You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/25?lang=eng
After sharing 13 chapters of Isaiah’s prophecies with his people, Nephi explains their meaning. Despite the fact that the Nephites are only a generation removed from living in Jerusalem, and a few generations from Isaiah’s own time, Nephi shares that Isaiah’s style of prophesying is not easily understandable to the Nephites in the way it is understandable to the Jews closer to Isaiah in time and place.
In order to help the Nephites—and all of us—understand Isaiah better, Nephi provides us two keys of knowledge. The first is for us to seek out the “spirit of prophecy” (verse 4) via our own direct study of Isaiah’s words and our efforts to have the Holy Ghost make these words plainer and clearer to us. The second is to heed Nephi’s own description of what Isaiah teaches. Nephi inspires our confidence when he tells us (1) that his own origins in Jerusalem make him an ideal interpreter for us of the ways of the Jews (and, by extension, the words of Isaiah), and (2) that his “soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that they may learn” (verse 4 as well). He goes on to say that “I proceed with mine own prophecy, according to my plainness; in the which I know that no man can err.” In other words, Nephi uses Isaiah’s prophecy to reinforce the prophecy Nephi himself has to share from his own direct revelations from the Lord.
Nephi now unfolds the essential meaning of what Isaiah has said and what Nephi knows independently to be true. And he does not disappoint. Those only familiar with the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus Christ know that Isaiah and other prophets make frequent reference to the Messiah’s coming and to important aspects of his virgin birth and his divine, saving mission. But these prophecies provide nowhere near the directness and level of detail Nephi now reveals. It’s as if Nephi says to us: “You know that Isaiah was a prophet, right? This is something that is beyond questioning among our people. In the earlier pages, I’ve just laid out for you what Isaiah wrote. And guess what? I’ve seen the same things. Here’s what Isaiah was really talking about.”
We see the importance of Nephi’s use of Isaiah because Isaiah is very much a prophet of the Jews, as compared to other prophets whose mission focused on the people of Israel more broadly. The people we recognize today as Jews are largely those who hailed from the kingdom of Judah after its separation from the northern kingdom of Israel.
Because Nephi traces the Jews’ historical and future trajectory, it is important for him to do so with Isaiah’s support. Nephi does not mince words. He and his family left Jerusalem at a time when it still had a proud tradition of resistance to outside conquest, but the tale he tells is one of destruction, scattering and restoration. According to what Nephi already knows, “one generation hath been destroyed among the Jews [save those carried away captive into Babylon] because of iniquity” (verse 9).
He goes further to say that this is not the only instance where the Jews will encounter pain and suffering. After they are restored to the land of Jerusalem (under the Persians), they will reject the Only Begotten of the Father. Let us pause to understand that not all Jews rejected Christ during His life, and that Christ Himself came from among them. The New Testament provides us with account after account of those noble souls, even among the Jews’ leading councils, who recognized the goodness and (in some cases) divinity of Jesus. Yet, Nephi’s words are true by indicating that the tide of opinion among Jerusalem’s Jewish leaders of the time supported and even contributed to Christ’s crucifixion by the Romans.
Here, we witness the power of Nephi’s conviction. He provides us detail about Christ’s resurrection after three days that is absent from Old Testament prophecy. Most important is what the Resurrection means to us. Nephi writes in verse 13 of “healing in [Christ’s] wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God.” It is a wonderfully hopeful passage, followed by an exclamation of joy where Nephi makes sure to tell us, “For I have seen his day, and my heart doth magnify his holy name.” In other words, make no mistake. This will come to pass.
Nephi then tells us that after these things happen, Jerusalem will be destroyed again (which comes around 70 A.D. at the hands of the Romans), and the Jews will be scattered among all nations. He writes of many generations where the Jews will face persecution. Then Nephi boldly and unblinkingly states that two additional things will come to pass. One, “the day will come that it must needs be expedient” that the Jews will be “persuaded to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all mankind” (verse 16). And two, the Lord will restore the Jews by doing a “marvelous work and a wonder” among mankind (verse 17).
This marvelous work and wonder refers to the coming forth of Nephi’s own words and the words of his descendants in the Book of Mormon. And to ensure that there is no misunderstanding, Nephi emphasizes that the great purpose of the Book of Mormon (as its title page tells us) is to convince Jews and Gentiles that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. Nephi adds that his own study and angelic visitation have confirmed to him that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and will come among the Jews 600 years from the time Lehi departed Jerusalem with Nephi and the rest of his family.
It’s important to make a distinction between Jewish (or any other) people being persuaded that Christ’s divinity and saving power are real and being forced to confess this. For centuries stretching from their existence in segregated European ghettoes, to the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, and ultimately to Eastern European pogroms and the Holocaust, Jews were hatefully treated as scapegoats by so-called Christians. What Nephi is writing does not justify such treatment for many reasons, one of which being that ultimate judgment regarding individuals’ actions and possible mistakes belongs to God. The broad-brush condemnation of an entire people for something in which they took no direct part is monstrously unfair. Just because Nephi sees that the Jews will suffer indignity does not mean that he or the Lord condones the morality of those who dole out such injustice. In fact, Nephi’s own Jewish origins (as someone who comes from the kingdom of Judah) and his evident love and sympathy for the Jewish people in the overall trajectory his prophecies take indicate that his teachings flatly oppose collective punishment.
What Nephi’s teachings do is lay out certain blessings that Jewish (and any other) individuals will be able to claim for themselves if they embrace Jesus as the Messiah and the Book of Mormon as a witness of this reality, and his teachings further demonstrate that a trend of greater Jewish acceptance of the gospel of Christ will bring to pass a restoration among the Jewish people. What kind of restoration? Well, the most important restoration Nephi describes is restoring people to a knowledge of what is eternally true. All other worldly outcomes, including the return to ancestral lands, pale in comparison to a person’s deep conviction that they have encountered something real and undeniable.
And so we see that Nephi’s overarching purpose, beyond anything else, is to prevent people from being deceived. He starts by addressing the Jews, but it soon becomes clear later in the chapter and in the following chapters that his message is to all of God’s children. In verse 20, he says simply, “And now, my brethren, I have spoken plainly that ye cannot err.” He connects his life’s mission as a special witness of Christ to that of Moses, and to making sure that through his own writings, the descendants of Joseph of Egypt (Nephites and Lamanites) will be preserved (fulfilling a prophecy from Amos 5:15 that predates Isaiah).
Nephi then explains to the people that the law of Moses remains in effect until Christ fulfills it through His own sacrifice, but that the law itself does not actually save them. It merely points the people in the direction of Christ, as it is by his grace that we are saved, “after all we can do” (verse 23).
Nephi’s great summation and exhortation for his people to share the knowledge he is giving them within their families comes in verse 26:
And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.
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