Weekly Newsletter

Isaiah’s mention of “ordinances” doesn’t leave us wondering very long about which ones he is speaking of. Imagery of temple ordinances appears throughout his book. Says he, “The path of the righteous is straight; you pave an undeviating course for the upright. In the very passage of your ordinances we anticipate you, O Jehovah; the […]

If the Ephraimite Gentiles will be “as much mistaken” about Jesus’ second coming as the Jews were about his first (JD, 8:115), it will be because they assume Jesus’ second coming will vary from scriptural patterns of the past. That is, there will occur no traumatic events like those at his first coming to the

When Isaiah says, “They are not a discerning people. Therefore their Maker shows them no mercy; he who formed them favors them not” (Isaiah 27:11), he is speaking of the aftermath of God’s people’s addictions to idols or the things of this world. Inevitably—with or without their knowing—opportunistic forces step into the vacuum created by

Israel’s ongoing assault by enemies surrounding it—Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthies—and America’s providing it with ordinance to defend itself, resonates with Zechariah’s prophecy that says, “I have bent Judah for me and filled the bow with Ephraim.” In that day, “his arrows will go forth as the lightning” and he will “subdue with sling stones” (Zechariah

When the Lord says, “The ox knows its owner, the ass its master’s stall, but Israel does not know; my people are insensible: (Isaiah 1:3), what does he mean? And when he also says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says Jehovah. But as the heavens are higher than

With the obscene spectacle of the opening of the Olympic Games—its mocking Jesus’ Last Supper and its rearing up the Golden Calf that Israel worshiped in the wilderness—a new low has ingratiated itself into western civilization. Now is laid in plain view where the narcissistic woke trend that has infected formerly Christian nations is leading

As humanity grows ever more corrupt and God’s Day of Judgment upon the world looms near, many who believe the prophecies of Isaiah and the Book of Mormon wonder at what point God’s servant will come on the scene. According to the Lord’s “pattern in all things, that ye may not be deceived” (Doctrine &

Because literary structures and patterns form an integral component of the prophecies of Isaiah, it is essential to learn them if we would understand these prophecies’ meaning. Those who balk at the idea of their having to “analyze” them, who are scared off by the word “literary” and want Isaiah’s words reduced to their lowest

As a pivot point on Isaiah’s spiritual ladder, the Jacob/Israel level consists of people in the world who believe in the true God—the God of Israel—but who are ambivalent about repenting of transgressions. That includes persons who go through the motions of religious worship but who don’t know what it is they need to repent

Nephi’s prophecies of the end-time restoration of the Jews identify two phases: (1) after they have been “scattered among all nations . . . for the space of many generations,” they are at some point “persuaded to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all mankind; and (2)

When the angel of the Lord asks, “Who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10), he is speaking of less-than-glorious conditions under which Jewish returnees from exile in Babylon sought to reestablish Jerusalem and its temple. In comparison to the prophesied end-time restoration of all twelve tribes of Israel, what has been called

Scriptural definitions of what constitutes a prophet start with Moses: “If there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make myself known to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream.” With Moses, however, Jehovah speaks “mouth to mouth, in plain sight” (peh el peh. . . umar’eh; Numbers 12:6–8). By