Unveiling Isaiah

Isaiah 1:11 - To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Saith the Lord; I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. In the beginning of Isaiah’s vision the Lord has declared that though he has nourished his covenant children, we are “laden with iniquity”, “corrupters”, and “evildoers” and have “forsaken the Lord”, that we will “revolt more and more” and are “sick” from head to foot. He asks, “ Why should ye be stricken anymore” (Isaiah 1:5). Part of the answer comes in verses 11-15: because of our temple or most holy worship ceremonies. The Heart of Our Worship “ Hear the word of the Lord,” the prophet declares (verse 10). Then the Lord asks, “ To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?” Our most holy and spiritual worship is at question here. The Lord asks about our temple and personal worship. This is one of the first accusations he offers ag...

ISAIAH 10 - Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. Jehovah compares his covenant children to the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah. “The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and doth declare their sin to be even as Sodom, they cannot hide it. Woe unto their souls! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Say unto the righteous, that it is well with them; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings ” (Isaiah 3:9-10). Not only is this a telling statement, but a grave condemnation. Throughout scripture, the destruction of the wicked has been compared to the Lord’s annihilation of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and if the Lord is calling us by that appellation, he is foreshadowing our utter destruction and foretelling our utterly depraved spiritual state. And save it be for the righteous among us, we would be utterly destroyed: “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we...

ISAIAH 2:7-8 - Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. There is perhaps deeper layers of meaning suggesting this both a spiritual fulfillment and a temporal fulfillment of this passage, the spiritual coming before the temporal as it commonly does, such as in the creation of the world, “For I, the Lord God, created all things of which I have spoken spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth” (Genesis 2:5 [Moses 3:5]).  Viewing firsth the spiritual imagery of this passage, remember that the gardens represent the worship or holy places of the people. Condemning the house of Israel for its idol worship, Isaiah says, “ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen” and “as a garden that hath no water” (Isaia...

ISAIAH 1:5-6 Why should ye be stricken anymore? ye will revolt more and more; the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores; they have not been closed; neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. For those still living under the belief that Isaiah's writings are for some distant people in an age long past, you may be able to read this passage with pleasant curiosity and wonder how ancient Israel could have been so naive to forsake the Lord. But those of us who realize that all the words of Isaiah are pointedly glaring at us start to squirm under his descriptive and poignant symbolism. We begin to wonder how in the world we as a people degenerated to this level of condemnation. The Heart The heart is the core of the body, from which flows all blood to feed and nourish the rest of the body. As Paul spoke about the church being one body (1 Corint...

ISAIAH 1:2-3 -  Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken; I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters; they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. The Lord lays it right out in the very beginning: our rebellion is the crux of the Lord’s anger and catalyst for the Lord to fulfill his covenant promises with the house of Israel. It is prophesied hat o nce the people of God rebel against the Lord , or “when the Gentiles shall sin against my Gospel, and shall reject the fulness of my Gospel,” the Lord will “bring the fulness of my Gospel from among them” (3 Nephi 7 [16:10]) and remember his covenant to “preach good tidings unto the meek,” and “bind up th...

ISAIAH 1:2 -  Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken; I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.  Here is where Isaiah's story pointedly turns toward us. The Lord laments that though he has favored and nourished his children, they still rebel against him. Though the King James’ and the inspired Joseph Smith versions use the word “children”, the Hebrew text says “sons” ( בנים ). Sons, or son, is a term used in scripture to denote a covenant standing before the Lord. The Son of God was the first, not necessarily in chronology, but in greatness, according to scripture. Abraham said, “And the Lord said unto me, these two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other, there shall be another more intelligent than they: I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all” (Abraham 3:21).  Though, Jesus Christ is he Only Begotten Son, there a...