people will be safe in the land (see verse 27).

We then turned to Ezekiel 37 and, beginning with verse 15 to the end of the chapter, talked about the uniting of the tribes of Israel into one nation. The sticks, although we commonly in the Church refer to them as the records of the two nations, in the actual context of this chapter refers to the two nations or kingdoms. The Lord is speaking of making the two nations into one. The reference in verse 23 that they shall "be my people and I will be their God" is covenant language (see also verses 26 and 27 and also Ezekiel 34:24).

A latter-day reference to the stick of Ephraim makes it clear that the stick actually refers to the house or tribe or nation of Ephraim (see D&C 27:5). Otherwise, the passage would be redundant, and the Lord would be saying that He had committed the keys of the record of the record of Ephraim.

Next we read from Jeremiah 23, where it opens with the same woe pronounced against the leaders of the people (the "pastors" referred to by Jeremiah comes from the same word in Hebrew as the "shepherds" in Ezekiel). The rise of the latter-day servant always comes on the heels of the abuse by the shepherds or pastors of the Lord's people. We see the same scenario in Isaiah, in Ezekiel, and in Jeremiah.

We then turned to Jeremiah 30, where it speaks of the latter-day servant David. The chapter heading interprets David as Christ, but it is clear from other passages in Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah that the David mentioned in verse 9 is the latter-day servant of Christ. Jesus Christ or Jehovah is the Lord their God, and David is a king who serves under Him. The Prophet Joseph Smith seems to assert the same thing: "The throne and kingdom of David is to be taken from him and given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised out of his lineage" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 339).

Compare also Jeremiah 33:14-16. And Doctrine and Covenants 113:1-6, which is a revealed commentary on certain verses in Isaiah 11 that speak of Christ as the Stem of Jesse and the rod of Jesse and the root of Jesse as a servant in the hands of Christ and who will hold "the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days" (D&C 113:6).

In Jeremiah 30:11 the Lord declares that in the last days He will make a full end of the nations but not of thee, meaning Jacob or Israel.

The Old Testament prophets know that what they are writing is ambiguous, and they seem to do it on purpose, as a test, to weed people out who are not spiritually attuned to understand and receive the message. From that vantage point, it is a merciful thing they do.

Isaiah class 4

Thoughts from the fourth of ten classes, Thursday, October 29, 2009

The most important lesson I took from this evening's class with Avraham Gileadi was that we have to fit all scriptures together, not just focus on one passage in isolation. Otherwise we will get into trouble and wander off course. We have to connect all the dots, put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and rely on the safety that comes from the scriptures' own internal checks and balances.

Among all holy writ, the book of Isaiah is remarkable in its exquisite use of literary devices and structure to ensure that every truth is presented in more than one way in more than one place, often in multiple ways, to keep us from getting off base. There is hardly a thing in Isaiah that does not repeat itself somewhere else. The book has its own internal checks and balances.

The scriptures all cohere. There are not contradictions. Apparent contradictions are there to weed out the insincere or lazy who really don't want to invest the effort, time, and energy to ferret out the truth. (He didn't say this, but I suppose there could be contradictions resulting from faulty transmission of the original text.)