Gentiles in Prophecy Part II

 The Fulness of the Gentiles 

An important key to understanding our Latter-day Saint role and identity, particularly as Gentiles or more accurately as Ephramite Gentiles, can be found in the expression “the fulness of the Gentiles.” That expression occurs five times in the scriptures, each helping to define the interrelationship of the Gentiles with the house of Israel. 

It occurs first in Ephraim’s patriarchal blessing given by Jacob. When Jacob knowingly crosses his hands to lay his right hand on Ephraim and his left on Manasseh, he declares that Ephraim’s offspring will become “the fulness of the Gentiles” Gen. 48:19). Although the King James translation of that expression translates as "a multitude of nations," many translations, including the King James, footnote the word m˘el¯o) as “fulness” or “fulfillment,” its literal meaning. The word gôyîm means “Gentiles,” though it also designates “nations.” The construct of the two Hebrew nouns, literally means “the fulness/fulfillment of the Gentiles.” Because the future context of Jacob’s blessing is the last days (compare Gen. 49:1), this context means that Ephraim’s offspring in the last days would become “the fulness/fulfillment of the Gentiles.” 

The prophet Hosea sheds some light on Jacob's prophecy on the head of Ephraim when he says, “Ephraim . . . hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned” (Hosea 7:8). Hosea’s description of Ephraim foresees an important step toward the fulfillment of Jacob’s prophecy, namely Ephraim’s exile and mingling among the nations of the world. Because Hosea’s two statements appear in parallel, they help explain one another. This suggests that Ephraim literally assimilates among the peoples or nations of the earth. 

We recall that Ephraim himself was born in Egypt of mixed lineage. His father Joseph was a Hebrew, but his mother was an Egyptian, daughter of the priest of On (Gen. 41:50, 52). The patriarch Jacob implies that Joseph’s long separation from his brethren serves as a type. It foreshadows the future separation of Joseph’s offspring in new lands away from the other tribes of Israel: Joseph’s “branches” will “run over the wall” (Gen. 49:22). Joseph’s land will extend “unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills” (Gen. 49:26). Such is Jacob’s blessing “on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren” (Gen. 49:26). 

The migration of Lehi and Ishmael with their families to the American continent fulfills a part of Jacob’s prophecy about Joseph (compare 1 Ne. 7:1–2; 2 Ne. 3:1–5). In the last days, after Lehi’s and Ishmael’s descendants are scattered by the Gentiles, “they shall be remembered again among the house of Israel; they shall be grafted in, being a natural branch of the olive tree” (1 Ne. 15:16–17). A modern scripture additionally suggests that the willing and obedient among the Gentiles are of the lineage of Ephraim, Joseph’s son (D&C 64:34–36). The assimilation of the tribe of Ephraim among the earth’s peoples brings to mind the blessing of Abraham. The Lord promises Abraham that in him all families of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12:3; 18:18). The Lord confirms that promise on Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 26:4; 28:14), heirs of Abraham’s birthright. Ephraim receives this birthright through Jacob because Ephraim’s father, Joseph, had politically become an Egyptian, a “Gentile.” In the birthright blessing, Jacob pronounces that Ephraim’s offspring will become “the fulness of the Gentiles.” Jacob’s patriarchal blessing of Ephraim, reclaiming him from Gentile status, serves as a type and shadow of a latter-day reclamation. Modern patriarchal blessings, too, declare converted Gentiles to be of the house of Israel, many of them, if not most, through Ephraim. 

From Jacob’s blessing of Ephraim and its fulfillment, we see how the Lord blesses mankind. All nations of the earth have intermingled with Israel, more especially with Ephraim. All nations, by right of lineage, therefore, may be blessed with the blessings of Israel. That point is important because the Lord has ordained no salvation or plan of salvation outside of the covenant with his people Israel. The blessing promised on all the earth’s families is a blessing of salvation, both temporal and spiritual, that passes to mankind through Israel. 

Jesus’ atonement for sin features in the Lord’s covenant with Israel. Jehovah/Jesus Christ is himself Israel’s King; that is, he is Israel’s covenant Lord. Jesus delivers his people from the effects of sin—death—as part of a covenant obligation. Temporal salvation nonetheless also flows out of the covenant. 

A list of blessings Moses gives that pertains to the Lord’s covenant with Israel is largely temporal in nature. A blessed land and posterity, with increase, fruitfulness, and protection, are the essence of covenant blessedness (Deut. 28:2–13). We observe, for example, how the Lord manifests these covenant blessings in the latter days. The prosperity the Gentiles enjoy on the American continent pertains to his blessing of Israel (2 Ne. 10:10–11; Mormon 5:10). When the house of Israel forfeits the blessings that are its birthright, the Gentiles receive them instead (Mormon 5:19). The Lord’s latter-day deliverance of a remnant of all nations is also a blessing through Israel (1 Ne. 22:13–28). If they repent, “all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people shall dwell safely in the Holy one of Israel” (1 Ne. 22:28). The destroying angel will pass by those who obey the law of the Lord’s covenant “as the children of Israel” (D&C 89:18–21). We may go so far as to say that in the Gentile nations the Lord fulfills his promise to the fathers that “a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee” (Gen. 35:11).

The United States has strong roots in the righteous desires of an oppressed band of Christians. The Pilgrim fathers and others sought diligently to keep the law of the Lord’s covenant with Israel. These devoted men and women paid the price for the blessings that followed. Their Christianity is underscored by the added factor that among them the mingled blood of Ephraim was strong. Even being the world’s leading nation belongs to the Lord’s covenant with Israel (Deut. 28:10–13). 

If the Lord’s people keep his commandments—the law of the covenant—they will become the head of the nations. If they do not, they will be the tail (Deut. 28:13, 44). We may similarly view the British Commonwealth of Nations, the European Community, and other Christian nations as manifestations of the Lord’s promise to the fathers. That these are Gentile peoples does not disqualify them from receiving the blessings of Israel. Indeed, their prosperity is best explained by the fact that ethnic Israel for a time forfeits her blessing and that Ephraim assimilates predominantly among these nations. The Lord’s promises to the fathers lend Israel’s exile a proper perspective. Israel’s exile into the world at large, following her wickedness, was not an accident but an integral part of the Lord’s plan of salvation. Assyria took Israel captive about 720 b.c.; yet, the Ten Tribes’ very removal to other parts of the world paved the way for Israel’s assimilation. Judah’s exile into Babylon in 587 b.c. accomplished much the same thing. Although a sizable portion of Jews returned to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:5; 2:64), the majority remained in Babylon. Those Jews who have retained their ethnic identity through centuries of dispersion represent a small yet significant body of the house of Judah. The Lord’s people who assimilated into the nations among whom they were scattered must at some point stand up and be counted: the scriptures provide for the righteous Gentiles to be numbered among the house of Israel (3 Nephi 16:13). 

The salvation of all peoples, therefore, to a large degree flows out of Israel’s dispersion. The fact that Israel was absorbed into the nations of the earth lays a groundwork for the gospel to come to them. Because the gospel belongs to Israel by right of election, there was now a reason for the Lord to offer it to the world. After Israel’s exile, two kinds of Israelites would exist: (1) those who would retain their identity or ethnic integrity; and (2) those who would lose their identity by assimilating among the nations. The Gentiles thus play an essential role in fulfilling the Lord’s covenant with Abraham that in his offspring all kindreds of the earth would be blessed with the gospel (1 Ne. 15:13–18). 

Referring to the Jews’ demise when they reject Jesus, Paul says, “If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” (Rom. 11:15). Each portion of Israel, in its own way, dies so that the Lord may show forth the power of his redemption. The Lord, in his foreknowledge anticipates Israel’s apostasy. He then uses it as a means of reconciling the world to him. The Gentiles receive the blessing of salvation when the Lord’s covenant people default. Israel’s exile and partial assimilation among the nations, therefore, form an integral part of God’s salvation. In that sense, Israel’s apostasy and exile resemble the fall of Adam and Eve and their banishment into the world. God foresaw both events in his plan to redeem humanity. The plan of redemption would materialize through Israel as a covenant blessing. As far as the nations are concerned, they would largely identify with the house of Joseph (compare D&C 90:10). The Gentiles, all nations with whom Israel has mingled, are for that reason indebted to Israel. 

In summary, the Gentile nations experience a “fulness” or “fulfillment” as a result of intermingling with Israel. Ephraim’s birthright blessing, with its promises of populousness and new lands of inheritance, exemplifies this fulness or fulfillment. In short, if the Gentiles are to receive the covenant blessings they must be numbered among the house of Israel; with Israel they may inherit her promises. That inheritance is at once the Gentiles’ self-fulfillment and their redeeming feature. A key to this reversal of identities—of Israel with the nations and of the nations with Israel—we find in Ephraim’s birthright blessing. What the Lord promises Abraham, He in fact fulfills in Ephraim. 

The intermingling of Ephraim’s blood opens the way for all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people to receive the gospel as a covenant blessing. Based on Jacob’s patriarchal declaration, we equate the expression fulness of the Gentiles with Ephraim’s mingled offspring in the latter days. Through Jacob, heir of Abraham’s promise, the Lord defines a unique role for Ephraim. Two scriptures containing the expression fulness of the Gentiles link that expression to the allegory of the olive tree. Paul and Nephi both discuss figuratively the interrelationship of Israel and the Gentiles. The olive tree’s tame or natural branches represent the Lord’s people of the house of Israel. Wild branches—those grafted in from another source—represent the Gentiles. 

Here, I will emphasize just the fulness of the Gentiles—Ephraim’s mingled offspring in the latter days.) Paul makes the point that although the Jews reject Jesus and although the Gentiles come into the covenant, “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew” (Rom. 11:2). In Latter-day Saint terms, a people whom God “foreknew” refers to those who were valiant spirits in humanity’s first, or pre-mortal, estate (compare Abr. 3:21–26). Paul predicts that the Lord will again accept the Jews as His covenant people (compare Rom. 11:15, 23–24, 26–27, 31). In the meantime, God has blinded them so that he may save the Gentiles (Rom. 11:7–11, 32). The Jews’ blindness, Paul observes, will remain until the fulness of the Gentiles comes in (Rom. 11:25). Then, he says, all Israel will be saved and their sins taken away (Rom. 11:26–27). We read a clearer meaning into Paul’s prophecy when we substitute what we learn from Jacob’s blessing of Ephraim. When Paul says a “blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom. 11:25), he is saying, in effect, that a partial blindness rests on the house of Israel (the Jews and other natural lineages of Israel) until the mingled offspring of Ephraim has gathered. Once the offspring of Ephraim has been gathered the times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled (D&C 45:25).  

The verb come in, according to the context, refers to grafting into the olive tree—the fulness of the Gentiles, the mingled offspring of Ephraim, will be grafted into the olive tree. The grafting process, according to Paul, will ultimately also involve the Jews, “for God is able to graft them in again” (Rom. 11:23). 

Paul’s time frame for these events we determine from Jacob’s blessing of Ephraim: the latter days. In explaining the allegory of the olive tree to Laman and Lemuel, Nephi too cites the fulness of the Gentiles. He says, “Now, the thing which our father meaneth concerning the grafting in of the natural branches through the fulness of the Gentiles, is, that in the latter days, when our seed shall have dwindled in unbelief . . . then shall the fulness of the gospel of the Messiah come unto the Gentiles, and from the Gentiles unto the remnant of our seed” (1 Ne. 15:13). Like Paul, Nephi does not limit God’s salvation to one category of people. The allegory of the olive tree deals with all people. It illustrates the Lord’s covenant with Abraham—that in his offspring all kindreds of the earth would be blessed (1 Ne. 15:18). 

At the time the Lamanites receive the gospel, they experience a renewed self-awareness as Israelites (1 Ne. 15:14). They learn of their Redeemer and come into his fold (1 Ne. 15:14–15). In this same context Nephi predicts the restoration of the Jews: once they are restored, he says, the Jews will no more be scattered (1 Ne. 15:19–20). 

According to Nephi, the Gentiles will take the gospel to the house of Israel. Israel’s salvation comes “by way of the Gentiles” (1 Ne. 15:17). That event will occur in the latter days, after the Gentiles have scattered Lehi’s descendants (1 Ne. 15:17). In Nephi’s terms, therefore, those who take the gospel to Lehi’s descendants he calls Gentiles. Obviously, these Gentiles can only be those who have the fulness of the gospel. 

Although Nephi numbers these Gentiles with the ones who scatter Lehi’s descendants (because from his perspective they are one and the same people), he nonetheless singles out “the fulness of the Gentiles.” These Gentiles in particular serve as the agent for grafting in the olive tree’s natural branches—the Lamanites and other ethnic lineages, including the Jews. 

As we have seen, the fulness of the Gentiles represents the mingled offspring of Ephraim among the nations. They are Gentiles, it is true; but they also possess the literal blood of Israel through Ephraim. 

As Nephi directs his words primarily to the Lamanites, so Jesus directs his words primarily to the Jews. (The Lamanites too, however, constitute a remnant of the Jews; see D&C 19:27.) Jesus refers to the fulness of the Gentiles as the means by which the Jews will gain a knowledge of him. He tells the Nephites, “These sayings which ye shall write shall be kept and shall be manifested unto the Gentiles, that through the fulness of the Gentiles, the remnant of their seed [the Jews], who shall be scattered forth upon the face of the earth because of their unbelief, may be brought in, or may be brought to a knowledge of me, their Redeemer” (3 Ne. 16:4). First, then, the Book of Mormon comes forth among the Gentiles (compare 3 Ne. 16:7). Following that, it goes to the Jews “through the fulness of the Gentiles” (3 Ne. 16:4, 11). Jesus says that will happen in the latter days, after the Gentiles have scattered his people (3 Ne. 16:7–8). 

When the Jews gain a knowledge of their Redeemer, they gather in from the four quarters of the earth. Their gathering fulfills the Father’s covenant with the house of Israel (3 Ne. 16:5). Again, according to these definitions the Gentiles form a singular category. Those who scatter the house of Israel are also those through whom a knowledge of the gospel comes. 

These events are still future, for the Jews have not yet received the Book of Mormon. The offspring of Ephraim that assimilate among the nations here serve as agent of the Jews’ salvation, even as they do toward Lehi’s descendants. Of that saving mission, Joseph in Egypt, Ephraim’s father, is a type (compare Gen. 50:20–21). 

Lastly, in the Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of his first vision, the angel Moroni tells him that “the fulness of the Gentiles was soon to come in” (JS—H 1:41). Moroni quotes both Old and New Testament prophecies. All have to do with events that usher in the Millennium. Judging from this latter-day context, Moroni has in mind Ephraim’s gathering from among the nations, which at that point had not yet happened. The Lord’s cleansing judgment of the earth and His fulfilling the covenant with the house of Israel round out the scenario Moroni presents to Joseph Smith (compare JS—H 1:36–41). 

In summary, we can read the fulness of the Gentiles as a unique expression that connotes the mingled offspring of Ephraim among the nations. Wherever this expression occurs in the scriptures, it defines a relationship between the Gentiles and the house of Israel. On the one hand, the Gentiles receive Israel’s blessings after Israel apostatizes and is exiled. On the other, Israel receives back her blessings through the agency of the fulness of the Gentiles. The Lord restores ethnic Israel as soon as the fulness of the Gentiles has come in—as soon as the mingled offspring of Ephraim have gathered. The turning point for these events occurs in the latter days, just before the millennial era begins.