Question: I’m trying to understand the marring of the end-time servant. It seems to me that it is the apostate people of Jehovah, the drunkards of Ephraim, who actually do the “marring.” Is this correct?
Answer: The context of Jesus’ comments about his end-time servant’s being marred “because of them”—that is, because of those who “will not believe” Jesus’ words that the servant brings forth—tells us that it is the Ephraimite Gentiles of whom Jesus has been speaking in 3 Nephi 16, 20, and 21 who are largely responsible for his servant’s “marring” or physical disfigurement (quoting Isaiah 52:14). The same context of 3 Nephi 21:8–11 also tells us that the spiritual kings and queens of the Ephraimite Gentiles—those who “see” and “consider” the things the servant “declares” (quoting Isaiah 52:15)—do not oppose him as do the others. Perhaps the “Covenant with Death” many Ephraimite Gentiles and their leaders have made colors their disposition toward persons such as the Lord’s servant who, in their minds, threaten their authority as we observe in many such scriptural patterns. The “stone” or seer God brings forth to the Ephraimite Gentiles as an antidote to the covenanters with death thus serves those of them who do “believe” (Isaiah 28:16).
Once the Lord “heals” his servant (quoting Isaiah 57:18)—after he has gone through his descent phase under the terms of the Davidic Covenant—he is empowered of God to deal with his enemies among the Ephraimite Gentiles. Their being “cut off from among my people who are of the covenant” tells us—as in all of Isaiah’s prophecies Jesus quotes—that these things occur in the end-time, long after the Ephraimite Gentiles have received the gospel and the house of Israel has been fully scattered. When the Ephraimite Gentiles reject the fulness of the gospel contained in the words of Christ that the servant brings forth—they being his words to the Nephites which Mormon was commanded to hold back (3 Nephi 26:11)—it is taken from them and returned to the house of Israel to whose covenant it belongs (see 3 Nephi 16:10–11; 20:15, 28–31; 21:26). Only at that time is Zion established (3 Nephi 21:1)—that is, among the Jews, Ten Tribes, and Lamanites—although the Lord’s servant and the Ephraimite spiritual kings and queens help them to establish it.
