Waking Us Up to Who We Really Are - Second Book of Nephi, Chapter Eight (2 Nephi 8 and Isaiah 51-52:1-2)

Jacob continues Isaiah’s account in this chapter. To review, previously Isaiah established that the Lord had power to deliver his covenant people, the Israelites, from those who would harm them, even after many generations had gone by and both the Israelites and their tormentors might have reason to doubt.

Here, Isaiah wants to share his vision with the Israelites so they can know what lies ahead if they can just put their faith and trust in God’s power to deliver. In explaining this, Isaiah shows that the Lord doesn’t simply settle scores on behalf of his people. He looks to have the “enemy” join the ranks of the “chosen” if at all possible, and when the time comes for everything to be set right, there’s a spectacular way of life that He is waiting to help us embrace.

So if the previous chapter was about convincing Israel of the Lord’s power to prevail over their hardened foes, this chapter is about showing them that the victory and regathering is not a single event, but a way to transport the Israelites to a more inspiring realm of existence than they thought possible. In verse 3, we are told that the Lord will make Israel’s “wilderness like Eden,” and “her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.”

Underpinning it all are Isaiah’s confident proclamations that in this new realm, the Lord’s judgment and law will reign. Verse 4 states that “a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light for the people.” Clearly, the implication is that God, having perfect knowledge, will lead us in the right path if we trust Him enough to follow His commandments, even if it’s hard to see the end from the beginning.

He comes back to the previous theme that His power is greater than that of mortals, telling His people that the tyrannies and injustice that seem so permanent in our world will vanish when the time is right at the Lord’s command (verses 6-10, and several more verses throughout the chapter). In verse 10, he reminds them (and us) that there’s already precedent for this, by referring them back to Israel’s deliverance from Egypt by the parting of the Red Sea.

There is this powerful and at the same time tender and serene passage in verse 16 that perfectly captures what Isaiah is communicating:

“And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion: Behold, thou art my people.”

This runs completely against the caricature of the God of the Old Testament as a severe, wrathful, distant ruler. No, instead Isaiah paints a picture of a gentle nurturer and protector who gives shade and safety to His people, and patiently plants and lays the foundations for the lands where He wants us ultimately to dwell.

What does He ask in return? For us to wake up to who we really are. In three places (verses 9, 17, and 24) we read the call: “Awake, awake!” We are His children, his heirs, and can function right here and right now as His “arm” and his “strength” (verses 9 and 24). We should look up to His qualities to define ourselves rather than emulating the petty selfishness and intrigues of so many in the world. The Lord, through Isaiah, has just shown us the fruitlessness of acting in such a reproachful way, with the end result distance from rather than closeness to the true source of happiness—the Lord Himself. He wants us to “shake thyself from the dust” (verse 25) and “put on thy beautiful garments” (verse 24).

Speaking for the Lord, Isaiah refers to two specific places that he seems to expect will be especially holy—Zion and Jerusalem. From leaders of my Church, we have been taught that someday, through the power of Jesus Christ, righteousness will flow from these places to fill the earth. In several cases, prophets through the ages have referred to Zion and Jerusalem as the same place, and “Mount Zion” is a geographical area located in present-day Jerusalem. But the prophets of our Church teach that another place called Zion will be established to work in parallel with Jerusalem. This Zion is related to the Zion that is found in the account of Enoch (Enoch is Methuselah’s father and is mentioned in Genesis 5) that was revealed to Joseph Smith. In this account, “Zion” refers to a community of people so holy and unified in righteousness that they were elevated or “translated” from earth to heaven. Enoch’s translation is mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:5).

Another specific reference in this chapter is to “two sons” who will come unto Jerusalem at a time when there will be “none to guide her among all the sons she hath brought forth” (verse 18). Because this passage discusses Jerusalem facing desperate circumstances (“famine and the sword” – verse 19), one possibility is that these two sons are the two witnesses mentioned by the Apostle John (about 750 years after Isaiah and 600-some years after Jacob) in Chapter 11 of the Book of Revelation. In 1832, the prophet Joseph Smith received a revelation stating that the two witnesses in Revelation 11 are “two prophets that are to be raised up to the Jewish nation in the last days, at the time of the restoration, and to prophesy to the Jews after they are gathered and have built the city of Jerusalem in the land of their fathers.” Revelation 11 envisions that these witnesses will prophesy for 1,260 days (around 3½ years) and miraculously protect “the holy city” after a siege or attack on Jerusalem of similar duration (42 months). Then, after the two prophets are killed and their enemies delight, they will return to life 3½ days later and ascend to heaven in the midst of a destructive earthquake (Revelation 11:7-13). The prophecy in Revelation itself directly references the Old Testament prophecy of Zechariah (who preached in around 520 B.C., around 600 years before Revelation) of two olive trees that represented two “anointed ones” who stand by the Lord (Zechariah 4:11-14).

You can read the entire chapter, and the analogous chapters/verses from Isaiah, at the following links: https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/8?lang=eng and https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/isa/51?lang=eng and https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/isa/52?lang=eng.