Truth and Soberness: Declaring the Word through Come Follow Me.

Truth and Soberness: Declaring the Word through Come Follow Me. And may God grant unto you even according to my words. Amen." (Alma 42:31)

And now, my son, go thy way, declare the word with truth and soberness, that thou mayest bring souls unto repentance, that the great plan of mercy may have claim upon them.

CFM Old Testament: Isaiah Zion Will Be a Refuge"... all things that he spake have been and shall be, even according to t...
09/10/2026

CFM Old Testament: Isaiah

Zion Will Be a Refuge

"... all things that he spake have been and shall be, even according to the words which he spake." (3 Nephi 23:3)

"And in that day, seven women shall take hold of one man, saying: We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach." (Isaiah 4:1)

These are righteous women. Notice that they eat their own bread and wear their own apparel. They are not suffering the calamities that the general population is suffering. We saw in Chapter 3 that the wicked suffer things like having no bread, water, or clothing.

Not these women.

They offer a great contrast to the women of Chapter 3 who:
- Are haughty
- walk with stretched-forth necks
- and wanton eyes,
- walking and mincing as they go
- making a tinkling with their feet.
- the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion (some sort of disease)
- and the Lord will discover their secret parts (lack of clothing)
- the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, etc. (no more makeup and jewelry)
- instead of sweet smell there shall be stink (severe uncleanliness)
- instead of a girdle, a rent (lack of clothing)
- instead of well-set hair, baldness (disease from nuclear fall-out maybe?)
- instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth
- burning instead of beauty.
- Thy men shall fall by the sword and thy mighty in the war. (a severe shortage of men. They will all be killed in the wars)

But not the women of Chapter 4, verse 1. These are righteous women who are not suffering the curses of the end-time, except that they perhaps their husbands and sons have been killed off in war. Is this a commentary on the more righteous nature of women? That righteous women will outnumber the men by a such a degree?

There is symbolism in the number 7 here.

Don’t take it to be a literal number. And Don’t take it to mean that polygamy is going to be reinstated. This verse simply says:

- that there will be more righteous women than men
- these women have food, water, and clothing.
- these women can provide for themselves or are provided for by the Lord
- these women consider it a reproach to be without a worthy partner
- these women seek to be sealed to a worthy partner

We have some other very important things going on in this chapter. There is the allusion that there will be few men left alive through all of this, but there aren’t going to be many people altogether at all.
We have wording like:

… them that escaped Israel
… they that are left in Zion
… they that remain in Jerusalem
… every one (like there are so few a child could record them. Isaiah 10:19)

Verse 3 tells us that the survivors “shall be called holy”. This is in reference to the “holy portion” allotted to the Levite priests as a heave offering. The children of Israel would pay tithes to the Levites. The Levite priests who had the most sacred obligations in the Holy of Holies would take a tenth of the tithes to themselves for support. This was the “holy portion” a tithe of a tithe (Numbers 18:21-28). This is what verse 3 is referring to as far as how many will be “left” in Zion as a “remnant”. Isaiah is saying that approximately 1% of the population will be preserved in Zion. The rest of the world is going to be wiped out.

We have more references to the 7 categories of humanity that Isaiah describes. Verse 2 says mentions those that are escaped of Israel. Jacob/Israel is a category of people. They are not yet repentant and do not qualify for deliverance. Some of them will survive though. The entire process will be a refiner’s fire for them.
And though they were unrepentant at first, a "remnant" will repent eventually and “escape” Israel, and ascend to a Zion level of spirituality where they do qualify for deliverance.

We have mention of Zion/Jerusalem here as well. This is where the only hope of protection lies. If you are repentant, if you are righteous, if you are elect, you will have been gathered out of the rest of the world, and gathered to the actual city of Zion in a new exodus with the new Moses. Remember, we’re talking about 1% of all people who qualify. Everyone else is left up to devastations and calamities, and the invading armies of the King of Assyria, or the Arc-Tyrant.

Verses 5 and 6 tell us that Zion will be a defense, a place of refuge. It will be the only place of refuge. We get more context from the Doctrine and Covenants:

"And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God;

And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.

And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety.

And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another.

And it shall be said among the wicked: Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.

And it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with songs of everlasting joy. (D&C 45:66-71)

CFM Old Testament: Isaiah Blood and Sacrifices"... all things that he spake have been and shall be, even according to th...
09/10/2026

CFM Old Testament: Isaiah

Blood and Sacrifices

"... all things that he spake have been and shall be, even according to the words which he spake." (3 Nephi 23:3)

The first chapter of Isaiah is important. It's one of the overarching themes of Isaiah... take care of the poor and the needy.

Isaiah even identifies the poor and the needy, the widows and the fatherless, as the Lord's people.

And as things start amping up here in the end-time, there are going to be more and more poor and needy to take care of. Will we willingly share what little we have with them, knowing that the Lord will provide for us when we are in want? Or will we hoard what we have, defending it with violence lest someone take it from us?

Let's go to Isaiah:

"Listen to the word of the LORD,
O leaders of S***m,
Give ear to our God's teaching,
O people of Gomorrah
"Why need I all your sacrifices?"
says the LORD
"I am sated with the burnt offerings of rams
and the suet of fatted beasts,
and the blood of bulls and sheep and he-goats
I do not desire.
When you come to see My face,
who asked this of you,
to trample My courts?
You shall no longer bring false grain offering,
it is incense of abomination to Me.
New moon and sabbath call an assembly -
I cannot bear crime and convocation.
your new moons and appointed times
I utterly despise.
They have become a burden to me,
I cannot bear them.
And when you spread your palms,
I avert my eyes from you.
Though you abundantly pray,
I do not listen.
Your hands are full of blood"
(Isaiah 1: 10-20 Robert Alter Translation)

"...Why need I all your sacrifices?

This is not a pitch for the abolition of sacrifice but rather an argument against a mechanistic notion of sacrifice, against the idea that sacrifice can put a man in good standing with God regardless of human behavior. The point becomes entirely clear at the end of verse 15, when the prophet says that it is hands stained with blood stretched out in prayer that are utterly abhorrent to God. Thus, the grain offering is "false" (or "futile") because it is brought by people who have oppressed the poor and failed to defend the widows and orphans.
.. to see My face.

As throughout the Masoretic Text, the verb for seeing the face of God - the original conception of the pilgrimage to the Jerusalem temple - has been piously revocalized as a passive form "to be seen"
.. your hands are full of blood.

This shocking detail is held back until the end of these two lines of poetry: the palms lifted up in prayer are covered with blood, and that is why God averts His eyes, because He can't bear looking at them. It should be noted that Isaiah's outrage, as it is spelled out in verse 17, is not chiefly with cultic disloyalty, as it would be for the writers in the school of Deuteronomy, but with social injustice - indifference to the plight of the poor and the helpless, exploitation of the vulnerable, acts represented here as the moral equivalent of murder." (Alter)

And because the book of Isaiah is meant for us in particular, we need to see how we can apply this to us. We are His covenant people in the end-time. We are the ones going to the Temples, making covenants, making appropriate sacrifices, raising our arms in prayer and supplication. So this is talking to us.

The LORD starts out by calling us the people of S***m and Gomorrah. That's quite a rebuke! In the previous verses, the LORD tells us that our lands will be utterly ruined and desolated in the end time, besieged by invading armies, burned with fire, left barren... and we would be as completely destroyed as was S***m and Gomorrah, except that the LORD will preserve a righteous remnant throughout the whole process.

So though there may be individuals among the LORD's people, remnants of the whole, the majority of His people are the equivalent of the inhabitants of S***m and Gomorrah, who among other things, practiced universal injustice towards the weak, and took advantage of the poor and needy, and murdered to get gain.

So do we, as a society, do this at all today? Do we do this individually?

How do we care for the poor and the needy? Those are the things for which Isaiah is really harping on us here...

"... remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple." (D&C 52:40)

We can look at the converse of this statement and see that a disciple of Christ is someone who DOES remember the poor and needy, the sick and afflicted. We can't call ourselves a disciple of Christ if we do not these things... no matter how many other "self-righteous" acts we perform.

Let's go back to King Benjamin for a minute...

King Benjamin makes a statement to which I don’t think we pay enough attention. Have you ever wondered what it takes to retain a remission of your sins from day to day? Is there anything that we should be doing in order to walk guiltless before God? King Benjamin gives us an explicit instruction:

“And now… for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—

I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.”
(Mosiah 4:26)

King Benjamin says that we need to give to the poor and needy.

Why is that the thing that qualifies us for a remission of sins?

We are supposed to be building up Zion before the Second Coming of our Lord in glory. The city Zion does not yet exist, possibly because there just are not enough among us who qualify as a Zion people to actually establish the city.

Among the characteristics of a Zion people is that there are no poor among them. (Moses 7:18) That is to say that everyone took care of everyone else. There was no “me first” attitude. The people of Zion did just what King Benjamin commanded his people to do.

And they retained a remission of their sins, and walked (literally) guiltless before God, and they were translated and taken up to heaven.

Do we seek to establish Zion? If so, King Benjamin has given us the formula. Is it really so hard to do? Why haven’t we done it yet. It’s been 200 years since Joseph Smith first had the notion to establish Zion. We are no closer now than we were then. Why not?

Isaiah tells us that our society does exactly opposite of what King Benjamin proposes. Our politicians, businesses, social structures, etc. all take advantage of the poor and needy, rather than helping them. And for that, we get a covenant woe placed upon us:

“Woe to those who enact unjust laws, who draft oppressive legislation— denying justice to the needy, depriving the poor of my people of their right, making plunder of widows, mere spoil of the fatherless!” (Isaiah 10:1-2)

Here, Isaiah identifies the Lord’s people as the needy, the poor, widows, and fatherless. He refers to this category of people several times throughout his book, each time identifying them with the Lord’s people who are being taken advantage of, rather than being looked out for.

Isaiah proposes something similar to what King Benjamin proposes:

“Learn to do good: demand justice, stand up for the oppressed; plead the cause of the fatherless, appeal on behalf of the widow.”
(Isiah 1:17)

In the scriptures, doing “good” is connected to covenant keeping. Isaiah tells us that if we aren’t currently “doing good” or “keeping covenant”, we should learn to do it.

So which covenant do we need to learn how to keep? The covenant to care for the poor and needy! The covenant to stand up for the oppressed, to care for the widows and fatherless! King Benjamin put his people under this covenant.

Those of us who have been through the temple are also under this covenant. If we keep it, we can retain a remission of our sins day to day, and walk guiltless before God. We cannot claim those covenant blessings without keeping our end of that covenant.

We may be wealthy and claim to be among the Lord’s people, but unless we are doing as the Lord has commanded us through prophets like King Benjamin, and Isaiah, we are fooling ourselves and the truth is not in us.

CFM Old Testament: Isaiah The King of Assyria will Ravage the Entire World (Isaiah 10)"... all things that he spake have...
09/06/2026

CFM Old Testament: Isaiah

The King of Assyria will Ravage the Entire World (Isaiah 10)

"... all things that he spake have been and shall be, even according to the words which he spake." (3 Nephi 23:3)

Isaiah prophesies of the arch-tyrant that will destroy the world. He uses the name “King of Assyria” because the ancient King of Assyria serves as a type for what is to come. No one previously had conquered the known world anciently like the Assyrians did, and no one will have done to the world what the end-time arch-tyrant will do.

Assyria no longer exists. There certainly is no king from there that poses a threat. The title is merely a metaphor for the end-time tyrant. So who is the King of Assyria in Isaiah’s prophecy for the future? We have to look at what he does to understand who he will be.

Because the Lord uses the wicked to punish the wicked, the King of Assyria is going to be empowered to wipe out nearly all the earth, except for those in Zion who are protected by the Lord and his servant. The King of Assyria will boast of his seeming invincibility.

He’s the ultimate egotist and narcissist. He’s the kind of person who would put his name on everything he touches, like the Babylonian kings of old who made golden images of themselves and forced people to worship them. Or who built tall towers or skyscrapers and put their name on them for all to see. This arch-tyrant finds the need to proclaim to all that he is a genius. He is obsessed with the borders of nations. His lust for wealth is insatiable. And he has no qualms about murdering billions of people while he “annihilates nations”, and for the most part... no one stands up to him. He's allowed to simply have his way (v.7).

I have done it by my own ability and shrewdness,
I am ingenious.
I have done away with the borders of nations,
I have ravaged their reserves,
I have vastly reduced the inhabitants.
I have impounded the wealth of peoples like a nest, and
I have gathered up the whole world as one gathers abandoned eggs; not one flapped its wings, or opened its mouth to utter a peep. (Isaiah 10:13-14)

“Believing he has all power, the archtyrant boasts of his exploits—the pronoun “I” appears seven times, portraying him as an ultra-egotist. His claims show that in the course of committing global genocide he indeed conquers the world, establishing a one-world government or new world order. For him, Jehovah’s Day of Judgment is the great day of his power, when the earth’s inhabitants quail before him (Isaiah 13:4-8; 37:26-27). He is the “thief in the night” who gathers up the world’s wealth in the days just preceding Jehovah’s coming (cf. Matthew 24:42-44; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6; 2 Peter 3:10).

As he invades one land after another, the archtyrant imagines he is able to conquer Jehovah’s people just as well as them. He is aware of their covenant relationship with their Creator, but he assumes that their God is no more a threat to him than the gods of the nations he has already conquered (Isaiah 36:18-20; 37:11-13). His successes lead him to believe that nothing is impossible that he sets his mind to do. He imagines that his henchmen will rule under him as his empire spreads to the ends of the earth (cf. Isaiah 14:21). He fails to perceive, however, that his victories are but momentary (vv 12, 24-27).

Word links show that Jehovah’s “work” is twofold: (1) the destruction of the wicked; and (2) the deliverance of the righteous. On the one hand, it involves “utter destruction” upon the whole earth (v 23; Isaiah 13:4-5; 28:21-22). On the other, it entails the birth of a new nation of Jehovah’s people affiliated with Zion and Jerusalem at the time Jehovah’s servant prepares the way for Jehovah’s coming (Isaiah 40:3, 10; 66:7-9). The locations of Mount Zion and Jerusalem are significant as that is where the archtyrant is overthrown when he lays siege to them (Isaiah 31:4-5, 8-9; 37:32-36; Obadiah 1:17-21).”
– Avraham Gileadi

Chapter 13 is about the destruction of the wicked at the hands of the King of Assyria.

Isaiah uses a lot of metaphors for this end-time arch-tyrant. Wrath and Anger are a couple of them. We saw some others in Isaiah 10:12-15 where Isaiah identifies him as a ROD, an AXE, and a SAW, identifying how the King of Assyria will “cut down” the peoples of the earth, the same fate that John the Baptist said would befall all those who bring forth not good fruit.

Isaiah is prophesying that the Lord will use this arch-tyrant to sweep the earth of the wicked. This will be a world-wide genocide. Isaiah speaks of only 1% of the Lord's people getting through this, and they are those that are protected in the city of Zion.

Throughout all this devastation and destruction are two small lines that tell the righteous not to fear. They open and close the chapter.

“I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones, for mine anger is not upon them that rejoice in my highness.” (v.3)

“yea, for I will be merciful unto my people” (v.22)

For everyone else, the King of Assyria is going to be the Lord’s instrument of destruction. For it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished (Mormon 4:5).

“the Lord of Hosts mustereth the hosts of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, yea, the Lord, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.” (Isaiah 13:5)

How will it be? Look at a small sampling of what is in store for the wicked in the day of judgment:

- all hands be faint,
- every man’s heart shall melt;
- they shall be afraid;
- pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them;
- they shall be amazed one at another;
- their faces shall be as flames.
- to lay the land desolate;
- he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
- the stars of heaven, constellations thereof shall not give light;
- the sun shall be darkened in his going forth,
- the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
- I will shake the heavens,
- the earth shall remove out of her place
- Every one that is proud shall be thrust through
- every one that is joined to the wicked shall fall by the sword.
- Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
- their houses shall be spoiled
- their wives ravished.
- Their bows shall also dash the young men to pieces;
- they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb
- shall not spare children.
- For I will destroy her speedily;
- the wicked shall perish.

Where do we stand? Are we a Zion people? Hardly. Only 1% of the Lord's people are going to qualify for protection in Zion, and they are called his "sanctified ones". Are we sanctified? Are we pure enough to stand the presence of the Lord? If not, we have a lot of repenting to do. Otherwise we will find that we are among the wicked that are to be swept from the earth, cleansing it for those few among us who are sanctified.

The King of Assyria Meets His End (Isaiah 14)

The KJV translators used the word Lucifer in this verse. Some people have taken this to mean that the person being referred to is Satan. This is obviously not the case if you read the chapter and understand the context. Certainly, there is an allusion to the being who wanted all glory to himself, but this passage is not about the pre-mortal rebellion. It is about the end of the arch-tyrant, the anti-Christ who destroys nearly the entire population of the earth. The use of “Lucifer” in this case is no different than Jesus telling Peter to “get thee behind me, satan” (Mark 8:33).

This person dies (v. 15), and is left unburied (vv. 19, 20), is covered with maggots in the street (v.11), and at whose remains the survivors gape (v. 16).

“The archtyrant’s “glory”—his personality cult of ceremony, music, pageantry, and propaganda—comes to an end when he does. Like a common mortal, he who ruled the world, who inspired fear in men’s hearts, goes the way of all flesh, his body consumed by maggots and worms. With his passing, a millennial age of peace begins for surviving humanity: “Tyranny shall no more be heard of in your land, nor dispossession or disaster within your borders” (Isaiah 60:18); “The insolent people are not to be seen, a nation of incomprehensible speech, whose babbling tongue was unintelligible” (Isaiah 33:19).

In his humiliating downfall, the tyrannical “man” who lorded it over the nations is a sight to wonder at. Although he gained the whole world, it profited him nothing as he suffers the loss of his own soul (cf. Matthew 16:26). Instead of being a power of creation—a god who benefits humanity—he is a power of chaos who orchestrates horrific destruction of life and property. He who made the earth “shake” and kingdoms “quake” (Isaiah 5:25; 24:18; 54:10), who turned the world into a “wilderness” and demolished its “cities” (Isaiah 7:20-25; 32:19; 64:10-11), has become an object of derision.

While the dead remains of the world’s dignitaries are honored in death by lying in state, the archtyrant’s co**se lies unburied like an abhorrent excretion exposed to the elements. As the one who served as Jehovah’s sword did to others, so it is done to him.

Instead of being a protector of his people and their land, as befits a king, he engineered their destruction by taking them to war against Jehovah’s elect. As a mass murderer, he suffers the covenant curse of no burial for his carcass, becoming the poster child for a “brood of miscreants” whose memory is erased from the earth (Isaiah 26:13-14).” - Avraham Gileadi

Pay attention to references of the King of Assyria. He plays a HUGE part in the end-time. John the revelator speaks of this person, but calls him by other names like Beast, anti-christ, etc. No matter what you call him, he's going to show up as a major player, the antithesis to the LORD, His Servant and His people.

CFM Old Testament: Isaiah The Mountain of the Lord's House is NOT the Salt Lake Temple. “And it shall come to pass in th...
09/05/2026

CFM Old Testament: Isaiah

The Mountain of the Lord's House is NOT the Salt Lake Temple.

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” (Isaiah 2:2)

When I was a child, I was told the following account as "proof" that the Church was true:

"When the Saints wanted to become a state, they suggested the name Deseret, after the meaning "honey-bee" found in the Book of Mormon. But the United States government felt that it was too religious-sounding of a name, and rejected it. Instead, the United States forced the Saints to use the name "Utah", after the Ute Indian tribe which belonged to the area. As it turned out, the joke was on the United States Government. Because the word "Utah" means "tops of the mountains", and by building the Salt Lake Temple in Utah, we fulfilled scripture found in Isaiah... and so the Church was true..."

Except none of that was true.

The Deseret News did some investigation back in the 90s about the source of that story. Utah does NOT mean "tops of the mountains".

The closest word that the Ute Nation has that sounds remotely like "Utah", means "meat-eaters". And the notion that it meant "tops of the mountains" was first found on a travel brochure from back in the 50s.

So the whole "proof" of the Church being true because of a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy was a figment of someone's imagination taken from a travel pamphlet.

There are some other things that should have jumped out at those of us who fell for this:

Salt Lake City is not in the tops of the mountains at all. It's in a valley. A valley so low, that all the water drains here with no outlet. Go look at the Great Salt Lake.... it's the lowest point around for hundreds of miles. Salt Lake City is far from being in the tops of anything.

And those who try to say that this prophecy in Isaiah has been fulfilled have not looked at the whole prophecy. This is clearly a millennial context:

"The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: (NOT Salt Lake City)

- when the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains,
- shall be exalted above the hills,
- and all nations shall flow unto it.
- And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob;
- he will teach us of his ways,
- we will walk in his paths;
- out of Zion shall go forth the law,
- the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
- and he shall judge among the nations
- and shall rebuke many people:
- and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares,
- and their spears into pruning-hooks—
- nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
- neither shall they learn war any more.

NONE of those conditions are met. Zion must be established as a world capitol. Christ must be there personally to judge among the nations. All warfare must be abolished. Everyone on earth will come to the Lord's house to learn from Christ personally and literally walk in His paths.

So if my childhood anecdote is NOT the proper interpretation of Isaiah 2, what is?

I'm glad you asked, because it is very simple. It's about the establishment of the political kingdom of God around the time of the millennium.

Here is is, simply put:

"In the last days, when the political Kingdom of God will be established as the head of the nations, and shall be exalted above all others, and all nations will flow unto it. And many people shall say, Come ye, and let us go up unto the Kingdom of God, to the Temple of the God of Jacob, and Christ will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths..."

How do we get there?

First of all, we need to search it out (3 Nephi 23:1)… dissect it. We need to answer the who, what where, etc. Then we need to find out what each of the words mean as Isaiah intended them, not as we would like them to be, not as we would proof-text them to be.

The Lord’s House is His Temple. It always has been. It says as much on the outside of each of the temples. “Holiness to the Lord, the House of the Lord”.

But this scripture is not about the Lord’s House. It is about the Mountain. This one happens to be the Mountain of the Lord’s House, but the Mountain is the subject, not the temple. So what is the Mountain? Because it is the Mountain that will be established, exalted, and have nations flow unto it.

To answer this, we need again to search Isaiah. He will identify what each of his terms are to mean. Once established, we can use them throughout the book of Isaiah in every instance.

Let’s look at one defining verse in Isaiah 13:4

An understanding of the function of metaphors is essential to the rhetorical analysis of Isaiah’s writings. In the Book of Isaiah, metaphors form key words that help us uncover important underlying concepts that are linked throughout the text. The term “mountains” for example, is used as a metaphor that rhetorically links a number of passages. Isaiah 13:4 reads:

- Hark! A tumult on the MOUNTAINS, as of a vast multitude.
- Hark! An uproar among KINGDOMS, as of nations assembling.
- The Lord of Hosts is marshalling an army for war.

The first two lines are in parallel. One easy way we can know this is that Isaiah put the word "Hark!" at the beginning of each. That means that both these verses are parallel to each other. We have 3 sets of parallels.

In parallel are: "a tumult" and "an uproar". Also in parallel is "vast multitude" and "nations assembling". But it is Mountains that concerns us with our study this time.

In this verse, “mountains” parallels “kingdoms”, signifying (because their two lines form a synonymous parallel) that the term “mountains” serves as a metaphor of “kingdoms”. In other words, we may read “mountains” as “kingdoms”. The Hebrew preposition “on” also reads “in/at/among”

Mountains likewise appears as a metaphor in chapter 64. There, mountains parallels a similar term – nations.

A= O that though wouldst rend the heavens and descend,
the MOUNTAINS melting at thy presence

B= As when fire is lit for boiling water,
Which bubbles over from the heat –
to make thyself known to thine adversaries,
the NATIONS trembling at thy presence-

A= As when thou didst perform awesome things,
Unexpected by us; thy descent of old,
when the MOUNTAINS quaked before thee!

This passage forms a chiasm of terms. Nations (v.2) appears between two instances of Mountains (vv 1,3) forming a chiasm (a-b-a). The expressions “melting at thy presence”, “trembling at thy presence”, and “quaked before thee”, all parallel one another. The terms “at thy presence” and “before thee” appear identical in Hebrew. The three Hebrew verbs – “melting”, “trembling”, and “quaked” – are also common synonyms. Here then, by means of three synonymous lines, Isaiah represents Mountains a metaphor of Nations.

In sum, we may read the term “mountains” in the Book of Isaiah, in a secondary sense, as “kingdoms” or “nations”, to yield a transcendent meaning of the scripture. In fact, we may read every instance of “mountains” metaphorically, both meanings – the literal and the metaphorical – being valid. Once Isaiah establishes an idea in one part of his book, it applies elsewhere as well.

So if we go back to Isaiah 2:2 we can read that “In the last days, the Kingdom of the Lord’s House will be established in the tops of the kingdoms (or as the top of the kingdoms. Or as the chief of the kingdoms, or the capitol of the kingdoms), etc.

A Kingdom will be established. That Kingdom will be exalted. All nations will flow unto this Kingdom. Which Kingdom? The Kingdom of the Lord’s House (Temple). Which Temple? Not the Salt Lake Temple. It will be the Temple to be built in the New Jerusalem, in Zion.

Go on to verse 3. “For out of Zion will go forth the law…” This is the political kingdom of God that has yet to be established, Daniel’s stone cut without hands. The ecclesiastical kingdom will operate out of Jerusalem. It could be seen as a separation of church and state.

Isaiah always identifies his metaphors somewhere in the text. Once you find that link, usually through a parallelism, you have the identity for that metaphor. I have already given 2 examples of where Mountains are identified as Kingdoms or Nations. Those are the ONLY identifications Isaiah gives. Though there may be many layers of understanding, as some have pointed out, there is only one identification for that metaphor. Mountain = Kingdom or Nation. That's it. I challenge you to find a parallel in Isaiah to Mountain where that is not the case.

With that identification in mind, the verse has nothing to do with the Temple being established in the "tops of the mountains"... it has to do with the Mountain, or Kingdom being established as the "top" of the Mountains or Kingdoms.

That word "top" comes from the Hebrew "rō'š". It means "head" or "chief", as in the "head of the nations". It does not mean "peak" as in "mountain peaks", or pinnacle, or mesa, or any other description associated with a physical mountain. It is a word that has nothing to do with geophysical location. It has to do with being "pre-eminent".

This goes back to Deuteronomy 28 where the Lord tells Israel that if they keep covenant, God will make Israel the "head" , or "rō'š" of the nations:

"And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:" (Deut 28:13)

So in this verse, we are being told that in the last days, the Kingdom of the Lord's house (the Political Kingdom of God that houses the Temple) shall be established as the Head of the kingdoms (not the tail), and shall be exalted above the hills (lesser nations and states), and all nations shall flow unto it.

That word "flow" takes its cue from other instances in Isaiah where the Lost Tribes "flow" into Zion when they are gathered and restored.

In fact, "Mountains" is associated with "flowing" in several verses. (Isaiah 60:5; 64:1,3; 66:12)

So that verse has NOTHING to do with the building of the Salt Lake Temple, and EVERYTHING to do with the establishment of the Political Kingdom of God in the last days.

This prophecy in Isaiah, like the entire book of Isaiah, is an end-time scenario. It takes place in the Last Days, not the days of Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or any other prior time period. The book of Isaiah is not a historical book, it is a prophetic book. It uses historical events and people as types and shadows of what he saw will happen in the Last Days. We cannot simply take pieces of it out of context and apply it to whatever we want to. We have to search it out. Every single word in Isaiah was planned out ahead of time. The book is a perfect mosaic of language that tells of the end-time.
We have to search it out if we want to understand it. And overall, we do not understand it.

It is not an easy task, but the reward is equal to the effort.

What we cannot do, what we absolutely cannot do, is what we have already done, and proof-text Isaiah. We can’t already have in mind what we want a scripture to say, and then take pieces of the verses to prove what we were thinking. We have to keep a completely open mind, search out what the author intended for us to understand, and then be willing to accept it.

We need to search out the entire book of Isaiah to understand just one verse of it. Then, we need to search it all out again to understand the next verse. By the time we understand the book of Isaiah, we will have read it and searched it out hundreds, if not thousands of times.

And it is something that we have been commanded to do by the Savior himself. “And now, behold, I say unto you, that ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah. (3 Nephi 23:1)

Isaiah 2 has nothing to do with the Salt Lake Temple being built in Utah. There is not even a partial completion of prophecy there. This chapter is an end-time scenario. It has to do with the establishment of the political Kingdom of God in the last days. And once that Kingdom is established, all nations will flow unto it, not for Olympic sport, or even for an open house celebration, but to be taught the ways of God and walk in His paths. That has not happened yet.

Do nations "flow" to Salt Lake? Not in the way Isaiah uses the term:

"Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence" (Isaiah 64:1)

Here we have another instance where "Mountains" is linked with "Kingdoms" or "Nations". In this verse, Mountains flow... In Isaiah 2:1, Nations flow. They mean the same thing because Isaiah is exactly consistent with his metaphors.

And WHEN do the nations or mountains flow? At the presence of Christ Himself. Isaiah 2 identifies it when Jesus is walking and teaching personally among the people, so that people can actually walk where He walks, and be taught by Him in his ways.

This is all still-future. This passage has ZERO to do with the Temple being built in Salt Lake City, and the Saints moving here from Missouri, and the nations of the world coming here for the Olympics. Those things happened, but they have nothing to do with this passage of scripture, and we have not understood the passage correctly, nor we have not understood the context in which the passage was intended.

But because it is deeply ingrained in us, many people will continue to see Isaiah 2 as reference to the Salt Lake Temple, despite the fact that verses 3 and 4 are CLEARLY a millennial context that hasn't even remotely taken place yet. Isaiah didn't write his end-time prophecy so that verse 2 is in the 1890s, and verses 3 and 4 are hundreds of years later. It is the same timeframe, and the same context.

At some point, this passage from Isaiah will be fulfilled.

In the last days, when the political Kingdom of God will be established as the head of the nations, and shall be exalted above all others, and all nations will flow unto it. And many people shall say, Come ye, and let us go up unto the Kingdom of God, to the Temple of the God of Jacob, and Christ will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths...

"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11:9)

Address

Salt Lake City, UT

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Truth and Soberness: Declaring the Word through Come Follow Me. posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Place Of Worship

Send a message to Truth and Soberness: Declaring the Word through Come Follow Me.:

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Category