Isaiah 1:2 - An Ancient Covenant
ISAIAH 1:2 -
Isaiah invokes the heavens and the earth to hear and bear
witness of the rebellion of the House of Israel using similar words spoken by
Moses more than 500 years earlier. In doing so, he brings to the mind of the
Israelites the covenant their fathers made to God facilitated by Moses before
they entered their land of their inheritance. “Gather unto me all the elders of your
tribes, and your officers,” Moses told the Levite priests, “that I may speak
these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them,”
(Deuteronomy 31:28). Moses was directed by the Lord to “write ye this song…and
teach it the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be
a witness for me against the children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 31:19). So, Moses
gathered the children of Israel together. To that great gathering of the Lord’s
covenant children, he began the song of the Lord in these words: “Give ear, O
ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth”
(Deuteronomy 32:1).
A Prophecy and a Warning
The song uttered by Moses in the presence of the tribes of
Israel is a prophecy and a warning dictated from the mouth of the Lord to the
house of Israel (see Deuteronomy 31:16-21):
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep
with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods
of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will
forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger
shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will
hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles
shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come
upon us, because our God is not among us?
“And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the
evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.
Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel;
put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the
children of Israel. For when I shall have brought them into the land which I
sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have
eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other
gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant. And it shall come
to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall
testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the
mouths of their seed; for I know their imagination which they go about, even
now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware.”
As Moses called the tribes of Israel together to declare
the song of the Lord, he foresaw the state of Israel in the last days and proclaimed,
“I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside
from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter
days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to
anger through the work of your hands” (Deuteronomy 31:29; emphasis added). The
word-link latter days connects this passage to the last
days, or in other words, to our day. Concerning Melchizedek, Moses wrote: “And his people wrought
righteousness, and obtained heaven, and sought for the city of Enoch which God
had before taken, separating it from the earth, having reserved it unto the latter
days, or the end of the world” (Genesis 14:34 [JST Genesis 14:34]; emphasis
added).
The Broken Covenant
What was the covenant promise the Lord predicted that the
house of Israel would break? What had they done (or would they do) to provoke
the Lord to anger?
“These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord
commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab,
besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb…. Ye stand this day all
of you before the Lord your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and
your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and
thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of
thy water; That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and
into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day; That he may
establish thee today for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a
God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (Deuteronomy 29:1, 11-13; emphasis added).
Moses continued the covenant promise, “See, I have set
before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; In that I command
thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his
commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments, that thou mayest live
and multiply; and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou
goest to possess it” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16; emphasis added).
Along with the covenant promises, however, comes covenant
curses for those who are not faithful to the covenant: “But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not
hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I
denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not
prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to
possess it. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have
set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life,
that both thou and thy seed may live; That thou mayest love the Lord thy God,
and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him; for
he is thy life, and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land
which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to
give them” (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).
Can you see the simple chiasmic pattern where the covenant
curse is encircled by the covenant promise in the preceding quote? The chiasm
can be parsed into much greater complex patterns that can give greater depth of
meaning and focus, but for this illustration, a simple A-B-A chiasm
demonstrates the promise-curse-promise.
A See,
I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; In
that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in
his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments,
that thou mayest live and multiply; and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither
thou goest to possess it
B But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship
other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye
shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong
your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to
possess it.
A’ I call
heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you
life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that
both thou and thy seed may live; That thou mayest love the Lord thy
God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him;
for he is thy life, and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto
thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
Bridging the Gap
Isaiah uses several word-links that tie directly into the
Lord’s song given to Moses and connecting his vision to the covenant promise and covenant curse Moses pronounced upon the house of Israel. His vision was anciently – and
is still today – a witness for, or against, the house of Israel and all who claim
to be covenant children of God.
Why is this important to know? When God speaks, his words are
both powerful and enduring. “For as the rain cometh down and the snow from
heaven, and returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it bring
forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so
shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me
void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the
thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). The covenant given to ancient Israel
facilitated by Moses is as valid now as it was more than 3300 years ago. When
the Lord makes a covenant with his children, he fulfills that covenant promise.
In the same vein, the covenant curses for broken covenants are also as valid
today as they were in the time of Moses. The Lord said, “What I the
Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself, and though the
heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away but shall all be
fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the
same” (D&C 1:8 [1:38]).
Just as the house of Israel made a covenant as a nation with the Lord to obey his commandments, so we also individually make this same covenant with the Lord as we step into the waters of baptism. Anyone who has been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority of Christ has made this covenant and has the same covenant blessings, as well as the same covenant curses. Are we not the descendants of the house of Israel? Are their covenants not also our covenants? Since Isaiah’s vision is a prophecy of the last days, he
has effectively bridged our covenant promises and curses with our fathers who
covenanted at the feet of Moses, symbolically calling us to remember the
covenant of our forefathers just as Malachi predicted. Isaiah calls upon all the
elements, both those in the heavens, the firmament above, and those upon the
earth to testify of our righteousness and our wickedness; he calls upon the angels of heaven and those upon the earth to testify whether we
have chosen “life or death, a blessing or a curse.”
Sealing the Word
The Lord uses his servants as mouthpieces. His servants are the angels and
prophets. He also gives power unto some of those earthly servants to seal or bind things in heaven and
on earth. The Lord said to Peter, “I will give unto thee the keys of the
kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven”
(Matthew 16:20 [16:19]). He also calls upon inspired men and women to write the
words which he speaks to inspire and uplift, but also to record and judge. “I
command all men, both in the east, and in the west, and in the north, and in
the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which
I speak unto them: for out of the books which shall be written, I will judge
the world every man according to their works, according to that which is
written” (2 Nephi 12 [29:11]).[1]
Joseph Smith expanded upon this concept in a letter to the latter-day saints, “It is granted that whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven: or in
other words, taking a different view of the translation; whatsoever
you record on earth shall be recorded in Heaven; and whatsoever you do not
record on earth, shall not be recorded in Heaven.”[2]
Thus, as Isaiah bridges the ancient covenants with our
modern-day or new and everlasting covenant, we begin to understand better our obligation to
God. Isaiah’s writings are a sealing or binding blessing or cursing upon the
house of Israel, and as the seed of the house of Israel, we are fully bound by
his words, whether we like it or not. In a day and age where we have at our
fingertips the words of prophets from the dawn of time, we can hardly claim
ignorance to the covenant terms of our ancient ancestors. Yet even in this
critical time of discovering truth from error, we are quick to skip over the
Isaiah portions of the Book of Mormon and hardly crack open the Bible in search
for truth, but instead are so easily flattered by the cunning whispers of the
adversary and “lulled away into carnal security,” that we are content to call
out, “All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil
cheateth [our] souls, and leadeth [us] away carefully down to hell” (2 Nephi 12
[28:21]) while the pages of Isaiah stay firmly closed.
If we in our zeal truly
want to understand what Nephi and Jacob intended to say and what the Lord refers
to in his prophecies in the Book of Mormon (see 3 Nephi), we need to understand Isaiah’s
writings, the pivotal focus and the key to each of their prophecies, for we will be judged by
his words whether we read them or not, and heaven and earth will stand as
testimony for or against us.
[1]
NOTE: Though the 1830 publication of the Book of Mormon was sectioned into
chapters, there were no verse numbers.
[2] Letter to “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” 6 September
1842, p. 3, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 27, 2018, https://josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-6-september-1842-dc-128/3