An Example of a ‘Dead’ Prophet’s Relevance Today

Last week I posted Mythical Category of Dead Prophets. As a follow-up I want to show just how relevant Isaiah is today by discussing only the first 6 verses of Chapter 1 of Isaiah. I will let you decide how relevant this ‘dead’ prophet is. Keep in mind that this is the same prophet that Christ said we should search. “Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah” (3 Nephi 23:1 emphasis added).

These six verses are from the preface of the Book of Isaiah which dates from about 701 B.C., which is almost 3000 years ago. What could be relevant to us today from a record written so long ago?

1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz which he beheld concerning Judea and Jerusalem during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah:

Earlier, in 722 B.C., Assyria had conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel (10 lost tribes) and taken them captive into Mesopotamia. The first chapter of the Book of Isaiah chronologically is chapter 6, which describes Isaiah’s calling as a prophet in the year of King Uzziah’s death in 742 B.C.

Isaiah’s prophetic ministry spanned about fifty years, and yet he uses the singular term ‘vision” which shows that Isaiah’s writings are one from beginning to end. Isaiah integrates his early oracles and later written discourses into a single prophecy that spells out an end-time scenario. Although Isaiah's prophecy was historical concerning Judea and Jerusalem, it is also an end-time prophecy in which “Judea” and “Jerusalem” are codenames that designate Jehovah’s end-time people. And who are his end-time people? We are, and everything Isaiah prophecies concerning Judea and Jerusalem he prophecies about us, the Lord's latter-day people. This also is proof that Jesus’ words--that all things that Isaiah “spake have been and shall be, even according to the words which he spoke” (3 Nephi 23:3) are true. He carefully selected events in history that would repeat themselves in the end-time.

2 Hear, O heavens! Give heed, O earth!

Jehovah has spoken:

I have reared sons, brought them up,

but they have revolted against me.

Isaiah begins his prophecy by calling on the heavens and the earth, which were witnesses of the Sinai Covenant (Deuteronomy 4:26; 30:19). That is the covenant Jehovah made with Israel as a nation, through which the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became a people of God (Exodus 6:7). The “heavens” and the “earth,” however, don’t refer simply to the physical heavens and earth but to those who reside in them. Heavenly witnesses to Jehovah’s covenant no doubt include Israel’s ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others who would retain the utmost interest in their descendants’ welfare.

Additionally, when Jehovah made the covenant with his people Israel, it included both those present and those not present (Deuteronomy 29:14-15). This alludes to the idea that there existed others yet unborn who were parties to the covenant as much as the people who stood with Moses at Mount Sinai. In fact, even though Jehovah’s people Israel may have at different times alienated themselves from Jehovah, the covenant itself was never annulled. According to Isaiah, even the new covenant Jehovah makes at the dawning of the millennial age is a compound of all former covenants He made.

Isaiah uses the phrase “Jehovah has spoken.” And Jehovah here speaks formally which makes this an official decree.  This suggests that at that point in time there had arisen a need for a reassessment or stocktaking. His people’s affairs continued for a time but then noticeably deteriorated. So Jehovah issues a pronouncement condemning his people or warning them of the inevitable consequences that must follow. These consequences take the form of curses or misfortunes that pertain to Jehovah’s covenant with his people, which, after repeated admonitions, become irreversible. And by warning His people at that time, He is warning us as well.

Jehovah says that “I have reared sons, brought them up, but they have revolted against me.” The word “sons” is a legal term common to covenants such as that made at Mount Sinai. As the prophets from Moses to Malachi adopt the emperor-vassal model to define Jehovah’s covenant relationship with Israel collectively and with persons individually, the word “sons,” as used in the present context, implies the breaking of covenant relationships by those with whom Jehovah has covenanted. The term “sons” also denotes God’s “children. Revolted in this sense means turning away from Jehovah. Hence the call of the prophets to return ye, return ye, return ye.

Isaiah prophecies that Judea/Jerusalem are taking their blessings and privileges for granted, and they are “revolting” or “transgressing” against their source—Israel’s God. They have turned from their God. Because Isaiah’s prophecies tell us what did happen, he tells us what is happening now among the Lord’s people in these latter days. This is part of the vision that Isaiah saw concerning us.

3 The ox knows its owner,

the ass its master’s stall,

but Israel does not know;

my people are insensible.

Israel . . . my people. 

We learn that Isaiah speaks on two distinct levels simultaneously, and that the “Israel” he addresses, therefore, is primarily two: (1) those who were Jehovah’s covenant people anciently; and (2) those who are Jehovah’s covenant people in the end-time. Accordingly, Isaiah enables us to read his prophecy as relating to Israel’s past, while his ‘what has been shall be’ structure enables us to read it as relating to the end-time. In that end-time context, names such as “Israel” designate those with whom God has covenanted. While we are identified with the Gentiles in Book of Mormon prophecies, we are identified with Israel in Isaiah’s prophecies. So there is no out for us.

Why does Isaiah use terms  ox and ass? While the ox is a ritually clean animal—because it divides the hoof and chews the cud (Leviticus 11:3)—the ass is not. Such dual imagery of beasts at times appears in Isaiah’s writings to represent (1) Israel’s natural or ethnic lineages; and (2) the nations of the Gentiles, or those lineages of Israel that assimilated into the Gentiles after its exile from the Promised Land. In an allegorical but not a contextual sense, therefore, this implies that Jehovah acknowledges a covenant relationship with both Israel’s ethnic lineages and those lineages that assimilated into the Gentiles. There really is no out for us! We can't claim mistaken identity!

The ox knows . . . Israel does not know. The verb “to know” expresses an intact covenant relationship—as when Adam “knew” his wife Eve and she conceived and bore a son (Genesis 4:1). Israel’s “not knowing,” on the other hand, implies that Jehovah’s people have broken the covenant with their God or, more accurately, voided their relationship with him by turning away from Him (cf. Matthew 7:23). Although righteous individuals (those repenting) among us may come to know Jehovah—as he manifests himself to those who love him—Isaiah prophecies that most of us appear unwilling to do what it takes (cf. Matthew 25:12).

My people are insensible, which also means non-discerning or uncomprehending, as in “not knowing” how He feeds His people--they being ignorant of spiritual truths. Says Paul, “The things of God no man knows but the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11). Unless one obtains the Spirit of God that comes with keeping the law of his covenant, it is impossible to know God or to comprehend his truth. And the truth is His word (D&C 84:45).

4 Alas, a nation astray,

a people weighed down by sin,

the offspring of wrongdoers,

perverse children:

they have forsaken Jehovah,

they have spurned the Holy One of Israel,

they have lapsed into apostasy.

From addressing his people personally as “Israel . . . my people” (v 3), Jehovah now addresses them impersonally as “a nation,” signifying their alienated state, a people who have gone astray and burdening themselves with “sin,” which, over time, ends in outright “wrongdoing.” That occurs collectively and generationally. The “offspring of wrongdoers” turn into “perverse children,” meaning that the rising generation has by now become thoroughly corrupt. “Forsaking” Jehovah and “spurning” him finally become conscious and deliberate acts. See The Closing of the Mormon Mind.

The title of “Holy One,” together with “Valiant One” (v 24) designates Israel’s God more than thirty times in the Book of Isaiah. In this case, it contrasts Jehovah’s holiness with his people’s unholiness. Still, it points to what Jehovah’s people should become—“holy” or “sanctified,” like their God. Both titles—“Holy One” and “Valiant One”—characterize Israel’s God as his people’s exemplar. We observe this when Jehovah exempts a righteous remnant of his people called his “holy ones” and “valiant ones” from a worldwide destruction (Isaiah 13:3). Those who will not be exempt are those who have spurned the Holy One of Israel.

They have lapsed into apostasy. Jehovah’s people have become entirely “estranged” from Him. They have “gone backwards” to what they used to be before they became Jehovah’s covenant people, when they didn’t know their God. In effect, they have become godless again like the world’s heathen nations, but now more so because they have rejected the light they once had. This is true even though they give lip service and attend to their religious duties. The apostasy into which they began to backslide a generation ago is now complete. They have dwindled in unbelief. 

5 Why be smitten further

by adding to your waywardness?

The whole head is sick,

the whole heart diseased.

To be “smitten” of God or experience covenant curses—through plagues, misfortunes, natural disasters, and enemies—constitutes Jehovah’s final attempt to bring his people back to a state of blessedness by influencing or inducing them to repent of evil. Instead, they persist in their waywardness, which only compounds their plight (Isaiah 42:18-25; 59:8-10). Illness and disease become rampant, reflecting a society sick in mind and body. This is true also of  the people’s “head” or leadership, and their “heart” or core institutions—in short, their entire establishment, political and religious (Isaiah 7:8-9; 9:14-16)—has degenerated to a pathological state.

6 From the soles of the feet even to the head there is nothing sound,

only wounds and bruises and festering sores; they have not been pressed out or bound up, nor soothed with ointment.

Like the wounds, bruises, and sores of an enemy—one who receives no chance of being ministered to—Jehovah’s alienated people find themselves in similar circumstances. When someone in a gulag becomes ill, that is his problem; he is dispensable. That is the condition to which Jehovah’s people are reduced in his Day of Judgment. They have rebelled against Jehovah and squandered their inheritance. Then, when their entire society breaks down, their curse becomes irrevocable. Nevertheless, although a majority suffers misery, there remains hope for some who repent. The idea of head to toe depicts that even religious leaders have gone astray.

The idea of being “soothed with ointment,” which is denied the wicked, Jehovah doesn’t deny the righteous. We observe his healing and anointing his repentant people later in the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 30:26; 57:18-19; 58:8; 61:3). 

It is for you to search Isaiah’s words and discover those who are soothed with ointment and those who are not. 

In other words, although Isaiah has us wade through the judgmental parts of his prophecy before he presents Jehovah’s glorious promises, all doesn’t end in gloom and doom. If Jehovah’s people repent in time, they may yet qualify for his divine blessings.

They who have ears to hear let them hear. See Isaiah 6.