Isaiah prophesied of a leader in a cousing branch of Jesse restoring the gospel before Israel was restored to it’s own land in the last days. Understanding the pophecies of Isaiah in context of the restoration.
Transcript:
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the add on Education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussions and try to add a little insight and you, unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with our friend and this show’s producer, Nate Piper.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: What’s up, Nate?
How are you doing, dude?
[00:00:37] Speaker A: I’m fantastic. I’m doing fantastic.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Good.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: I was just thinking about that intro. For whatever reason, it comes into my mind every now and again when we say, covering the weekly come follow me discussion, we’re in the fourth year of this. We plan on finishing out the book of Mormon.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah, we plan on it.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: The question is, what happens next? Do we continue following the weekly come follow me discussion? Do we do a doctrine, covenants, take two?
Or does this show become something different? Do we branch off into new territory, or do we just die?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Or do we just call it good? Dude? We say, hey, we set out for a goal four years ago, and we accomplished it.
We’re getting trunky, dude. It’s like when you’re on your mission, it’s like you only have a few months left, dude, I’m not trunky, all right? I am. I’ll have you know, here’s the thing.
The fact that we’ve done this for four years is shocking to me.
And at some point, I’m also just like, as much as I love doing this, I don’t know, man.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: You’re ready to be done?
[00:01:42] Speaker B: No, not necessarily. But I just don’t know how much.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: More you have in you.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: I mean, there has to be a finality to this somehow.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: We can’t just keep doing this for every weekend for the rest of our lives. Can we? No, I don’t think so either. I don’t think the people want this for the rest of their lives. I think that the people that are listening at this point, it’s like with the television show, that even if it’s terrible, you’re so invested at this point, you’re like, I’ve at least got to see this through to the end.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: After the third or fourth season, they usually just start tanking. Right?
[00:02:15] Speaker B: I know, but the point is that even if I was watching that terrible tv show suits, it’s like, the worst show I’ve ever seen. It’s truly one of my, if not least, favorite shows ever. But I was so far along into it that at a certain point, what I’d be working, I would just yell how much I hated the show all the time, and I was like, just spoofing it the whole time we were watching it. But then people are like, well, why are you still watching? I’m like, because I’m not a quitter.
I’m seeing it through. I think that that’s where a lot of our listeners are probably at with us at this point. They’re just like, we got to see it through.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Well, we’ve got a lot. We’ve got a lot in the book of Mormon. I’m not feeling trunky at all yet.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: What if we did this?
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Okay, let’s hear it.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: What if we did all of the books that are outside of the biblical canon?
[00:03:00] Speaker A: See, that’s what I’m wondering, man. It would be kind of fun to branch into pseudopigraphy, apocrypha.
I mean, it would be a little bit off the rails. And I know they’re not.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: What about the show isn’t a little bit off the rails?
[00:03:15] Speaker A: It’d be off the rails even for us. But I mean, that’s where I’m coming in on my thoughts at that point. Is it really following the weekly come follow me discussion? Because they’re not going to take no next year. They are not going into pseudopods.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: They’re probably going to go back to doctrine covenants, right?
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And we’ve covered doctrine covenants, so maybe we can just take.
And also some of our bonus episodes are some of my favorite if I’m just thinking out loud. Sorry. All you guys at home who are just waiting for us to get into second Nephi chapters 20 through 25, we’re talking about it.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Because if you have thoughts on this, you might as well hit us up.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Now’s your chance to sound off. And if you don’t, whatever we decide next year, whether that’s to be extinct or to take this show into a completely different direction. You didn’t vote. It’s your fault.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: It is your fault. That’s right. You don’t get to complain.
But the truth of the matter is, maybe we do doctrine and covenants.
Maybe we do doctrine and covenants, part two. And then we call this. Because the thing is, I feel like we just have a lot of new people listening that weren’t listening back then and really don’t want to take the time. The only thing is, if you haven’t listened to our first go around of doctrine covenants, find the episode where we talked about dinosaurs and sharks in heaven because that one had some great moments in it. But other than that, I don’t even know if any of those old episodes are any good.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: I hope they were good.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: I don’t know if any of these new episodes are any good, if I’m being totally honest about that, too. So it is what it is.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Ouch.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: It’s not your fault. I’m just saying, dude, at a certain point, at a certain point, people got to be sick of hearing us. So whatever. Maybe not.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: Maybe they’re sick of hearing us, but they’re not sick of hearing the scriptures. We’re talking.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: There it is. There it is.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: See, that’s why it never gets old, man. We’re talking about stuff that’s just fresh, awesome. 2000 years off the press and it’s still interesting.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Let’s do it.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: So this week we’re going into second Nephi chapters 20 through 25, much to your chagrin and my great joy. This is Isaiah, man. This is Isaiah is fine.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: I just don’t get it very much, but I like it.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: I’m just saying. A lot of people at home I think are maybe a little bit sad that it’s still Isaiah, maybe not. I love Isaiah. And hopefully you love Isaiah, too.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: I feel like last week’s Isaiah was awesome, right?
Talking about how Isaiah saw people dancing like idiots on TikTok and wrote about it.
I think that was an awesome discussion.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: I don’t remember that.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: We talked about it today in our Sunday school class again, about how the great and spacious is social media, dude.
Isaiah saw a bunch of knuckleheads making fools of themselves on TikTok and was just like trying to save us all from being cringy. He tried. Isaiah gave it a shot. It didn’t work.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: All right, well, let’s give Isaiah another shot this week as we dive into some of his writings. And honestly, for me, these writings that we’re covering this week are some of the most significant for our time.
It’s been re quoted by Nephi here in second Nephi. And interesting enough, Moroni, when he visited Joseph Smith and restored the gospel. He quotes and teaches him Isaiah, chapter eleven as well, which is what we’re diving into tonight.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Killer.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: So this is where it gets interesting to me when it talks about the stem that comes from the root of Jesse and to understand some of the context of what Isaiah is saying.
Jesus Christ is known as the branch. And the reason why he’s called the branch is because he is a branch from a family tree. Because this family tree, it’s the whole story of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is Christ’s lineage. And that’s why we have two chapters in the New Testament that spend a whole time just trying to illustrate Christ’s lineage and that he is a branch from that tree. And that’s why they call him son.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Of David, just to establish at least his genealogical claim to, right? I mean, 100%.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Okay. Yes. And when we look at a family tree, obviously the branches represent offspring, children.
Therefore, by conversely looking at that, the roots, the trunk of the tree is going to represent where you came from, your ancestors and going back. So when we talk about prophecies of Christ, we’re talking about the branch from the house of David. But here you’ll notice it’s not talking about a branch from the house of David. In fact, it says a branch from the roots of David. You’re like, well, wait a second, why from the roots of David? Why not from David? There’s a little bit of a disturbance here. If it was from David, Isaiah would be fine. Just talking to him about, just like he does in Isaiah 53, a tender branch that goes forth. And this is the branch that’s coming. But he’s saying no, because it’s coming from the same roots, but it’s a different rod. He’s saying it’s a different branch than the branch that Christ comes from.
David descends.
First off, in case you’re confused, it keeps referencing Jesse. Jesse is David’s father. Jesse, David, Christ, all descend from Judah. All of Israel has the same common root. And in fact, Isaiah references this route in a couple of other places in his writings. When he says, think back to the hole from which you were dug, the pit from which you were hewn. Abraham. Abraham is the root of the covenant that God has established with Israel. And in fact, because the covenant is established with Abraham and that’s previous to Israel and the twelve tribes being born, it really is the root of this family tree. So if we go back to that route, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but choose a different line, that’s not Judah. To have a branch coming from that, you’ve got eleven other options to call from. That’s where Isaiah is taking this prophecy. And he’s going to mention a few things that happened during this time to this person that’s descending from a line that’s not Judah’s. And he’s going to say verse twelve. And he shall set up an enzyme for the nations. And they shall assemble the outcast of Israel and gather together to disperse of Judah from the four corners of the earth. And he also talks about in verse eleven, it shall come to pass that in that day the Lord shall set his hand again, the second time to recover the remnant of his people. And then he also says in verse ten, and it shall be, and in that day it shall be a root of Jesse, for which he shall stand, an enzyme of the people, to which shall the Gentiles seek, and the rest shall be glorious.
Now think about these verses. When he was talking about the branch of David, he never said that they would be going to the Gentiles. He said that he would be coming to the Jews, and the Jews were going to reject him. Right? When we talk about the branch in Christ, Christ, when he came, was very clear that he was not sent to the Gentiles, that his role was among the Jews and the house of Israel first. But then also notice how Isaiah says, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. The Gentiles were last to receive the gospel, and not even firsthand from Christ, but from Christ’s apostles, that he called as the gospel spread out to the Gentiles. Now, in the last days, not the times of Christ, but in the last days, another branch is going to be raised, not from the house of Judah, but a separate one. A cousin branch is going to come, and his specific role is going to be to the Gentiles.
And in fact, I want to read quickly a verse in Romans that talks about this. For me, this is fascinating. Okay. Romans, chapter 15, verse twelve. And again, Isaiah said, there shall be a root of Jesse, as we said, not a branch, but a root. So it’s going to be a cousin branch. And he shall rise to reign over the Gentiles. In him shall the Gentiles trust. That’s not Christ. Christ didn’t reign over the Gentiles. He came to the Jews. This is a cousin branch that’s coming in the last days to the Gentiles.
This is where it gets so fascinating to me.
The Jews said, if we had been alive in the time of Moses, or if we would have been alive in the time of x. Fill in the blank, whatever, prophet, we wouldn’t have stoned them. We wouldn’t have cast them out. We wouldn’t have rejected them. We would have accepted them, right? And then Christ says, well, yeah, now you have one greater than they, and you’re still going to reject me.
And this is where I think the parallel is funny, because Christ came to the Jews and he did all of this teaching, and the Jews rejected him, and they crucified him. Now we have a prophecy of Isaiah saying that another one is going to come in the last days from a cousin branch of Judah. By the way, I think this is Joseph’s branch, and he’s going to come to the Gentiles, and the Lord is going to empower him to set his hand to recover his people a second time. And that at his time, the Jews are going to be restored from the four corners of the earth back to the land of Jerusalem, and he’s going to rule over. Now think about Christ.
Christ ruled over the Jews. In fact, they put the title over his cross, king of the Jews. What did ruling over the Jews mean for Christ today? How many gentiles say, if I would have lived in Christ’s time, I wouldn’t have killed him? Yet the Lord sent another one to our time to set his hand back a second time to recover all of the people.
And what did we do with Joseph Smith?
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Killed him too.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: How are we any different from the Jews?
He sent somebody, a root, a rod from that cousin line, from Joseph, to restore his people a second time.
And we treated him just like we did Christ. How are we, the Gentiles, any better than the Jews? If we were alive in Christ’s time, we wouldn’t have crucified Christ. And yet he sent another in our time to return us to the gospel, to return us to a knowledge of him. Now think of these parallels between Christ and Joseph Smith.
Christ says, no man comes to the father except through me. Joseph Smith restores the covenant of Abraham through which we can enjoy the blessings of the atonement. He restores the Melchizedek priesthood. He restores the temple through which we can enter into the presence of God. Without these blessings, we can’t enter into the presence of God.
And yet the people rejected him. Did we expect anything different? Though it would almost make less sense if all of a sudden the Lord sends another prophet for the last time to recover his people. And they all got it and accepted him and praised him.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: And it hasn’t been the pattern so far.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: It hasn’t been the pattern so far.
But I don’t see any more clearly than how Isaiah, if you do not think that Isaiah was talking about Joseph Smith, I sincerely would like to know, how is this prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled?
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Who else could it be?
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Who else came not from the line of Judah, but from a cousin branch to restore the people a second time? And by the way, this had to happen before the Jews were gathered from the four corners of the earth back into their land in Jerusalem. Who else came at that time period to help?
[00:15:23] Speaker B: I think it’s a solid challenge because I can’t think of anybody who else has even claimed.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Right.
We only have one person claiming that spot. And so our options are Joseph Smith or I don’t know. And we’re all going to go with I don’t know when he’s the only one on the ballot.
It’s an interesting conundrum.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Well, I think it’s a solid challenge, even for those of us that are on the same page, for whatever it’s worth.
Think about that. Who else could it be? And by the way, it’s like, cool. Think about it and send us some propositions. We would love to think through this with you. I guess all I’m saying, because as we think through this, it’s fairly clear that there really isn’t anybody else on this ballot that we know of.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: And the beautiful thing is, even though we’re reading about this in the Book of Mormon, this is preserved in the Old Testament in the Bible. This is part of everybody’s canon who believes in the Bible, not just ours. This prophecy is out there for anyone to read, which I find beautiful about this.
With that in mind, in that context, let’s try to understand some of these prophecies and see if they sit better than what they did previously. And the prophecy, chapter 21. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and the little child shall lead them, and the cow and the bear shall feed, and the young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. It’s funny, I always. I always confuse this verse and think it’s the lion and the lamb laying down together, but it’s the wolf and the lamb, which I guess makes more sense because the shepherd’s always protecting his flock from the wolf.
But these verses, as we think about this out of context, they seem strange. What do you mean, the lion and the lamb? And how is this? Or the. I just did it again. Right. The wolf and the lamb or the ox and the sheep.
How are these animals all coming together and being peaceably? And I think we always like to project this to sometime in the future that we don’t understand. This is millennial prophecy when all of a sudden everything on earth is a vegetarian.
I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: I think we have vegetarian vegetarians out here catching strays this week, apparently. Okay.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: And the poor grass is like, what did we do? How come everyone’s going to eat us now? No, I look at this.
Isaiah said, in many times, and so now, as you read through Isaiah, you’ll see it in third Nephi, you’ll see it in second Nephi, you’ll see it in Isaiah. When you’re reading it, start to notice every time. Isaiah says that the Lord shall deliver the prey out of the jaws of those that are persecuting him. And he talks about the captive going free. When Assyria conquers everywhere but Jerusalem, the Lord says he sends Assyria. But because Assyria exalts themselves above the Lord and all of a sudden becomes this proudful, boastful nation, they need to be humbled. He says he lights a fire under the hands of Assyria, and that fire is Jerusalem, his light. So even in the New Testament, when we talk about the light being on the hill, when the Lord’s talking about it through Isaiah, that light is a fire under the hands of Assyria that’s going to deliver Jerusalem from the jaws of the predator, and it’s going to start Assyria on fire and humble them and whatever, right? It’s just this game of going back and forth. Babylon becomes the predator. They capture the prey and drag them captive into Babylon. But then what happens? The Persians come and destroy the Babylonians and deliver the prey from the jaws of the captive. What we’re saying here, Isaiah keeps giving us a pattern of predator, prey, predator, prey. And instead of the predator trying to consume the prey, they get along. I think this has more of a reference to a changing world where we start to respect each other’s boundaries and respect each other’s governance and not try to swallow the prey. And I think you see that in our time period. I know it’s hard to imagine this with this much.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: It feels like we’re not quite there yet as a whole. But I guess why it would make sense, though.
Would you say that this prophecy is going to be fulfilled before or after the second coming?
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Well, so go back to verse one, when it talks about, there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse. Verse two, the spirit of Lord shall rest upon him and make him quick of understanding. And then it says that in that day, right, these things are going to happen. So if you believe that this prophecy is Joseph Smith restoring the gospel, in that day, the jews are going to be gathered from the four corners of the earth. In that day, the lion or not the lion. I keep saying it, right, but the wolf and the lamb are going to be getting along, more or less.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: So we’re in the process of that right now. I think so because it’s just hard that, how could that sit with the wars and the rumors of wars that are also supposed to take place at the same time?
[00:20:41] Speaker A: And I think that’s a matter of perception. When you live in Isaiah’s time and the responsibility of every male in society was plant the crops, harvest the crops and go to war year after year after year. And he sees a time where, wait, you don’t have to send your kids to learn war. What are you doing? Where do I send my kids all of my time with my kids, as they’re nearing that age of completing high school, is what school are they going to? What trade are they going to learn? From Isaiah’s perspective, I have replaced swords and fighting instruments with the pruning hooks and the plow shares, because what they’re doing is going to school to learn how to cultivate a talent, cultivate a skill, cultivate an ability to feed their family. They’re learning how to provide for their family, which is a very different shift from his time, where every year, even if you didn’t want to fight, it was thrust on you. Israel wasn’t looking to pick a war with Assyria. Assyria came knocking on their door.
And so I want to know, when is the last time we in our country, here in the United States have been invaded to the point where it’s not just a draft, where we pick a handful of random people. Every male citizen within this country has the responsibility to defend and fight with all of the invaders. And every year you don’t get a choice between school and the army. It is the army. And that’s what you’re doing.
With that context. Scholars of today have termed our time period in world history as the great peace. And I know that’s hard to swallow with what’s going on in Israel and Palestine right now. And I know it’s difficult with what we see with Ukraine and Russia. And I don’t know that we have ever endured peace without seeing violence somewhere happening in the world. But the perception, the scope, when you.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Put that it’s relative. Yes, that makes sense.
Because it makes sense why you would still have wars and rumors of wars even if there was still a general relative peace compared to what it’s been for 5000 years before now.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Yes. And it’s not to say that everything is always going to be peaceful. They still talk about troubles. They still talk about things. But relatively speaking, and I think often what we’re doing is we’re taking that pebble out of the beach and holding it up to our. And that’s all we see, but what we don’t see is the perception of what it was like beforehand.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yes, I’m with you.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: And you know what? It’s kind of just fascinating to me is after the gospel is restored in 1830, and Joseph Smith is, I’ll say, an enzyme to the gentiles to pull them together and also fuels the restoration, the United States taking a big part in establishing Israel and the land over in Jerusalem, zoos become a globally. So you and I, we can take our kids to go to the zoo to see all of the animals, right? That wasn’t a big thing for common people to be able to do, historically speaking. It’s like the Friedman painting, where you’ve got Abinadi and Noah. And Noah’s got, like, these wild animals, right?
[00:24:11] Speaker B: That painting’s fire.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Zoos, anciently, is just the very wealthy who would collect animals and have them fight each other, right, for their amusement or have these fierce animals for their look at how cool I am. But it’s not until the 18 hundreds. It’s not until after the restoration of the gospel that you have, starting here, these zoos that show up where you can go and see all of these animals, not to fight each other, but to observe them, to where I can take my kids to the zoo, and they’ll sit there and tap on the glass of a poisonous snake. And I don’t see any more literal fulfillment than what Isaiah is talking about when he says, and the sucking child shall play on the whole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den and not get hurt. In the zoo, you have literally wolves and sheep and lions and ox and poisonous serpents, all living without consuming each other.
And that’s something that’s happened since the restoration of the gospel, when God has put forth his hand a second time to restore his people. So, in Isaiah’s words, I see, symbolically, the predator and the prey have stopped consuming each other, to some extent, relatively. But then I also see a very literal fulfillment in the creation of these zoos and to the point where a child can come in. It’s not just a wealthy man’s habit anymore.
I don’t know.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: It’s kind of fascinating.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Isaiah liked the zoo.
Isaiah’s jealous. How’s that, Isaiah? We get to go up to hogle zoo.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: If he saw our day, he was probably definitely jealous. That guy had it rough.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: It’s part of the reason that I don’t want to die. It’s not anything other than my kids are going to maybe get flying cars and I don’t.
There is a little bit of FOMO there.
That would be one bummer, right, about seeing the future is you’d be like, oh, man, they get to have like video games. I don’t know, or whatever. You would. I imagine that Isaiah probably couldn’t give a crap about video games. I guess I’m just saying, though, it would be hard if you got to see the peace and the really relative peace, I guess, of the world and all of these awesome conveniences and indoor plumbing. That’s probably what it is. Isaiah was probably like, wait a minute. You’re telling me that they all get to live in really nice houses and all have indoor plumbing and running water and they get to go just to the grocery store and just pick up some food or the communication or medicine or just everything? Yeah.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: If I call somebody instead of having to walk.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: That’s right, word travel, right? It’s all these things. It’s like, man, I don’t want to see the future because it’s just going to bum me out that I’m not going to live in it.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Those guys had it easy. I got to put in a tree and sawn in half in a log.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: That’s ridiculous.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: It’s a terrible ending.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: That is a terrible ending.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Poor Isaiah.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: I know at that point he was probably just like, I’ve seen it all at this point.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Send it.
I’ve seen things that I’d rather enjoy.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah, just let me go. All right, so Isaiah saw Joseph Smith. That’s the point we’re trying to make here. It’s awesome. Okay, keep going.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Now, as we’re finishing up with Isaiah and they talk about the blessings of the gospel being restored and whatnot, I think we have an opportunity here to maybe take one more deep dive into Babylon, if you will. Chapter 24. For the Lord shall have mercy on Jacob, and yet choose Israel. And it talks about all these wonderful blessings that come with the restoration of the gospel. And the Lord having sent his hand a second time through his servant to recover all of his people. Now they’re going to learn, though, when they enjoy all this peace, they look back on Babylon and say, really? This is the nation that caused us to tremble. This was the nation that caused us to fear so much.
And I almost want to replace Babylon here.
Maybe even with the great and spacious building or anything that kind of persecutes us. Or we look at and we think that they’re so much more powerful or so much more inspiring and think that was what we sought after, when all along we could have been humble in seeing the Lord. And the way he describes Babylon.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: This.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Is comparable to Isaiah 14 is where it’s going to quote this.
Verse five. The Lord broke the staff and the wicked scepters, so he humbles him. Thy pomp is brought down in verse eleven and verse twelve. The verse I think that we’re all very familiar with. How art thou fallen from heaven, o Lucifer, son of the morning? Art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into the heavens. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit upon the mount of the congregation and the sides of the north.
And in this lesson of exalting themselves, this is why Babylon was destroyed. Because they thought that they could be better than God themselves.
But isn’t that why God sent Assyria in the first place? To destroy Israel is because of their hypocritical nature? Because they thought that they could exalt themselves greater than that. Isn’t this the pride, Nate, that you’ve been talking about for the last.
We. We look at Babylon.
It’s easy to replace Babylon with Jerusalem or with Assyria or with us.
When do we think we know better than God to counsel him and say, yeah, your plan’s great, but I’ve got a better idea.
When we walk in the sparks of our own light and God says, this shall you have at my hand. You shall lie down in sorrow. This is what happened. And he’s taking the king of Babylon, and he’s describing him in terms that we all read this, and I don’t know how we all just assume, oh, this Lucifer is talking about this fallen angel from heaven. But we make that connection. And I think it’s fascinating. We make that connection because we’re associating the king of Babylon or anyone consumed with pride to the very first sin, let’s call it even before Adam and Eve on earth. The idea that one of the sons of God thought he knew better than God, to propose an alternate solution, to, say, my will not thine.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: And for what ultimate end? Pride? I want the glory.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: And this is where I feel there’s a misjustice done with the translation.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: Isaiah 14.
So, second, Nephi 24 preserves the exact same reading as Isaiah 14 when they call him Lucifer. Isaiah, as we know, is kind of this Wordsmith, this poet. He says, hale ben Shakar. Ben is son. I think most of us familiar with that word. Maybe Shakar is the dawn or the sun of the morning.
And so, Hale, when the translators looked at this and they saw sun of the morning, they’re like, well, what is the morning star?
That’s Venus. This is referencing the planet. This is the light bearer. So that planet, Ishtar, Lucifer, light bearer. Loose means light in Latin. Pharaoh, it’s to carry or to bear. Lucifer, light bearer, this Venus star. And the reason why they had to guess on the translation is because Isaiah creates this word Hale, and it’s a proper name.
But just because it only shows up here once in the entirety of the Bible doesn’t mean we don’t have a good grounding to understand what it means.
Hallel is the beginning of the word hallelujah.
Yah in Hallelujah is Jehovah. Hallel is praise Jehovah. And so if you take the hebrew verb hale, which is to praise or boastful, arrogant, it’s the proud.
So we’re praising Jehovah in the verb. But if you take that verb, and this is what Isaiah did, he changed it from a verb to a noun. So think of the noun form of praising or giving a tribute to or. Now he’s taken it, and it is boastful. One, arrogant one.
That’s what he was referring to, the king of Babylon. And that’s what happened with Satan in the beginning, is that he was proud in his heart to think that he knew better than God, to think that he had another solution. And so when we translate it as just Lucifer, son of the morning, we kind of miss that sense of meaning. It’s any of us, when we become boastful enough to think we know better than God. And I loved where we landed on this last week, Nate, because I think there are two extremes to how we become boastful. To think we know better than God.
And one is when we think we know better, we have another way to save ourselves. We’re smarter, we get things or we see. Obviously, God can’t see the way things I do.
But the other one, I think, is to deny God the ability to save us because we think we’re too far lost. We think that we know better, that God can’t possibly save me, that I am not worth saving, even though God says that we are. And so you have these two extremes of being boastful. But anytime it’s my will, not thine, we run the risk of becoming this. And that’s the lesson of Isaiah.
Let’s take all the history lessons aside. Let’s take all the poetry. Let’s take all of the prophecies of messiahs that are going to be killed. And just look at this. Isaiah is talking about a nation that became too proud. And so another one comes and humbles them, and that one became too proud. And so they had to be humbled, and this one became too proud, and this one had to be humbled, and this one. So what is the overall purpose of Isaiah?
Trust God.
Don’t become so proudful that you think you know better. Put your trust in God and he will deliver you.
The captive will be set free, the prey will be delivered out of the jaws. Trust God. And don’t think you know it.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: I love it. I think the parts about that Isaiah that I do like are that there are a lot of the symbolisms that he talk about that do translate over the years about the fine apparel, whether or not he’s even talking about specifically the clothing. Right. Or the tinkling things and stuff. We talked a lot about this last week. But so many of these things aren’t necessarily supposed to be literal. But they can be, I guess, literal. That’s the geniusness of this, right? Is that they both can be. But the idea is all of these things all point back to, hey, look at me, I can dress myself to be beautiful again, not literally, but it’s up to me to put on the air of greatness. And every time the Lord comes through, basically is like, I’m going to strip you naked, and now you get to wear these potato sacks. But the point is that God’s.
This is a theme that you and I have talked about. Really. We kind of started in the Old Testament, starting to talk about this, which is Satan’s way is always the counterfeit or the shortcut or the idea of the shortcut, because the irony is the shortcut usually ends up taking three times longer when you have to go back and just redo it the right way.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: But as we’re reading through this again, you bringing up Satan, it’s like, it’s so funny that even the translation and the name is still just so close to. Right, the light bearer. It’s like, well, who do we think bears the light? Jesus. Right? Jesus is the light. We all believe this. And so it’s even amazing that just the way that it’s been translated is just like, it’s the almost version.
Lucifer or the son of the morning. It’s like, well, wouldn’t the son of the morning be an amazing thing? Right? But it’s just amazing how even just the translations of the names of Satan. But to your point, with Isaiah, it’s like all we’re told throughout the scriptures, we’re going to be crowned in glory and we’re going to be given the beautiful robes from God. It’s all of these things, right? And so you go, okay, well, then what’s the difference between that and us basically dressing ourselves in beautiful clothing?
It’s like, what’s the difference between those two things, right?
Why is one God’s way and one Satan’s way? And then you just have to go, okay, well, is one something that we do to glorify ourselves or something that we do? Instead of relying on God being the one to crown us in glory and to build us our mansions, we’re trying to build the Tower of Babel instead, or we’re trying to build our own mansions, thinking that that’s going to know the thing that saves us, I guess, right? It’s just fascinating to read these things and going, man, what is such a fine line between God’s way and Satan’s way and so many of these examples that it’s almost impossible sometimes to tell the difference between the two if you’re not cultivating, like we always say, a personal relationship and receiving revelation and being in touch with the spirit to be the thing going, this is you being proud versus this is you glorifying God and then receiving things. I don’t know. Does that make sense?
[00:38:41] Speaker A: It makes sense. It absolutely makes sense. And ironically enough, I mean, you talk about Lucifer sounding like a title for Christ. And second Peter, it is a title for Christ until Lucifer arises in your hearts. As literally in Latin, it says Lucifer in the text as Christ is the light bearer. But to your point, I mean, Isaiah is talking about stripping Israel down and making her sit naked in the dust. But then in a few chapters later, arise out of the dust and adorn yourselves. Put on the beautiful garments, put on the robes.
And isn’t that what happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve find themselves naked because of what they did?
And what is the difference is you’re talking about contrasting us clothing ourselves versus God clothing us.
Isn’t Adam and Eve’s makeshift atonement to try to hide what they did and covering themselves with fig leaves? And how much inferior is that to the coats of skin that God makes, that covers them in every way and keeps them warm?
[00:39:39] Speaker B: And I mean, functionally even, right? It’s interesting because what is the art? Remember how we talk about this all the time, how art influences what we see, but when we talked about this in class today. It’s like, what were Adam and Eve wearing? Even with my kids, it’s like, oh, they had, like, the little tree branches and stuff in the fig leaves. I’m like, oh, it is so funny. That’s an amazing thing that we associate Adam and Eve way more with wearing the fig leaves than wearing the coats of skin, which one of those is actually the important part of that story, right. But through history, when we think of Adam and Eve naked in the forest, what do we always associate with what they’re wearing?
The inferior version.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Well, the same thing with the Christmas story. If we talk about Ebenezer Scrooge, who do we always think of? It’s the penny pinching miser that’s doing everybody wrong. Wait a second. Isn’t he the one that took care of tiny Tim, that bought the largest goose? That was the most generous guy. Like, why can’t we remember him for where he ended up?
[00:40:43] Speaker B: Dude, now that we’re going down this path, it’s like, why do we as a church, not worship the cross? Because that’s not the end of the story. But it’s funny that that’s the iconography, that’s the symbol of Christianity, is the cross and not the empty tomb. Because, I don’t know, maybe it’s just hard to put an empty tomb on a necklace or some earrings. But do you see what I mean, though? It’s funny that even throughout time, the inferior, not inferior, because the cross is obviously still, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. But with Adam and Eve, it’s just funny that even the way that we perceive them throughout history is the fig leaves and not the coats of skin, that something had to die for them to be clothed in, but would serve them. By the way, going out into the lone and dreary world, it’s like fig leaves aren’t going to keep you warm at night. Fig leaves aren’t going to protect you from anything. Right?
[00:41:39] Speaker A: That breeze comes. What happens to leaves in the wind?
[00:41:42] Speaker B: That’s what I say. They’ll probably blow off, and you’re just as nude as you were before.
But the coat of skin is, even though something had to die to make it, it’s such a superior form of protection even to the whole situation, and.
[00:41:58] Speaker A: It’S a hard line to balance. I mean, you look at it, and God asked, we’ll get to this later on. Right? We’re covering the book of Mormon this year, but God asked the brother of Jared to build barges to sell across the ocean in. And if Jared just does what God asks without putting any thought or out in trying to, I’m just going to trust and hand everything over to, no, there’s no holes in that boat for air. There’s no light in that boat to be able to prepare food or survive. That’s a short trip.
That’s a quick trip that ends in disaster. And so you say, well, God’s expecting them to think for themselves, to be able to start like, oh, well, then where do you draw the line? Because God’s expecting us to dress ourselves, right? God’s expecting us to make the fig leaf to cover ourselves. Is he? God gives us direction and he expects us to be anxiously engaged in a good work and coming back to him and saying, where do I find the tools to make this? Where do I do that? And then God says, well, no, you’ve become too arrogant and forgetting me and not doing these things with me. And so it becomes a very fine line to balance. How do we do what the Lord is asking and still learn and discover and be part of that revelatory process and say, what do I do for light? What do I do for air?
[00:43:12] Speaker B: This a really great comment. I’m going to take this a step further. And it struck me today in the class that we were in, the guy I was co teaching with is awesome, but we were talking about this, and again, that fine line between Satan’s shortcut or counterfeit or just one step sideways to the right path or the things that God asked us to do and we landed on very much like, you have to have a connection with the Holy Ghost and you have to be able to feel confident in that line of communication. Because his comment was that it’s really not as cut and dry as we sometimes make it out to be like, well, if it’s good, we’ll just know it’s good. And if it’s not, we just won’t.
He said, what if you, as you’re driving home one night, you feel a strong prompt to be like, hey, you need to go into that bar where there’s maybe some terrible things going on and stuff like that, because there’s some soul in there that needs you to go in and speak to them for five minutes and then obviously get the heck out of the bar, but go in there. What if there’s a soul in there that needs you more than ever in that five minutes to go rescue them? And he’s like, what do you do? He’s like, you probably would need to feel fairly confident that that’s an actual spiritual prompting to be like, hey, I’m going in this club or this bar that I very much should not be going in and seeing the things I might be seeing, but I’m being told right now to go in there and get that person out of there, right? And I’m like, that’s a great question. He said, on the flip side, there’s so many times that maybe in the safety of our congregations we may be following a wrong prompting and being, going off on some tangent and really destroying a lot of people, even in the safety of a church building or something like that, because we don’t have a good enough relationship with the spirit. And so we’re taking something completely the wrong way. And he just pretty, he needed to have a pretty firm communication to know, hey, I’m chopping this dude’s head.
Like he’s in that moment.
His whole life up to that point, had to have cultivated the confidence that he had in his communication with God to know where that line was in. Is this the righteous thing to be doing or is this the thing that’s going to condemn me? And it was really such an impactful point to me because of what the idea was, which is while the sea is calm, is when we should be spending the time cultivating that line of communication and learning how the spirit speaks to us individually and trying to do everything that we possibly can to build that communication with the spirit so that when we are driving past that place that we should never be going into and the spirit says, pull the car over, there’s somebody in there that I need you to go speak to for a few minutes because you might be saving an entire generation’s worth of souls.
You’re so much more confident in. I know what this prompting feels like versus the counterfeit version of it, that I’m going to have the confidence to do something that, you know what I mean? In theory, goes totally against x, y and z, and you go and potentially save an entire generation’s worth of souls.
And at times in the similar circumstances, if you’re feeling prompted to go and go off on some crazy tangent, maybe, I don’t know, in a Sunday school lesson or so, you know, see what I mean? In a quote unquote safe space, God.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Told me you should marry me.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Oh, to preach.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: Though in theory, in a very common good environment, right? We’re told to be married, we’re told to find our eternal companions, but we can sometimes use the false versions of that. And if we’re not confident in how the spirit actually speaks to us. It can get us in trouble either way, I guess, is all I’m saying.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Is the prompting that we’re receiving meant to take away the agency from someone else or preserve the agency? And I think there’s some good guidelines that we can stack up.
[00:48:07] Speaker B: The inspiration that we feel 100% again, we shouldn’t feel again. If tomorrow. I’m saying, like, hey, I’m getting the prompting to take my son up on the mountain and sacrifice him. I’m like, yeah, that’s just not how things are done. I’m not doing it right. You see what I mean?
[00:48:23] Speaker A: Better be pretty convincing.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: I mean, it would need to be. Yeah, I’m not doing it, is all I’m saying.
[00:48:29] Speaker A: That’s a rough one.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: That’s a rough one.
I think God knows me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be able to do that. And so I’m just like, I guess if that’s what it is, if it’s this or I’m going to hell, I guess I’m going to hell. But you see what I’m saying? Luckily, God knows he’s not putting that on me because he knows where I’m at. I’m doing my best, but I guess that was the only point I was trying to make. Is that what I’ve loved about the Isaiah chapters is that on a very real level, it’s overemphasized.
You have to be so careful of when your own pride starts, like, slipping in, by the way, in the middle of things that we’re supposed to be doing. And we’ve talked even about this. I’m trying to remember when we talked about it, but it’s like, even when we give a talk in church, that’s a good thing. We should want to give a really good talk in church, right? But are we giving a good talk in church so that everybody will come up after and be like, that’s the best talk I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I can’t believe you. It’s like, where’s even the fine line between that when it’s pride or when it’s just, I don’t know, a sincere desire to do the right thing? Do you see, dude, this is where we who aren’t going out murdering people, right? This is where you and I get ourselves in trouble are these types of things, right?
[00:49:55] Speaker A: What’s the screw tape letters? Right?
When the little demons talking to his uncle, screw tape or whatever, and trying to get advice on how to help corrupt this guy. And he’s like, you know, he’s been really good lately. Have you reminded him that he’s been good?
[00:50:07] Speaker B: That’s what I mean.
[00:50:08] Speaker A: Because then he can be prideful. That’s a really powerful tool, and that can help them fall.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Pride is a tricky thing, man.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: It’s a tricky thing.
I think the guide has been laid out from us, for us from the beginning. In the instance of my will versus thy will and christ saying, not my will, but thine be done, versus the other one saying, I know a better way.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s a good way to leave that off. I think we’ve talked about it enough. Anything else you wanted to talk about this week?
[00:50:43] Speaker A: Now, Nephi finishes up in chapter 25 and tries to make this very plain and very beautiful.
He’ll actually take it and talk about the Messiah coming and the branch of David.
It’s good to always turn the focus back to Christ. And I think Isaiah talks enough about Christ that there’s enough there to really give us hope and to understand he is our example. And he did put God’s wills first, even though it made him a celebrity in his own right. Doing all of these miracles, he found a way to balance that and never make it about himself, but always make it about God. A great pattern. I see these Isaiah chapters a little bit different as he’s talking about the last days, and I see them with how he’s talking about Joseph Smith in our time.
But I feel like all these chapters are just, they’re beautiful. It’s worth reading.
[00:51:40] Speaker B: It’s worth reading even if it’s a bit of a word salad at times for people like me, the simpletons, I read that stuff and I’m like, these are just words put together in a way that makes zero sense, but it is what it is. But I appreciate, Jason, you being willing to spend the time to kind of do the legwork for us and help us understand these better. You can get a hold of us at the email address. Hi@weeklydeepdive.com.
Any perspective that you all would love to add to this. We would love to hear it. We always appreciate the feedback. We appreciate those of you that have been willing to jump on and leave us a review and leave us. What do they call those? Not like a star. Like, what is it when they leave stars? Is it a rating?
[00:52:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so.
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