I have shown that ancient Near Eastern emperor–vassal covenants are helpful in understanding the workings of the Sinai and Davidic Covenants. On a parallel with those ancient models, God acts in the role of emperor and his people or King David and his heirs act in the role of vassals. But there is a third […]
Solemn Brotherhood Read More »
When Jehovah God of Israel addresses his end-time people through Isaiah, saying “I announce to you new things, things withheld and unknown to you, things now coming into being, not hitherto, things you have not heard of before, lest you should say, Indeed I knew them! You have not heard them, nor have you known
There is something right or righteous about praising our Savior Jesus Christ. As Jehovah God of Israel—who “paid the price of our peace” and “by whose wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5; cf. 57:19)—he apprises those who believe in him that they are “a people I formed for myself to speak out in praise of
In the Father’s “gift of his Son” (Ether 12:11)—a gift that keeps on giving—we observe the great “condescension of God” (1 Nephi 11:26) that underlies his plan of salvation and exaltation. Born in the flesh as a babe in Bethlehem (beit lehem, “the House of Bread”), Jehovah, God of the Old Testament, manifests himself to
If you have ever ventured to discuss some aspect of Isaiah’s prophecies with someone who was unacquainted with it, you may have inadvertently provoked the sometimes hostile response of “That’s controversial!” or “That isn’t in the manual!” or “I haven’t heard that before!”—as if what they haven’t heard before can’t be true, or that the
That’s Controversial! Read More »
The prophetic construct of a “Messiah Son of Joseph” that relies on rabbinical interpretations of Zechariah and other prophets was pounced on by many Ephraimite Gentiles when popularized by Joseph Klausner in his book, The Messianic Idea in Israel. To them, resemblances of this hypothetical figure to the prophet Joseph Smith were too good to
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When Isaiah asks God’s people of our day, “You have heard the whole vision [hazut kullah]; how is it you do not proclaim it?” (Isaiah 48:6), he is predicting the Ephraimite Gentiles’ neglect of his end-time prophecies whose understanding would most empower them through the time the world has now entered. When he adds, “For
Vague ideas exist about the so-called “gathering” or “gathering of Israel,” but do we really know how the scriptures define what this is? The same applies to the idea of “hastening the work.” As both are an integral part of the same end-time scenario, and as neither has yet occurred according to their scriptural definitions,
Book of Mormon examples of the Davidic Covenant in action exist for anyone who wants a clear idea of how it operates. Without its end-time reinstitution among the Ephraimite Gentiles, the prophesied gathering and restoration of the house of Israel—Jews, Ten Tribes, and Lamanites—cannot occur. Nor can the coming in glory of Jehovah/Jesus to reign
Profiles of Proxy Saviors Read More »
Because people’s spiritual awareness is proportional to the purity of their lives—to the degree they live by God’s divine laws—one can rarely say he knows God until he does so experientially through that process. The opposite is to never know God. When worldliness becomes the norm, it shuts out people’s ability to reach him and
When a corrupt few come to power who are upheld by the many—who themselves are on the high road to corruption—they can’t expect the few not to exercise controls over the many contrary to the latter’s expectations when their own lawlessness demands it. Nor—under those same ostensibly lawful auspices—can the many expect the few not
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We can observe a huge difference between “searching” the words of Isaiah and not doing so in responses to the question and answer in Doctrine & Covenant 113:5–6: “What is the root of Jesse spoken of in the 10th verse of the 11th chapter? Behold, thus saith the Lord, it is a descendant of Jesse,
How to Search Isaiah Read More »
