Greatest sorrow and affliction in the wilderness. Who is the seer that Lehi see’s? The stick of Joseph and the stick of Juda. Crying to the Lord. Why did Laman and Lemuel go after Nephi after he left?
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Amy Grant: El Shadai. El shadai. El Yona Adonai.
[00:00:07] Nate: You weren’t ready for that, were you?
[00:00:10] Jason: I guess I’m not the only one with surprises. By the boy. You pulled that right out of left field on me. The name.
El Shaddai. El Shaddai.
We will praise and lift you high.
[00:00:31] Nate: What a song, dude.
[00:00:33] Jason: And I thought I was going to drop one on you. It was you that surprised me all along.
[00:00:37] Nate: See, here’s the thing, man. You can’t give me the heads up that you’re going to surprise me because, you know, Amy Grant’s just in my back pocket at all times.
[00:00:45] Jason: Thank you for that pleasant intro. Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the add add on Education network podcast, where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussions and try to add a little Amy Grant into there occasionally.
If you were confused, as many of you might be, this goes back to whatever podcast episode it was we covered. I believe it was Moses one in the pearl of great price. And we were talking about the name that God introduces himself with, and he presents himself as the preserver of life, the creator of life and the destroyer of life. And that’s kind of where this El Shaddai came from.
And a fun discussion. And Amy Grant was first introduced to the show and she’s kind of made some.
[00:01:40] Nate: She’s basically part of this show. As far as semi regular appearances, I consider her just as much a member of this show as you or I, El Shaddai.
[00:01:54] Jason: She just doesn’t know it yet.
[00:01:56] Nate: I wonder if she does the cameo thing. Have you heard about that? They have like that website or there’s like an app that you can hit up celebrities and pay them money to do specialized greetings for. So if your friends has a birthday coming up and he was a huge Sugar Ray fan, the band, you can hit up Mark McGrath and be like, hey, mark, here’s $20. I need you to give me a 32nd clip of where you’re like, hey, Brody, it’s Mark McGrath from your favorite band from the 90s, Sugar Ray.
Happy birthday, bro. I hope it’s a great one. Thanks so much for supporting my music over the years. And you’re like, that’s the best $12 I’ve ever spent.
[00:02:41] Jason: Is there one to do a cameo for the Rick roll? Please tell me there is.
[00:02:45] Nate: Oh, there has to be. I would think that we should look into this because if Rick Astley has cameo, he’s probably had an entire second career from just cameo. So anyways, I need to find out about Amy Grant, though, because if we can get a cameo from Amy grant, I’ll be like, I’ll pay you whatever.
It’s funny because we have no production budget whatsoever for this show yet. I am willing to come out of pocket if we can get Amy Grant to be a permanent staple as, like, an intro to this show, it would be fantastic. All right, what are we talking about tonight?
[00:03:16] Jason: Tonight we’re diving into second Nephi chapters three through five. This is the rest of Lehi’s speech as he’s concluding his message to his sons before he passes away. And it’s going to finish with Nephi separating from his brothers and running for the hills to start all over again, something he’s very familiar with at this stage in life. I guess he got good practice doing that in the wilderness because he’s able to do it again.
So let’s dive in.
We don’t have anything from last week, right?
[00:03:48] Nate: No, I don’t think so.
[00:03:49] Jason: We’re just starting, right?
[00:03:50] Nate: Yeah.
[00:03:51] Jason: Secondified, chapter three, verse one. And now I speak unto you, Joseph, my last born. Thou wast born in the wilderness of mine afflictions. Yea, and in the days of my greatest sorrow did thy mother bear thee. It’s kind of a heavy introduction to drop on your son as you’re talking to him. By the way, son, let me remind you that you were born in my greatest afflictions and my heavy sorrow.
But there’s some significance to this.
Remember Joseph in ancient Egypt, and Jacob, his father, and all of the race to produce sons that Rachel and Leah had? And Rachel kind of being this favorite wife, and right to the end, she produces a baby named Benjamin. And Benjamin’s kind of this favored little child. But here’s the deal. Benjamin, because his mom realized she was going to die, names him son of my sorrow.
Benoni.
[00:04:52] Nate: The name Benjamin means is son of My.
[00:04:56] Jason: Jacob. Jacob.
[00:04:57] Nate: I was going to say, I know some Ben’s in my life that I was about ready to just go, like, full on flaming them. Dude, I was about ready to just start shooting out text messages. Like, you’re never going to believe why your mom named you this Benoni.
[00:05:10] Jason: If you know a Benoni, then feel free. Okay.
[00:05:13] Nate: But if it’s Benjamin, I sadly don’t know any.
Sounds like a. Sounds like an.
[00:05:22] Jason: Sounds like a.
Yeah, I’m going to go with italian pastry as well.
[00:05:26] Nate: All right.
Or like a toe fungus. I don’t know. It’s one of the two. All right, keep going.
[00:05:31] Jason: So Jacob changes his name to Benjamin, son of my right hand.
And he holds a special spot in his place for Benjamin. So I think when Lehi addresses Joseph and talks about him being born in his great sorrow, he’s tipping his hat to Benjamin, who was born in a great sorrow where his favorite wife had passed away. And she was even going to name him son of my sorrow.
And if you think about it in this sense, in this regard, well, we’ll get to this in a little bit. But Lehi is setting the stage and he’s going to be talking to Joseph about the prophecies of Joseph of old. And so these connections, these tie ins are not incidental or by mistake, but they’re setting the stage for talking about some ancient prophecies from Joseph himself.
But I think there’s also some depth to this verse. When we talk about Lehi in the wilderness and him referring to this as his greatest affliction and his greatest sorrow, remember that he’s out in the wilderness because the Lord asked him to go. In a sense, this is Lehi’s mission. And I feel like there are missionaries out there who have been called to serve a mission. And they go out there and they serve, and whatever the case may be, and they come back and people ask them, how was your mission? And they’re fully expecting them to say, that was the best two years of my life. And instead the response is, I hated it. That was my greatest affliction and potentially maybe the greatest sorrow I’ve experienced.
Sometimes missionaries coming back with this perspective or these trials that they went through get viewed negatively like, oh, man, he must not have been righteous. Or, oh, man, he must not have been a good missionary or whatever the case may be. I think often, maybe too often, judgment can be passed on a missionary based on how he viewed his experience.
Lest we be too harsh, Lehi describes his mission in the same terms.
And when we look at Lehigh and why it was such a negative experience, he’s out there, you’d think, isn’t this a good opportunity to just bond with your family? You’ve pulled away out of society you’ve cut off from. Who thinks that it’s an extended camping trip, just quality time. Okay, we’ve all seen, I want to.
[00:08:11] Nate: Live in a mountain in Montana. And even this story I read and I’m like, that doesn’t sound fun.
For eight years or seven years or whatever we’re talking about. I don’t know anybody that fits this description you’re giving, but okay, here, I’ll.
[00:08:25] Jason: Cut it short and just say this.
I think Lehi’s experience would have been drastically different had he had kids that weren’t plotting to kill him and his other son. That’s true. I think the company makes all the difference in the world. And if you talk to missionaries that had a miserable experience, oftentimes the companions that they had or the mission president they served under, or the people that they were out there knocking on the doors and having conversations with that hated them and chased them away. And whatever else may be, sometimes it’s the company you’re with that really makes the experience that you have. And you think about what job went through and how much did his friends make it better when they come and show up on his doorstep and say, hey, job, by the way, all this is happening to you because you’re a sinner.
[00:09:14] Nate: That’s interesting.
[00:09:15] Jason: Yeah.
Maybe we should think about what kind of company we are. Okay.
[00:09:19] Nate: I was going to be like, what are we taking away from this?
[00:09:22] Jason: So when a missionary comes back with a terrible experience, don’t look at them and say, man, you’re such a sinner. Because maybe we’re even making that after experience even worse. Like, job’s friends trying to console him over what happened. Sometimes doing what the Lord asks us to do is not exactly our best two years of our life or the greatest experience we’re going to have.
[00:09:42] Nate: Can I throw out the counter not argument? But it’s just the opposite end of the spectrum.
[00:09:49] Jason: I’d love to hear it.
[00:09:51] Nate: There was also, I feel like sometimes a weird sense of, if you’re not miserable while you’re out on a mission, you’re not doing good enough.
I don’t describe my mission as the best two years of my life by any means, but I had a blast.
I came home and it was just like, that was a fantastic.
But even in the moment, I feel like I had a lot of perspective. I really did. Like, for the most part, just be like, this is rad. Even when I had campaigns that kind of were not my favorite, but it’s not that I actually felt like I disliked any of them. But sometimes you just vibe with people some better. And there were some times that I felt like, at least at the time, I probably would have a totally different. Now that I’m like, this dude’s kind of a goober. But I actually would just kind of make that even a fun thing. Yet there were times where it was like you would have the people kind of stand up and say, we’re out knocking doors till we’re just dead and we’re just miserable. And nobody’s saying yes, but I know that I’m putting in my whatever, and I’m like, oh, man, I’m having the time of my life. I get to meet a bunch of cool people. I get to eat a bunch of cool new food from all different places in the world. I grew up in Logan, Utah. I didn’t eat any of these things, dude. It’s a funny story I tell. The first time I had avocado was my first dinner in the Bay area. And in the salad, there was the chunks of this green stuff that I’m like, what is this incredibly delicious, creamy, smooth green plant? And they’re like, avocado?
I was like, yes. Like, I’ve always heard of avocado. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten it.
[00:11:40] Jason: This is a real thing.
[00:11:42] Nate: But my point is.
Let me throw this out there, though, too, though.
To that point in my life, I had never also felt the depths of hurt and sadness of when you would be teaching somebody. You would go over a week later and everything was going good, and they’re just like, you know, my pastor gave me all this stuff, and now I don’t want to get baptized anymore, and I actually don’t want you guys to come back now. So this is kind of something we talked about a couple, maybe it was last week.
Even in the depths of the hurt and the sadness, right. The opposition of really how I felt in general, even that still played into it being such a fun experience.
And it kind of got a little weird with me and some of the other dudes out there all the time that were just like, oh, you’re just out here having the time of your life? I’m like, yeah, this is really fun. Like, I love all these people. We get along really well. Some of them decide to get baptized, and the ones that don’t, I don’t love them any less.
I’m still friends with people, literally to this day that we still shoot texts back and forth that will never get baptized in this life as far as either of us could foresee. And it didn’t matter. It all added to the awesomeness of the whole experience. So there is sometimes also kind of a weird balance on the other side of that spectrum, which is we almost feel sometimes like we have to be whipping our back. That’s exactly right. And that’s usually the image I would use, is like, I’m not out there flogging myself to be like, now I feel the hurt and the pain and the misery. Now I’m doing a good job. So there is an extreme on both sides that I think we just need to be careful of. That’s all. I wasn’t disagreeing.
[00:13:35] Jason: No, I’m glad you brought that up. I mean, it’s a good point. And it’s easy to be critical of ourselves or maybe even be critical of others and just understand that experiences are different. Right.
[00:13:48] Nate: And not only that, but do you honestly think that you wouldn’t also, if we could ask Lehi, do you think he would not say that he still experienced joy through that process? So even though this was his greatest.
[00:14:01] Jason: Burden, there were great moments in there.
[00:14:03] Nate: He probably wouldn’t describe it as his greatest misery, but maybe. What’s the word he uses? Exactly.
[00:14:09] Jason: That’s a great point. Just because he says that this was.
Let’s look at the exact words, right. He says, thou was born in the wilderness of mine afflictions. Yea, and in the days of my greatest sorrow. There’s nothing in there that says just because it was his afflictions and greatest sorrow was not also his greatest joy.
[00:14:28] Nate: That was the only point I was going to make, is that even when I bring this up, it’s so funny. I can vividly feel three very specific moments at that time in my life, the darkest times of my life. But it wasn’t ever about me, strangely enough. Right.
But I still would never have come back and say, hey, these three dark moments define these two years.
And to be fair, I’ve had some conversations with some friends that are like, hey, I went over to a foreign speaking mission. It was the toughest language I ever had to learn. Never really felt like I could communicate. Was just rejected after rejected and came back and was like, no, that was the most miserable thing of my entire life. And I’m like, I don’t judge you, because to be honest, what you just described sounds miserable to me, too.
Like, I got to speak English. And if had you gotten rid of my ability to communicate.
[00:15:34] Jason: That’S one of.
[00:15:35] Nate: The few things that I can be like, that’s a gift for me, is that I can actually sit across from a stranger and in a very short amount of time be like, you and I can kind of bro down in one way or the other. We may disagree, but at the end of the day, had I not been able to communicate with people, I’m like, that actually does sound miserable. So I’m not saying this in any sort of a judgmental way. I’m just saying that there were times where I would almost view people that I was surrounded by purposefully doing things to be miserable and then kind of criticizing those of us that are like, yeah, man, we have some dark days and there’s some rough days, but, dude, we’re happy. This is cool, man, and it’s fun. And you know what? We’re going to go have a little adventure today.
Maybe it’s not exactly by the handbook, and you can be mad at us about that, but we’re going to go find a fun way to do missionary work today, and that’s because we’re happy people and we’re not miserable. Right. And so, again, there’s just kind of a balance. I’m just saying, even when we read this, I’m not even suggesting that Lehi, if we didn’t get the chance to talk to him, would probably be like, oh, no, my greatest joys were also discovered in this process as well.
[00:16:53] Jason: And when I think about his greatest afflictions and his greatest sorrows, honestly trying to put myself into his shoes, if I were a parent, leading my family away from society, away from everything, out into the unknown and wandering around, I would feel responsible for their well being, and I would feel responsible for their happiness, and I would feel responsible for how things are going. And if they can’t get food all of a sudden, or they’re starving and they’re starting to second guess my decision to take them out, that weighs on me. That weighs on me really heavy.
And I worry, if they’re not happy, then am I making the right choice? And I think I would really question myself and wonder, am I just following a whim? Was that dream that I had, was that just some weird dream, or was that the right thing? I’ve had it very clearly shown to me what I should do. And yet, within a day or two, or maybe even within a few hours, start second guessing and saying, was that really it? Am I really going down? So for Lehi to be making these decisions and guiding his family out and then seeing them suffer, having to wonder if he’s making the right call, and then to have his wife and his oldest sons say, we know that you’re foolish imaginations of your heart. We know your nature. We know that you invent or a visionary, and you have a lot of dreams. Those are probably his strongest fears, is that he’s letting these things control him or he’s not, what’s the right word, his greatest insecurities.
[00:18:37] Nate: It’s a great point. I want to throw this back at you because it made me think if you could put a fine point on what do you think specifically was his greatest afflictions and greatest sorrows? I think I have an answer to this.
Would it not be his children that left? Would it not be his children that fell away, but then.
[00:18:56] Jason: And worrying if his decisions caused them to fall?
[00:18:59] Nate: That’s what I’m saying. And that would be, as a parent, I would think that in this circumstance, at least how the text reads, you can see that it almost killed him when they were on the boat. Basically, it says that he and his wife were on their great deathbeds.
[00:19:16] Jason: Yeah.
[00:19:17] Nate: And when I read this, it reads very much like that. His greatest afflictions and greatest sorrows could be his children that rejected the fruit. Right. That pushed away.
But then we should have to say, wouldn’t it also probably be fair to assume that his greatest joy would be maybe seeing Nephi rise to the occasion, partaking of the seeing, maybe seeing the goodness. Not just goodness, the greatness of his other children?
And again, as you read the text of this, I just don’t want to personally feel like the conclusion is Lehigh leaves this world just going well, that sucked, because I think part of it, a lot of it did.
But I feel like it would just be unfair to at least allow the space for Lehi to also be like, hold on. Yeah, that was my greatest sorrow. And it hurts me to see, especially my oldest boys leave and reject this. But, wow, it wasn’t really incredible to watch my younger dudes step up and really grab ahold of this and lead and be strong and solid in this.
I don’t know. It’s just some thoughts, great thoughts.
[00:20:45] Jason: If I were to put kind of a fine point on all of this and move on, for those who are out there preparing to go on a mission, if you’re listening to this show, know that being called into the wilderness, or called to go serve the Lord or called to go do whatever, you’re probably going to have some really rough moments. And a lot of those moments are going to be caused by the people that you interact with and how they receive or don’t receive, or how you’re dealing with your companions and some of the people that you trust the most. You might lean on a mission leader, a bishop, a mission president might let you down. It might not be as good as you think, but some of your finest moments are going to come from that, too. Don’t expect it’s going to be all happy and peace and wonderful, and don’t expect that it’s going to be just miserable, but it’s going to be an experience that you’re going to be better for coming out on the other side.
[00:21:44] Nate: And as we try to say at least once, I feel like every episode, have the spirit with you, because that’s the peace and that’s the calm in the storm. So as gnarly as it can get and will get, and this isn’t just now, missionaries. This is all of us.
I’m just a big believer, and I’m making it one of my hopefully prominent highlights. It’s my mission this year to really get across that idea.
Peace. That’s what the spirit is. That’s what the gift of the Holy Ghost is. Is calm with everything else crazy around you. One.
[00:22:19] Jason: As much as we call the iron Rod, the word of God is not the word revealed by the spirit isn’t the spirit was made flesh into the word. The idea that the spirit is the word of God.
What better thing can you do when going through the mists of darkness than find that companionship? Have that spirit with you. And whatever the case may be, if it’s the best experience, the worst experience, having the spirit will sanctify that experience and cleanse you because of it.
[00:22:49] Nate: And then hang on for dear life.
[00:22:51] Jason: Hang on, hang on.
It’ll be mean. I can’t speak for everyone, but Nate and I, we had wonderful mission experiences. Missions. I still dream about being a missionary occasionally. It was a good time.
All right, going on verse two. And may the Lord consecrate also unto thee this land, which is a most precious land, for thine inheritance, and the inheritance of thy seed and thy brethren for the security forevermore, if it so be that you shall keep the commandments of the holy one of Israel. It’s interesting how much Christ is referenced here, and Nephi is referenced here in the same sort of way. You’re going to prosper in the land and be led, if you hold, to the holy one of Israel, if you follow him. And then how many times say never. So follow Nephi. As long as you follow Nephi, you’re going to be okay. It’s that type, that type of Christ.
And we’ve talked about Lehi the Father being this type of God and Nephi being this type of Christ. But you think about it, we had a listener of the show kind of point this out this week when going through the scriptures, and he says, just imagine Jerusalem here as heaven or our premortal life, even if you look at it and being cast out of heaven, going down into the wilderness as being. Coming down into the earth and the time that we wander here on earth, we need to be fed to survive. And Nephi was the one whose bow breaks, but yet he’s able to provide food for them. His bow. He finds a way and he feeds them. And if it were it not for Nephi, they would have perished for hunger.
And if they follow Nephi, they’re going to be led through to where they get to the promised land and going back, if you will, to a sense of heaven or whatever glory remains afterwards.
There’s a lot of imagery and symbolism in here. I think that’s right. But getting into this message, we’re going to talk a lot about this prophecy to Joseph, from Joseph, about Joseph’s seed.
Verse four. For thou art. Thou art the fruit of my loins.
That’s kind of a weird thing to say, isn’t it? Fruit of my loins.
[00:25:13] Nate: I mean, it’s fairly.
[00:25:15] Jason: Is it? I can do.
[00:25:19] Nate: We need to do, like, a parental advisory before this next part? I mean, it’s in the book. We read it with our kids. All right, continue.
[00:25:26] Jason: I keep getting stuck between fruit loops and fruit of the loom, but.
Fruit of the loom?
[00:25:31] Nate: Fruit, dude, that’s one of those mandela effect things. Haven’t you heard about that? Yes, because we all thought that the fruit of loom had that cornucopia. Yeah, apparently it doesn’t.
[00:25:44] Jason: I just remember the grapes and the. I know.
[00:25:47] Nate: All sitting in a cornucopia. Yeah, no, it’s not there. It never existed.
[00:25:50] Jason: Not there.
[00:25:52] Nate: Mandela effect. But that’s for a different podcast. That’s for a conspiracy theory podcast. All right, keep going.
[00:25:58] Jason: What is a loom?
[00:26:00] Nate: Isn’t a loom what you make?
[00:26:01] Jason: You make fabric.
[00:26:02] Nate: Fabric with.
[00:26:03] Jason: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:26:04] Nate: You make underwear.
[00:26:05] Jason: Is the fruit the produce of the loom, what was weaving together and created. There you go. I don’t know why we saw cornucopian fruit.
Because it was there in an alternate universe.
[00:26:15] Nate: All right, you made me say it. There you go.
[00:26:19] Jason: I’m sorry. I took us off track on this.
[00:26:21] Nate: Because in an alternate reality, we died, and then when we came back into this reality, we brought that back with us. All right, continue.
[00:26:28] Jason: All right, sorry. So talking about fruit of the loins, from the loins, offspring are produced, and so the fruit, the next generation. So a way of saying they’re kids. Right?
Wherefore Joseph truly saw our day, and he’s talking about his descendants.
I want to hold on to that line. Wherefore Joseph truly saw our day. And I think we read this, and we instantly assume Joseph saw our day today.
And as we read this, and I’m going to come back to this, let’s see how he saw our day. And he obtained a promise of the Lord that out of the fruit of his loins, the Lord God would raise up a righteous branch unto the house of Israel. So we talk about this family tree that is Israel and the roots, and going through here, he’s going to raise up a righteous branch, which is good, because we’ve seen this in the allegory of the olive tree. We’ve seen this in the vision that Lehi had a little bit earlier. We see this throughout the scriptures, this idea that this vineyard, this tree, is going to become corrupt. It’s going to become wicked, and we’re going to have to pull some branches off and move them around and graft here and there. And so this tree that’s not producing fruit, all of a sudden he’s going to raise up a righteous branch into this tree.
And this righteous branch is going to be from the descendants of Joseph, the seed of Joseph.
And it says unto the house of Israel, not the messiah. So we’re not talking about Christ, but a branch which was to be broken off nevertheless to be remembered in the covenants of the Lord, that the Messiah should be made manifest unto them in the latter days. So now we’re talking about in the latter days, a branch from the seed of Joseph. Now, if you guys don’t remember, Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. That’s what we’re talking about. From the branch of Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh, there’s going to be a righteous branch raised up in the last days, and these guys would have been forgotten for a long time. So even as we start saying this, I hope you guys are starting to connect some dots and this starts to look clear. I think this becomes clear to a lot of us in the spirit of power, under the bringing of them out of darkness into light, yea, out of hidden darkness and out of captivity unto freedom. For Joseph truly testified, saying, a seer shall the Lord my God raise up who shall be a choice seer unto the fruit of my loins.
Yea, Joseph truly said, thus saith the Lord unto me, a choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins. And he shall be esteemed highly among the fruit of thy loins. And unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins. His brethren shall be a great worth unto them, even to the bringing of them to the knowledge of the covenants which I have made unto the fathers a seer out of the fruit of the loins of Joseph, who is this great prophet from the line of Joseph.
And I think we look at this, he truly saw our days in the latter days. He’s going to raise up a seer from either Ephraim and Manasseh from Joseph.
And I think this becomes clear to us. I hope all you guys listening look at this and say, this is, I mean, who is it? Who is he talking about? A seer who’s going to create a book, who’s going to use that book to help establish the truth. And we’re going to talk about, as we read through this chapter, the seed of Joseph are going to write, the seed of Judah are going to write, and those two books are going to be joined together in one hand. It’s going to convince the world of the truth. And this seer is going to be greatly esteemed by all the other descendants of Joseph. And if we look at the descendants of Joseph, among Ephraim, among Manasseh, there’s a prophet who’s going to be raised up, who’s going to restore the gospel. Who is this prophet?
Who is it, Nate?
[00:30:37] Nate: Mormon.
[00:30:38] Jason: Mormon.
[00:30:39] Nate: Moroni. I know you want me to say Joseph Smith because you’re trying to trick me, dude, you’re trying to trick me.
[00:30:48] Jason: I’m trying to trick you? I see Joseph.
[00:30:51] Nate: I know I do, too, but I’m trying to figure out your angle here.
You don’t usually just give me layups like that and then not throw a zinger at me. Hit me in the back with the shoulder with a fastball, dude.
[00:31:04] Jason: It hit me this week as I was reading through this. I mean, every single time I’ve read this, I’m like, this is as clear as it gets. This is Joseph Smith who’s going to be raised up as a seer. And he will be likened to Moses that will lead his people out of darkness. And I think of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel, and he’s taking Israel and he’s gathering him here. And I think of patriarchal blessings and all the lineage being declared and all the ephraim that we have, that highly esteemed Joseph as this great seer who was able to create, translate this book and bring the book of Mormon and put it next together with the Bible and all of this. I see. But then I finished up and reading this chapter, I knew there was a zinger.
I knew it. It gets interesting to me, verse 25. When he’s concluding this speech to Joseph, he says, and now, blessed art thou, Joseph. Behold, thou art little. Wherefore, hearken unto the words of thy brother Nephi. And see, we see this as it started. Hearken unto the messiah. Hearken unto the Nephi, this type, right? And it shall be done unto thee, even according to the words which I have spoken. Remember the words of a dying father. And so all of these words that he has spoken, he’s telling him, remember this and hearken unto him because he is going to save you.
Wait a second.
Is Joseph expected to follow Joseph Smith thousands of years later? Because that’s going to save him.
Who is this Joseph? Remember, lehi says, wherefore Joseph truly saw our day. We read this, and we’re like, he truly saw our day. And we think of our time.
Lehi’s not applying this to us now.
And you look at, even when he says the latter days, right? You’ve got to remember, Joseph was over a thousand years before Lehi. This is much latter than what he’s talking about.
I think that the character that fits so well, the description of Joseph Smith that we look at, and so obviously we see it because it fits so well, and we see it so clearly, we miss the connection.
Remember, Lehi is talking to Joseph as if he’s Benjamin, Joseph’s little brother. He says, you’re the son of my sorrow. Heed this Joseph. Who is this Joseph? He’s a seer. Nephi saw everything his father saw. He had the same visions that Lehi saw. Nephi created the plates and created the commandments for the people to write in the plates. He’s the one that created the record of Joseph that was going to be combined with the record of the Jews so that the two books could be put together. He is the one that he’s telling him, remember, hearken to his words, the one that’s risen up like the messiah, that if you follow him, you will live.
[00:34:09] Nate: And he’s held in high esteem. I mean, they called themselves the Nephites.
[00:34:12] Jason: They tell themselves the Nephites.
I never caught this before. Maybe a lot of you guys at home caught this, but for me, it was kind of this. Wait a second. Lehigh’s not talking. It is Joseph in our day. But isn’t that the beautiful thing about prophecy is the dual or the triple or the quadruple or how many different times it repeats that pattern. And you could look at that pattern and say, oh, it’s fake. You’re just copying. And you’re like, no. Isn’t that God’s signature? Isn’t that what he does? Isn’t him one eternal round? And he keeps recycling these commandments and these stories. Isn’t that whole story about apostasy, restoration? And isn’t that the same thing as life and death and being brought back in resurrection? It’s these themes that just keep playing out over and over again. And the beauty is it applies so well back then, and yet it applies so well today.
And we can even look at it with our modern prophet right now and.
[00:35:19] Nate: Even fast forward from Gordon B. Hinckley was very much checks a lot of these boxes, other than maybe like the work, you know what I mean? The books. But really kind of brought the LDS church into a very public and very modern era of the media and of kind of the general social acceptance of who we are and was held in very high esteem and high regard. It was during HinkLey we got the proclamation of the family. Right. Yeah, I’m just saying there are some very dead on symbols there, too, which is cool. I’m just saying there’s a repeating pattern there. I mean, Joseph Smith, I get, is still probably also an answer to it, but I’m really glad that you’ve kind of thought through that in a different way. And that is some great insight.
[00:36:24] Jason: I really appreciated these verses.
Verse twelve. Wherefore the fruit of thy loins shall write, and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write, and that there shall be written by the fruit of the loins, and also the works shall be written up by the fruit of the loins of Judah shall grow together into the laying down, grow together unto the confounding of false doctrines, and laying down of contentions, and establishing peace among the fruit of thy loins, and bringing them to the knowledge of their fathers in the latter days. And also the knowledge of the covenants, saith the Lord.
And I think about the knowledge of the covenants. How much has the temple really shown up as we read the Book of Mormon and understand? And Joseph Smith restoring the temple Covenants and the covenants, the sacrament, the baptism, these covenant relationships that link us and bind us to the Lord, the first comforter, the second comforter, and really expounding and understanding and the clarity coming from this second book.
And so I read this prophecy of Joseph about how the seed of Judah is going to write, and I think that’s obvious, right? The Bible comes from the Jews, the southern kingdom, Judah kept those records.
And then this northern kingdom, the plates of brass, were kept by Laban, who was a descendant of Joseph.
They have a record.
And now Nephi’s writing a record. He’s a descendant of Manasseh, and his seed marries Ishmael’s daughter. Ishmael is a descendant of Ephraim. So quite literally, what you have in this group of people that are coming to America is the marriage of the offspring of Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s seed, keeping this sacred record that’s going to be combined to put aside the false doctrines, the confusions, and bring about clarity. So this prophecy says that we should be looking for a record of Joseph and a record of Judah to add clarity and help us to find the gospel of Jesus Christ, the true church. And you might say, well, that’s unfair, because that prophecy is recorded in the Book of Mormon. Of course, the Book of Mormon is prophesying about how the Book of Mormon is going to save the day and clarify all of the doctrine. But the beautiful thing is, this prophecy is recorded also in the record of the Jews when we go to Ezekiel, chapter 37.
And this is what we were saying earlier when we talked about building a treehouse, right? That single nail and that board and how it rotates around.
If the Book of Mormon says, hey, this record of the seed of Joseph is going to clarify the record of the Jews and make one solid church to put away the confusion.
Well, if we go into Ezekiel, chapter 37, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, that’s verse 15 and now verse 16. Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick and write upon it for Judah. And they called the scroll sticks, because they would take leather and they would write on it. And to preserve the leather, they would roll it up on a stick. So rather than call it a book like we do today, because we have bindings and print in a very different system, back then, the stick of Judah would be the book of Judah.
Write upon the stick for Judah and first children of Israel, his companion. Then take another stick and write upon it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companion, and join them one to another, into one stick, that they shall become one in thy hand.
And so to have not just the Book of Mormon talk about a writing of the seed of Joseph coming to help clarify the writing of the seed of Judah. To really think about it, Israel was split into two kingdoms, Joseph on the north and Judah on the south. And there was this loss, this separation and this prophecy, this idea that they would be mean, that comes back to those same patterns that we see, the apostasy, the restoration, the death, the resurrection, and to have not just the Book of Mormon prophesy, that these two records were going to be brought back together and heal that mending, but also to see those prophecies in the Bible and the Bible, it’s not just that one case in Ezekiel it’s going to talk about the enmity between Joseph and Judah is going to be gone. The two are going to be restored. Israel is going to be brought back into one. So if you don’t believe the Book of Mormon fulfills this prophecy, then I have to ask, where is the stick of Joseph? Where are the writings of Joseph’s seed? That’s supposed to be combined with the writing of Judah. That is going to unify Israel once more. That’s going to clear up things and bring us back to God.
And I don’t know that anyone else has offered that solution.
[00:41:36] Nate: Good insight. Let’s keep going.
[00:41:40] Jason: All right, let’s take a look into chapter four. Chapter four starts off, it’s kind of interesting because Lehi has called all of his children together, right? You hear from his blessing to Layman, to Lemuel, to Sam, to Nephi. Not to Nephi. Nephi is the one that gets left out for reasons unknown. Jacob, Joseph, even Zoram the servant gets kind of a blessing here, and Ishmael’s kids get a blessing.
But now he’s going to call Layman’s seed and Lemuel’s seed and bless the second generation. And as far as I know, this doesn’t happen with any of the other kids. It’s kind of a special blessing where he says, look, it’s not your fault. Whatever happens down the road, I’m going to answer it on parents instead of you. It’s kind of a weird blessing.
[00:42:30] Nate: Okay.
[00:42:34] Jason: Anyhow, where I want to focus on this chapter, verse eleven.
And after he had made an end of speaking unto them, he spake unto Sam, saying, blessed art thou and thy seed, for thou shalt inherit the land like unto thy brother Nephi, and thy seed shall be numbered with his seed. I think that line is incredibly important.
And thou shalt be even like unto thy brother and thy seed, like unto his seed, and thou shalt be blessed in all thy days. Why I’m focusing on this is because throughout the entire rest of the Book of Mormon, you will see Lamanites, Lemulites, you’ll see Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites. You will even see Zoramites. But not once will you ever see Samites?
It’s never mentioned.
How does a servant who’s not even one of Lehi’s sons get named and blessed in his own tribe? Zoramites. But Sam get left out? No, Samites. And it’s not even just the Book of Mormon if you go to doctrine, covenants, section three.
Check this out.
Verse 17. And to the Nephites and the Jacobites and the Josephites and the Zoramites, through the testimony of their fathers. Where’s Sam?
[00:44:12] Nate: Sam didn’t take the garbage out, man.
[00:44:15] Jason: No, he’s blessed, man. He’s righteous.
[00:44:24] Nate: Slipped up that one time. Dude, Sam must have done something.
[00:44:27] Jason: He doesn’t mention him slipping up.
[00:44:29] Nate: Well, there’s no other reason I can think of that he wouldn’t get a name of an it.
[00:44:34] Jason: Zorum gets it.
[00:44:36] Nate: That’s what I’m saying. I can’t think of anything else other than he forgot to cook dinner when it was his turn that week. He must have blown it.
[00:44:47] Jason: Dude, I think that answer really lies in. Your seed shall be numbered with your brother’s seat. And they shall be like your brother’s.
[00:44:54] Nate: Do you think he’s the gif of John Travolta? Looking around with his hands?
[00:45:02] Jason: Like, what kind of a blessing is that?
[00:45:06] Nate: Everybody else gets an.
[00:45:09] Jason: He’s. He’s the king’s line now, I guess. I mean, if Nephi’s the king, that’s lame. They’re like, you know, Sam, you are just like Nephi. You get to be counted with him. But here’s where this becomes significant, okay? If you’ve got six sons, one portion is one. Six, right?
Two portions would be two out of six or one third.
[00:45:35] Nate: Okay?
[00:45:36] Jason: Nephi inherits two portions. Sam inherits two portions. I mean, it’s a double portion.
Having Sam’s line counted with Nephi and everything grouped in there. You look at Israel, for example. Joseph has Ephraim and Manasseh. Everybody else inherits one portion in the holy land, Joseph inherits two. One for Ephraim, one for Manasseh.
[00:45:59] Nate: Yes, but not for himself. Strangely, right?
[00:46:02] Jason: Not for himself.
[00:46:03] Nate: It’s broken out into two, Ephraim and Manasseh.
[00:46:06] Jason: And so I’m looking at this, and I’m seeing Nephi. Really, it’s two. It’s Sam and Nephi. It’s a double portion. It’s a double inheritance. Those two get grouped into one whole.
[00:46:18] Nate: Group, and one third of those brothers falls.
[00:46:21] Jason: No, no. One third of the family falls.
[00:46:23] Nate: That’s what I’m saying of the brothers.
[00:46:25] Jason: Like, you have but one third. Here is the righteous portion, the double.
[00:46:30] Nate: Wait, I know, but aren’t Joseph’s kids are cool.
[00:46:35] Jason: Jacob’s are cool.
[00:46:36] Nate: Jacob’s are cool. That’s what I’m saying. So, layman and lemuel, isn’t that a third of the. Yes, that’s what I’m saying. A third of the sons fall away.
[00:46:44] Jason: Yep.
[00:46:45] Nate: Two thirds. Hang on. Like the war in heaven. Yeah, dude, look, I’m terrible at math, but don’t psych me out, man. I’m sorry.
[00:46:54] Jason: Your math is right.
[00:46:56] Nate: Thank you. That’s right. My math is correct.
[00:46:58] Jason: Your math is correct.
[00:47:01] Nate: Now we can continue.
[00:47:02] Jason: Okay.
All right.
Psalm of Nephi.
This is a beautiful bit of poetry, speaking of going through afflictions.
And Nephi talks about crying, and I don’t think when he talks about crying.
Verse 23. Behold, he hath heard me cry by day, and he hath given me knowledge by visions in the nighttime. And by day, I’ve waxed bold and mighty prayer before him. Yea, my voice have I sent up on high. And angels came down and ministered unto me.
He really just kind of has a moment and just breaks down, and we see a raw Nephi, not just this Nephi that I’m always right, and these guys are always. And I have to do this. But here you see him questioning himself, the temptations that he’s encircled about.
And it sounds an awful lot like King David. In the king David, I mean, he’s the psalmist. He wrote the psalms. And you have something similar, even playing out here with Nephi. This is poetry. And he’s writing poetry like David, the psalmist. And he’s expressing his temptations, his faults, his sins, and the mercy of God that’s swallowing them up.
It’s beautiful poetry. And for what it’s worth, I don’t know that I have too much to add in here, but I think you’ll appreciate it, enjoy it, and love it.
Moving past that, Nephi needs to take his family and run.
Verse one. So this also shows up a lot. This is chapter five. Behold, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cry much unto the Lord, my God, because of the anger of my brethren.
I don’t know that I can count how many times Nephi cries to the Lord.
And this was actually kind of transformational for me. Last year, I was at a state conference, and one of the people speaking stood up, and he quoted the scriptures about Nephi crying to the lord. And he said, you don’t cry without tears. And in fact, it talks about how Nephi wet his pillow at night, crying to the Lord.
And he talked about the importance of trying to figure out what we should be doing or how to do if we needed to get those answers. We needed to cry to the Lord. And so, as I read this, and it keeps showing up over and over again, I just wanted to kind of pull attention to that and talk about that searching, that longing, that praying that causes a mean even going back where we started with Lehi, talking about his greatest sorrow in the wilderness. Yet at the same time, weren’t his greatest revelations in the wilderness the vision of the tree of life, seeing everything that’s going to happen to his posterity? And the same thing we see for Nephi. If we want to have great revelations, it might require great tears to get there, and crying to the Lord by day so that we can see these visions by night moving on. And behold, their anger did increase against me insomuch that they did seek to take away my life.
[00:50:38] Nate: What’s new?
[00:50:39] Jason: Yeah, not much new there. Yea. And they did murmur against me, saying, our younger brother thinks to rule over us, and we have had much trial because of him.
Wherefore let us now slay him, that we may not be afflicted more because of his words. For, behold, we will not have him to be our ruler, for the ruling belongs to us who are the older brother and to rule over this people. Now, I do not write upon these plates all the words which they murmured against me, but it suffices me to say that they did seek to take away my life. It came to pass that the Lord had warned me that I knife, I should depart from them and flee into the wilderness, and all that would go with me. So here’s the list of people he takes. Where it came to pass that I, Nephi, to take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, my elder brother, and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brother, and also my sisters. And all those that would go with me, and all those that would go with me were those that believed in the warnings and the revelations of God. Wherefore they did hearken unto my words. And we did take our tents and whatsoever things were possible for us, and a journey in the wilderness for the space of many days. And after many days, we did pitch our tents, and they called the name of the place Nephi.
So they get away. They travel for many days to try to make it not so convenient for layman and Lemuel to go after them.
And Nephi says, at this point, 50 years had passed.
Then he says, the people want to make him their king. He doesn’t want to be their king. And I think there’s an important distinction when we look at Judah, for example, and the land, the kingdom.
Laban was not the king of the whole kingdom. He was a local governor, a tsar, a prince.
Nephi, when he slays him and takes that authority and presides over his people as a ruler and rules over them, I keep saying king. King’s not quite the right word.
He’s a ruler. He’s a governor, he’s a Moses of his people. He’s a lawgiver. But he’s not the same level of dictator or king. And he’s trying to preserve kind of this. You have this sense of this early israelite history where they say, we don’t want the king. It’s not to say they didn’t still have a leader, a ruler. It’s just different from a king. But Nephi goes into this whole discussion, and he says, nevertheless, he copies the sword of Laban and makes weapons for his people to protect themselves. And then he says, and now 60 years had passed away. So what I want to key in on 50 years, 60 years in the space of time that he left Lehman and Lemuel and took all that that would follow him in a ten year period of time. He says, suffice it to say, we have had many wars and contentions in the ten year span.
The question I’m trying to ask is this.
If they traveled for many days to get away from their brethren and make it hard for their brothers to come persecute them, why in the world did layman and Lemuel feel so much hate that they would travel for many days? In what direction? How did they even know where to find him? How long did it take for them to try to track them down, see where they went, and to wage war and try to wipe them off the face of the earth, why were layman and Lemiel so committed in wiping out Nephi that they couldn’t just let him go and be happy staying on their own, where they were at?
Any insight on that? Nate, any guesses you want to take?
Am I putting you on the spot on this?
[00:54:22] Nate: I mean, I have thoughts, but I don’t think they’re anything profound.
[00:54:31] Jason: The one that got me is when Nephi lists everyone that goes with him.
Sam, Jacob, Joseph, Soram. I get it. Layman and Lemuel probably didn’t care much for them because they always supported Nephi anyways, right? But then he says, and my sisters?
If his sisters were married to the sons of Ishmael, and Nephi takes them with them, the sons of Ishmael were firmly in the layman and Lemuel camp.
That means Nephi didn’t just take his followers. I mean, yes, they were his followers, but families split over this.
Ishmael’s sons lost their wives and kids.
Now Lemon and Lemuel are looking at it. We’ve got. Cause, like, he took their wives. He took their children. Let’s go and get these wives and children back.
He thinks he can rule over them. He thinks they can take their wives.
I don’t think. I think that might be enough in their mind to try to track him down wherever he went and make them angry enough to try to go and reunite their families and try to put them in where they think they’ve got the high ground on this. You think you can just take this family apart? You think you can steal their wives in the night?
I think that’s what fuels this. And I look at history, and I look at a lot of the wars that have been fought, and a lot of the wars come from a misplaced divine sense of ire, if you will, to think that we have the higher ground because you did that. We’re going to go and wipe you out, because we’ve got to settle the score. We’ve got to make this right.
All right, one last verse. We’re going to read this. Chapter five, verse. I mean, I guess we go verse eleven. We go verse 17. Verse eleven. It came to pass. Lord was with us, and we did prosper exceedingly. For we did sow seed, we did reap again in abundance. And we began to raise flocks and herds of every kind. But really, pair this with verse 17. And it came to pass that in. If I did cause my people to be industrious and to labor with their hands, and I think that’s a critical part of righteousness. You can’t expect to prosper without doing your part. And it talks about the work that they were putting in and the Lord blessing them, the Lord’s blessing them, because they weren’t sitting around waiting for the Lord to bless them. They were anxiously engaged in doing things so that the Lord could bless them.
[00:56:57] Nate: Fantastic principle.
[00:57:00] Jason: That’s all I got.
[00:57:01] Nate: I think that we’ve talked about this before, but working out in the dirt with your hands is a very holy thing to be doing. It’s a very righteous thing to be doing. And we’ve talked about some of the reasons why, but there is just a humility that comes from just remembering. From dust thou was made into dust thou wilt return. And there’s something that’s beautiful about getting your hands dirty. And we talked about this specifically when we talked about the Lord cursing the ground for Adam and Eve’s sake and how there is something, there’s so many things to be learning just out there. Picking weeds. When you’re a kid up in Logan, Utah, in a garden, it probably didn’t matter if you even picked the weeds or not. But there were a lot of things learned out in that garden, picking weeds, that I still feel like lessons that I still carry with me even now.
[00:58:00] Jason: Well, the Garden of Eden being a garden, and how many parables in the gospels refer back to just so many.
[00:58:07] Nate: Of the things about, like you said, the faith that it takes to spend the time planting a seed, watering it. But having learned that that process works.
It’s not blind faith, but it is still faith that it’s going to work. And I love any chance to get to re confirm or retestify or re add my testimony to that that we just read, which is there’s something that’s incredibly healthy spiritually and physically about eating by the sweat of your brow, basically.
[00:58:49] Jason: It’s kind of funny, too.
In third Nephi, when they talk about, is it third Nephi? He says, oh, that I were alive in Nephi’s time when things were a lot simpler. And then you’re like, wait, which part of Nephi’s life are you referring to? Was that the wilderness when his brothers were trying to kill him all the time? Or was that after they split and.
[00:59:14] Nate: They just in the middle of the wilderness for eight years or on the boat for a year or whatever it.
[00:59:19] Jason: Was that ten years after they separated that they had many wars and contentions. I’m not so sure that things were that much simpler.
But they looked at it and said, because at least the people that followed him followed him. And there’s something to be said. Going back to Lehi, if his children all would have followed him, how much better could have his experience have been in the wilderness?
[00:59:44] Nate: Sure.
Good stuff. Appreciate the time and work you put into prepping for these things.
I always enjoy these conversations and prepping for them and what I learn from them and even just our little back and forth text conversations.
And if you would like to be a part of these conversations outside of this podcast, the email address you can get a hold of us is. Hi@weeklydeepdive.com.
We do everything we can to make sure to respond to questions, comments, but we really do appreciate engaging with those of you that are listening to this and sharing with your friends. We appreciate it. Leaving us reviews on various podcasting apps does help us. So we thank you for being willing to do that if you do enjoy the content that we are putting out there.
But again, we really appreciate you listening. I think that that’s all we have for this.
[01:00:42] Jason: You know, just. You’re saying that. I was thinking, again, I’m sorry, I should have put this in a lot earlier, but.
[01:00:48] Nate: You have been to see it was the.
You’re just. No, it’s just like, this is just payback. All right, go ahead.
[01:00:57] Jason: Just as much as I read those scriptures, how many times? And I thought, oh, it’s obviously talking about Joseph, and I missed the Nephi connection. And then I look at it and I see Nephi.
Maybe instead of going back and seeing Nephi, maybe instead of being blinded by seeing how clearly this applies to Joseph, maybe there’s a connection in how much it applies to me today.
Am I that seer? And can I be a great benefit to my family who are also seeds of the family of Joseph? And how might that prophecy truly, he saw my day.
And just as much as Christ on a personal level was also Judah on a national level, maybe we could take some of these prophecies on a large scale and put them right back down to a very personal level and see how does this apply to specifically me today?
[01:01:56] Nate: How can we add our testimonies to the other testimonies that have been born of Christ?
[01:02:02] Jason: How can understand these words and bring clarity to the gospel? Possible.
[01:02:07] Nate: It’s a great way to finish.
Thank you for listening. We really enjoyed doing this. Please hit us with your questions or comments and see you next weekend.
As has been mentioned by other listeners, your podcast is motivating because it really does feel like I’m having a friendly chat with my brothers. This week’s episode is engaging because you elicited laughter, (fruit of the loins), connection, (Amy Grant – I was instantly back in my teenage bedroom), and you inspired me to ponder (where are the Sam-ites, missions being both an affliction and an adventure).
You mentioned your goal through all of the podcasts is to emphasize the importance of having the spirit in our lives. I can’t help but think the sprit doesn’t have to come only by serious and somber conversation but also by laughter, music, and reflection. Thank you, as always.
Is it possible Sam never had children? That is why there is no mention of ‘items’ for him?
Great thought! I think it’s possible, but I always don’t think so. Lehi says Sam’s seed will mingle with Nephi’s seed. I want to talk about the significance of a double portion a little more in next week’s episode, I don’t think I really went into why I think it’s significant Sam’s seed is merged with Nephi’s.
Nate, I know you are involved in the music industry. I came upon this song about Lehi’s dream, and just in case you missed it….I think they did a great job.
https://youtu.be/nIIbaKPxSMI?si=VwR95kjKz6JcnNiE