followHIM - 2 Kings 16-25 Part 1 • Dr. Mike Day • July 13-19 • Come, Follow Me

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Why did Jerusalem’s kings keep gambling with the Assyrian Empire, and how did that set the stage for the Book of Mormon? Dr. Michael Day explores Hezekiah’s faith crisis in the late monarchy world of Lehi.YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/pcAUyS3PdBEFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookBook of Mormon: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastBMBook WEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletter SOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE0:00 - Part 1 - Dr. Mike Day2:29 Mike’s Top 34:55 Bio8:51 Late monarchy overview10:26 Chapter flyover12:38 Hezekiah’s last stand15:53 Ahaz and syncretism19:01 What is a tribute?21:33 Scattering begins26:03 Deuteronomistic history28:36 Trauma and the Bible31:15 D&C 88 sidequest33:50 Scattering timeline36:43 Fortunate scattering41:07 Hezekiah’s reign44:04 Temple gold tension45:03 Rabsakeh’s taunting Israel49:49 Turn to Isaiah 3753:10 Hezekiah’s prayer57:28 Angel strikes Assyrian army59:26 Prism1:02:48 Promise to Hezekiah1:04:48 Connection to Nephi1:08:22 End of Part 1 - Dr. Mike DayThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsAmelia Kabwika: Portuguese TranscriptsHeather Barlow: Communications DirectorSydney Smith: Social Media, Graphic Design "Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Coming up in this episode on Follow Him. I've had that experience. In 2013, this lady was texting on her phone, and she just ran right over me. I remember when she hit me, I'm in the air spinning and I'm looking at the horizon, go upside down, and I'm doing like 22 miles an hour. Everything slows down, time slows down, and I remember thinking, so this is how I'm going to die. Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name's Hank Smith. I'm your host. I'm here with my tender-hearted co-host. John, by the way. John, Second Kings 2219, you have humbled yourself before the Lord. I have several prescription medications like a torvastatin that also soften my heart.

Wow. And the arteries and veins going into it and out of it. Yeah. John, we are privileged today to have with us Dr. Michael Day. Dr. Mike, grateful to have you here, Mike. Thanks for being on Follow Him. Glad to be here. You guys are hilarious. We just started the recording here, but we've been talking for a while and you guys crack me up. I'm excited to hang out and talk with you guys about the late monarchy period.

It's everybody's exciting stuff. It's the middle of summer and we're doing kings. Yes. I mean, is there anything better? I can't think of anybody out there going, I cannot put this down. Well, if there's anybody who can make it great, it's going to be Mike Day. John, speaking of the late kings period, the late monarchy, as you've been looking ahead, anything coming to mind, I'll give you one thing that I'm thinking of and then I'll jump over to you.

That is, this is where the Book of Mormon starts to connect with the Bible. You start to think, wow, this is the world Lehigh is going to grow up in. That's exactly where I think people will go, oh, okay, I do want to know about this because the more you study the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament, the more you see how they connect. There were some late monarchs. I don't know why they were never punctual. Also, it's helpful here to get what's Northern Kingdom, what's Southern Kingdom, whose Ahaz, whose Hezekiah, and hopefully we can sort out some of that so that when you make that jump to the Book of Mormon, you're like, okay, I get what's going on here. If you can connect these, the Book of Mormon will come to life.

Mike, what are you looking forward to today? As you've been preparing, what are you hoping we walk away with? Well, the number one thing is pay your taxes. Okay. Here's why. These kings don't pay their tribute to the big dog on the block, the big grill on the block, whether it's a Syria or Babylon. And if you don't pay your taxes, bad things happen. Number one, pay your taxes.

The story of Hezekiah where he goes to Isaiah and he says, listen, these guys say they're going to kill me if we don't let him in the city. And then Isaiah says, we're going to pray about this, and then they go to the Lord. That story is told in Kings and is told in Isaiah. It's a big part of the middle of Isaiah. That's a really big story to help us understand the world of Isaiah, but also it's a great narrative. What do you do when you're up against it? I like that prayer and that whole experience because it's also part of the hero's journey. Every hero has to go through a time where everything is just not working out.

What do you do in your life when you lose your job or you have chronic illness or you lose a loved one or something horrible is happening or going to happen. How do you handle it? That gives me a lot of faith. It really strengthens my belief. For me right now, I'm going through a period of time that's difficult in my family. And I think a lot of our listeners have had times or are having times where they need to have their faith strengthened. So that's a faith strengthening one, maybe a little less humorous. But then towards the end, and I nerd out about this so much, and I don't want this to be like a hobby horse, but I love it. I love the bit in the end. in 6.41, Josiah is a kid, and he's put on the throne. Then they make all these religious changes.

Because like John said, that's really where First Nephi picks up. First Nephi chapter one, verse one, is addressing the Josiah reforms. If you really want to have people walk away from you at a dinner party really fast, this is what you say, you know, when they come up to you and say, what are you reading about? And you could just say, I'm reading about how Josiah's reforms are connected to the Deuteronomistic historians, you know, reconstructing. Israel's religion and how that ties into the visionary men of First Nephi 1. You say that to them and they will be like, okay, and then they will walk that way. But I really like talking about that because it's so awesome. Hopefully it will make sense. I hope that when they put this out there,

that people will go, okay, I think I know what Mike's talking about. That's my hope. Anyway, those are kind of like the big three. Okay. Mike, I love it. I love it. We're going to laugh. We're going to learn. We're going to feel. This is going to be great. We'll scratch our head and go, what is he talking about? Now, John, I got to tell you, I first met Mike back in 2005. We passed each other, you know, ships passing in the night. I just joined the faculty at Copperhill Seminary.

He was just leaving. We saw each other for a day or two, and then he went on to do great things. I've loved him ever since. And he doesn't know this. I'm a big fan of his Come Follow Me podcast, Talking Scripture. And I know our founder and executive producer, the Sorensons, they are big fans as well. I've been listening to Mike for a long time. But what do you know about him, John?

Do we have any background? How was he qualified to talk about these things? We do. I know he's qualified because I first met him. He was on the back of a bus and somewhere around Navu, and I was in the front of the bus talking. And I saw him taking notes. I don't know what he was writing. Maybe this guy has no clue what he's talking about.

Maybe that's what he was writing. He grew up in Modesto, California, served a mission in Chicago, met his wife, Sonia, at Weber State. Their family has grown to include four sons and their wives and treasured grandchildren. How many do you have, Mike? Oh, my goodness. We have a fourth coming this week. Wow. They keep coming.

Yeah, that's great. And as Hank mentioned, you're the co-host of the podcast called Talking Scripture with Bryce Dunford. Mike is also a regular contributor on the Stick of Joseph channel. Mike firmly believes the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be, so do we. He's deeply passionate about uncovering and highlighting connections between esoteric temple teachings and the roots in the Book of Mormon and is equally enthusiastic about the Bible. He embraces its complexities, exploring its original languages,

and rich cultural and historical contexts, including the late kings. So he's been a professional religious educator for seminaries and institutes since 93, has a PhD from the University of Utah in world languages and cultures, comparative literature, and cultural studies with an emphasis in classical Greek and biblical Hebrew. This is going to be a lot of fun. Welcome to the program. Thanks for taking notes on the back of the bus and the church history tour. Glad to be here. Awesome. Mike, I think I've seen you more in person, in the program.

Israel than I have in Utah. We'll both have groups in Israel and I'll run into Mike. And then in Utah, we just don't run into each other. He's up in Salt Lake County. Well, Mike, John and I are excited to learn. I'm going to read from the Come Follow Me Manual and we'll give the reins over to you. The lesson this week, he trusted in the Lord God of Israel. Despite the prophet Elish's powerful ministry, the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel did not repent. Eventually, the Assyrian Empire conquered and scattered the ten tribes of Israel. Meanwhile, the southern kingdom of Judah wasn't doing much better. Idolatry was also widespread there.

Amid this spiritual decay, the scriptures mentioned two kings of Judah, who for a time turned their people back to the Lord. One was Hezekiah. During his reign, the Assyrians conquered much of Judah, but Hezekiah and his people showed faith in the Lord who saved Jerusalem in a miraculous way. Later, after another period of apostasy, Josiah, became king. Inspired in part by a rediscovery of the book of the law of Moses, Josiah brought reforms that revived the religious life of his people. Mike just talked about that. Like Israel and Judah,

we all make both good and bad choices. When we sense that our lives need some reforms, we can take encouragement from these two bright spots in the dark years of Judas history. Perhaps the examples of Hezekiah and Josiah can inspire us to trust in the Lord our God. Beautiful. All right, Mike, with that, let's go where you want to go. That's a good intro. Big picture, we're covering the late monarchy period from about Isaiah's time. Isaiah is around 740 BC, 750 BC in that period, to the Book of Mormon, to 600 BC, but really 586 BC. So that's the time period, almost a couple hundred years.

It's called the late monarchy period is people sometimes will say, how do we know that there really was that King Ah has? and stuff like this. What's really cool when you do history is you can kind of triangulate things. We can read the biblical narrative and we can say, okay, this is what the Bible says, but then what were other people saying at that time? What are the Assyrians saying at this time about Judah? What are the Egyptians saying? We know that there was a kingdom there. We know that Jerusalem was attacked during the reign of Hezekiah. There's a thing called the Taylor PRISM or the Senecahra prism, midst of the animals. of the king of Assyria, where they write down, this is what we did and this is who we attacked.

I put some of these in the slide. We can put these up, for those of you that are watching them, but if you go to the British Museum, there are massive reliefs. You can see the prism, and one of the cool things about the prism, it's this like six-sided pillar. The person who writes it says that Seneca is caged in Hezekiah like a caged bird. We know there was Hezekiah. We know they attacked because of there's other outside sources.

this part's really easy to triangulate and say, hey, this stuff happened. That's kind of the time period we're at. As far as the chapters, I always like to do, like John says, a 30,000-foot view. I've heard you say that before on church history tour. Here's the overview, the flyover. 16 and 17 cover Ahaz and Hoshiah. Ahaz is the king of Jerusalem. Then we get an 18 through 20, and that's Hezekiah and his experience with the Assyrians

are coming. What are we going to do? and that's also in Isaiah, which we talked about before. There's some really good stuff in there, faith-building stuff. Then we get to the long decline. The next bit is Manasseh and his 55-year reign. And according to some traditions, Manassah actually kills Isaiah. That's not in the Bible, but it's in the extra-biblical literature.

That's a fascinating story to me because I love Isaiah so much. If it's true, it's so sad. In some traditions, I think it's Manasseh married. the daughter of Isaiah. Yeah. I've heard that. And he has him sawed in half. Yes. And so there's images. If you go to, like, Italy, some of the old churches of Isaiah holding a saw, I have an image

of this in the church of the J-Su where Bernini's Padawan learner learned how to paint and sculpt, and he painted Isaiah with a saw in his hand. It's a fascinating story. Every time I go to a magic show and I see the lady get sawed in half, I turn to my wife and I'm like, this reminds me of Isaiah. And she's like, you were so weird. Oh, man, I'm glad someone else's wife says that to them. So that's Manasseh. And he's not a good guy.

And then you get to Josiah, who's put on the throne when he's eight. And that's chapters 22 and 23 of Second Kings. And all these reforms happen. The writer of Kings is like, Josiah is awesome. He's the best thing since sliced bread. He's as cool as John. By the way, he's so awesome. then he dies. Oh, the Egyptians kill him. And you're like, why are the Egyptians killing him?

It didn't say anything about the Egyptians. What's going on with that? Why are the Egyptians killing him? We'll talk about that. And then chapter 24 and 25, everything goes to heck in a handbasket. The temple's destroyed. That's the end of the kings, but the beginning of the Book of Mormon. So that's the big picture, the 30,000 foot view. Most of the kings in the north and the south are portrayed as really bad. But Josiah is a bright spot. Hezekiah, I think he gets a lot of props. The whole thing where the Assyrians come, whenever I teach this in class, I call it,

Hezekiah's last stand, but he's not alone. Wouldn't you be scared? If Canada invaded Salt Lake and they were surrounding us, we're going to force you guys to use maple syrup and you're going to play hockey and we're going to take over. Holy cow, that'd be really scary. Yeah. John's told me this before.

They're on Capitol Hill looking over the Temple Square saying, We're coming in tomorrow. Yeah, we're going to eat all your stuff, and you're going to have to pay us tribute, and it's going to be horrible. That's kind of the big picture. I wanted to bring two things. One, can you notice as a teacher, enthusiasm is contagious. Mike has it.

As a teacher, I can't think of anything you'll need more. Of course, the Holy Ghost, enthusiasm is contagious. And then two, if someone's listening going, why do I need to know this? if you love the book of Mormon and you really want it to shine, this lesson in particular, along with the Isaiah lessons, are the key. Through this show, I've come to learn if you really want to understand the Book of Mormon, you read the Old Testament. Yeah. How did you say his name? I try to say it the way I heard somebody in this or say it. Senacharib. Sinacharib. I butcher my pronunciations, but I call Santa Karab. You know, potato potato. When he says he had Hezekiah pent up like a bird in a cage, he didn't say, I conquered him because Jerusalem was miraculously protected.

Oh, so this is why Lehi had a tough cell. Jerusalem's going to be destroyed. Nuh, because back when the Assyrians attacked, it was all protected. I like what you said, Hank, this is a great jumping off point to help us understand the beginnings of the book Mormon for exactly that reason. We do need to say that all, Mike is a meticulous. records. He knows how to footnote. All of this we're going to make available on our website, follow him.com. The Great Lisa Spice will link all of these show notes in. I would love to see the story of Hezekiah talked about more like we talk about Alma and Heelman because here's a guy

who everyone is telling him, do not listen to the prophet. He does not know what he's talking about. how many youth adults do we have today who the message is do not listen the reverse with zedekiah where jeremiah comes to him and he says listen the babylonians are going to wreck you you need to pay tribute and then these other false prophets are like no you're going to be all good and he listens to those guys let's just jump in to chapter 16 in the chapter heading it even brings it out and it says listen ahas reigns and wickedness he becomes the king of judah and verse three says he made his sons pass through the fire and it doesn't get a lot of specifics there, but there was this idea that child sacrifice did happen. I'm not going to settle that here for this podcast, but the Old Testament authors are

very much anti-child sacrifice as we should be. After that, it talks about Judah being attacked by Syria, by Aram, and by Israel, the northern kingdom. Ahaz appeals to Assyria for help. To give you an idea of what's going on during this time period, Assyria is the big gorilla on the block. Syria and northern Israel are joining together. And this is where we read in Isaiah, where Ramalaya's son is going to come down and invade. Then Isaiah says something like, don't worry about these two smoking firebrands. You're going to be okay, Ahaz. Isaiah does talk about this stuff.

Ahaz is in this state of like, what do I do? And they're coming to get me. In verse 9, it says that Assyria defeats Damascus in the north. From basically verse 10 to the end of the chapter, Ahaz adopts some of the Assyrian ways of doing the temple. In scholarship, they call this syncretism, where another religious tradition will have this thing that you don't have necessarily a way of doing it. Then we blend it together. We see outside influences coming into the temple. The best way I describe it, sometimes in Seminary, I'll show that little 30-second commercial.

I'm sure you guys remember it, where there's a guy walking down the sidewalk and he's got chocolate in his hand. And then there's another lady and she's eating peanut butter and they bump into each other and they give each other that look like, you're really cute. He says, your chocolate's in my peanut butter. And she's like, your peanut butter is my chocolate. And what are they trying to sell you? Reese's peanut butter cup. See, you know it, right? None of our kids know it today.

You show that to the seminary kids today. Like, what? That's syncretism. We're blending stuff together. Big picture. It says in verse 11. that the priest, Erija, built the altar, according to all that King Ahas had sent from Damascus. That's 16. Now, Ahaz is portrayed as bad.

Verse 17, I think the author of kings is trying to portray in Bad, where it says, Ahaz cut off the borders of the bases, removed the labor, and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen. Verse 18, the middle of the verse says, Turned he the house of the Lord for the king of Assyria. Here I have this written down. Syncraticism is a harsh critique of A. has his reign. The author of Kings is trying to portray that. He's not saying it, but I think he's saying it by saying, hey, don't do that. Now, how could we apply that today? That's the conversation you could have

of dress, language, the stuff we watch. Are we influencing the world or is the world influencing us? And I think that's something that, you know, you could have a conversation on gospel doctrine about that. And how can you watch for that? Because it doesn't just happen at once. It happens in little stages. The people in Jesus' day are going to have the same problem with Hellenization. How much do we embrace And then we have the same problem today. How much do we embrace of the culture around us? Like you and I would never watch a rated our movie in the 80s and 90s, but how many reels do we consume?

That's our rated. Like, what am I doing? I do like the application there of, oh, be careful that you're changing things that the Lord gave to fit with the Assyrian culture around you. Thanks, Mike. Our listeners will be familiar with some of those terms like the sea, from off the brazen oxen. Hank, do you have a more contemporary English Bible translation you could read 17 and 18 from? I really like the contemporary English version. I use a website called Bible Hub.

You can bring up a verse and it will show you 30 different translations. The contemporary English version, the reason I like it, this might sound a little juvenile, but it's a third grade reading level, which kind of fits for me. Contemporary English version of 2nd King 1617. Ahaz also had the side panels and the small bulls taken off the movable stands in the Lord's Temple. He had the large bronze bowl, called the C, removed from the bronze bulls on which it rested, and had it placed on a stand made of stone. He changed the temple. My boys are in junior high.

We definitely read simpler versions of the Bible. It doesn't do them any good to not understand what they read. The Book of Mormon, I'm just going to say this too. I think the Book of Mormon is the best lens to study the Bible. When you read the Bible and something's just not jiving, it's good to read other translations. It's great to read commentaries, but don't forget the Book of Mormon. That's my interpretive lens. Nice.

Well said. When you get to chapter 17, in verse 4, it says that the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshiah. Now, Hoshiah is the king up north. The rest of the verse continues. It says, for he had sent messengers, so to the king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria. So he had done year by year, therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. What's going on? It's about tribute. You're supposed to pay tribute to the Assyrians. They're the overlords. They're the big grillas on the block. And they're like, you got to pay us this. And so what we think's going on is Hoshaya is talking to Egypt. And it, he's saying, hey, will you guys have my back? The geopolitics is like this underlying baseline buzzing noise that's happening through the King's narrative. The author of Kings is approaching their story through the lens of faith.

For the author of Kings, whoever this person is, it's not so much do you pay your taxes as it is, are you following the right way of doing religion? The author of Second King is going to say, Israel's doing it wrong. It starts with Jeroboam and it just goes down the list. you guys are all messing it up. But not paying your taxes is a problem. This is the beginning of the end for Israel. Now, I always say this. I don't know I wasn't there. I'm going to bookend everything with I don't know. I think Assyria is going to come down and take or kill a lot of people, but I don't think they're going to take everybody. They're going to leave people behind.

They're going to take the elites, the people that are literate, Lehigh's kind of people. It's in this time period, 721, where they take them, and what's so fascinating, if you read like Israel Finkelstein stuff or some of these other archaeologists that have done work, they've found that there's a massive influx of population coming from the north into the south, into Jerusalem during this time. Why? Well, what would you do if you knew that they were going to come wreck you? I'm out of here.

I'm going. A lot of people came south, and the population increased, and they know, because they're like, studying the garbage and like there's a lot more garbage from this layer there's way more people they go in and they take them and they i call it the wrecking of the the house of israel or the the scattering right they take them and they take them north and they get scattered now if you read some of the early stuff now we're going to just pivot from the old testament talk about georgistory and you start reading stuff brigham young said and wilfr woodruff and joseph smith they're like listen you british folks are from those guys. The blood of Ephraim goes. It goes to Russia. It goes maybe as far as the far east. But I'm from

German, French, and a little bit of British. And I'm from Ephraim. I know you guys are, I don't know. I'm not trying to assume, but I'm figuring you guys are Ephraim. They scatter Israel. But what's super fascinating to me, and I'm a big believer in this, I think the northern folks had records too. Now, obviously Lehi is not here yet, but he has ancestral land up north in Manasseh. Okay. But I think perhaps his grandfather or his ancestors came south and there was somewhere in that family line the preserved record of the north. There's this idea that the Old Testament has layers, editorial layers.

In the 17th chapter, it talks about that they have evil ways in verse 13. They hardened their necks in verse 14. They rejected his statutes in verse 15. Then it says in verse 16, they left all the commandments of Lord their God and made molten images, even two calves, and made a grove. Now, it says grove in the English, but that's an asherah, and worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served Ba'all. The north is being castigated for all those things.

The images, the two calves. It kind of helps you understand the perspective of the person writing this stuff down. Yeah. Sometimes we read this, Mike, as if it's like unbiased historical nonfiction. And we get confused going, oh, that really happened. You have to realize the authors and the editors even all had little jabs that they're making. Yeah, they had a perspective. That's why I love the Book of Mormon, where Mormon and Nephi and these guys are like, listen, I have a perspective.

My whole perspective is to draw you to the Holy One of Israel. I want to take you to Christ. In him, we're saved, and there's no other way. and every story I tell is to that end. Every story. These guys are like, listen, our way of doing religion is the right way and those guys are doing it wrong. If you go to verse 1920 through like 23, it says, The Lord rejected all the seat of Israel and afflicted them and delivered them into the hands of spoilers.

Verse 21, he rent Israel from the house of David. They made Jeroboam, the son of Nabat king, and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the Lord. The author is harkening back to earlier times because remember Jeroboam, that's like Solomon's Day. That's hundreds of years ago. That's the equivalent of saying like, let's say Canada's wrecking us and we're blaming it on Thomas Jefferson. We're like, well, it's because of what he did. Or Alexander Hamilton, why did he set up that banking system? That's why we have these problems.

But these guys are doing that because from their perspective, Israel is doing religion wrong. They're doing it the wrong way. Verse 21 and 22 is ripping on Jerobo. I wrote my scriptures, this is 931 to 910 BC. This is 200 years ago. But it says in verse 22, the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam, which he did and departed not from them. And then until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight,

as he said by all his servants of prophets, so was Israel carried away out of their land to Assyria unto this day. The Deuteronomistic history is this. It's Deuteronomy, Joshua, parts of judges, first and second kings, first and second Samuel. It's this corpus of texts that people say that the Deuteronomist, whoever that is, had a certain theological perspective. They wrote down their history and it tells one story. And the story is, those northern guys are bad, the southern guys are good. There's one way to do religion.

We're going to tell you what it is. And the core of it is going to be in what those. reforms are going to be that we're going to talk about the end. At the end of this podcast, we'll talk about Josiah's reforms. Those reforms are the theological perspective of the Deuteronomist. It's going to get a little bit nerdy here really quick, but a lot of historians or a lot of biblical scholars call this the double redaction of the Deuteronomistic history. I kind of think it's a triple redaction, but to be short and speaking, here it is. There's one where they put the story together right around Josiah's time and their idea is that Josiah is the best thing since sliced

bread. All these other kings are just not good, but Josiah is awesome. And we're going to have a golden age. We're going to be protected. We'll see that with Hezekiah. And after Josiah dies, it gets hit by an arrow. They're like, those promises aren't being fulfilled. So they redacted again, where they edit some material. And you can kind of sense the language ship. And some say, and I would be one of them, that there's like a third redaction of this story, and it's during the exile. There's this book by David Carr. He's a Bible scholar. ILDS, but it's a really good book. And the book's called Holy Resilience, the Bible's traumatic origins. I think this is so important for us to understand the theological and political perspective

of the person writing the Deuteronomistic history. And the question on the table is this, at least from the third redaction, the third layer. The issue, and I do believe that this Deuteronomystic history has some editing that's happening during the exile. Imagine you guys, we're in Babylon. We've had all these promises. If you remember the promise in Samuel, where the prophet tells David, you will always sit on a throne. Your seed are going to reign forever in the house of Israel. Then your great-grandparents talked about the grandeur of the temple. We live in Babylon. How sad would we be? Not only were we paying tribute, we don't even get to live on our own land. You read some of the Psalms and they lament, they're like, we long for the day

when we could live back home. It's so sad how they did this to us. Because of this trauma, this great, sad thing, we have the Bible. The Bible is coming out of horrific trauma. Now think about Mormon. 20 years of his life, he's killing people. You think he's thinking about the matters of life and death? there's nothing that brings you to Jesus in like the meaning of life than taking another man's life and realizing that your best friend just got killed and you could be next you know that affected Mormon the book of Mormon comes out of trauma David Carr starts this book off and I guess the reason why it really hit me is because he talked about he was riding his bike he used to do a lot of road bike and in this car just hit him and nearly killed him and it just caused great trauma I've had that experience

In 2013, this lady was texting on her phone, and she just ran right over me. I remember when she hit me, I'm spinning in the air. You remember when you were a kid and you were like a lagoon or whatever and you're on the roller coaster and you'd watch the horizon flip upside down? Did you ever do that look sideways? Yeah. I'm in the air spinning and I'm looking at the horizon go upside down and I'm doing like 22 miles an hour and I'm in the air. Everything slows down, time slows down. And I remember thinking, so this is how I'm going to die.

that thought just occurred to me. I'm like, this is my last breath. And I hit the pavement and I skidded for several feet. I look like Anakin where he's like, I hate you. Like I'm all road ratched. The first thing I did was wiggle my toes. Like, am I paralyzed? And then I realized, okay, I'm not paralyzed.

But that trauma affected how I ride bikes now. Now I ride bikes on mountain trails and I don't ride by cars because with people not looking at you, they're looking at their phone. Like, what are you going to do? David Carr talks about this. And he says, this trauma shaped the biblical narrative. One of the things that the authors of kings are trying to say is, why did we get wrecked? Why do we lose the temple?

It's because we didn't do religion right. Now, I could see this going one of two ways. If you have a child who's not living the gospel, can you see how this could be a damaging thing? Like blaming you as a parent? Is it really your fault? Like, let's take a breath. When I teach this, I like to teach. That's their perspective.

I'm not trying to teach us with lacking faith, but another message is, dude, pay your taxes. Like, I don't think they would have got wrecked if they would have paid tribute. That's the perspective of the guys that wrecked them. Do you think Babylon cares if they're doing religion right? They didn't care. They just wanted their money. What do you do with this perspective of looking back, thinking about, okay, why did we lose the temple? But you can sense that trauma here, can't you?

I appreciate the clarification in verse four of they brought no present to the king. Now, that wasn't just a gift to be nice. I was just thinking of you, wanted to let you know how much we love you. It was my birthday and you guys did nothing. It was a tribute. They were obligated to bring. They were forced to bring. The other thing I wanted to note was the consistent message of Jehovah, who's still there, verse 13. Yet the Lord testify against Israel, kingdom Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets and by all the seers saying, turn ye from your evil ways, keep my commandments and my statutes,

according to the law which I commanded your fathers. I just loved, that was the verse I had marked, there's the consistent message of Jehovah while all of this mess is going on everywhere else. My students at BYU, they get so tired of one of my favorite quotes. I've used it on here before. It is good to be faithful, said Elder Richard L. Evans.

It is good to be faithful. it is better to be faithful and competent. This to me, what we're doing today, Mike, is competency. Let's understand this text where it came from. What perspective are we getting? How has it been changed through time? I think you can worship God with your mind. And learning these type of things is a form of worship, I would say.

Hank, I love this verse in Section 88 of the Doctur and Covenants. It's really a great way to approach Scripture. Will you read section 88 verse 118? You got it. It's a long section. And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom, ye seek out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning, even by study and also by faith. It's super interesting to me that in this section, they do the things that John talked about.

Like they rejected his statutes, they didn't listen to the prophets, but then they also didn't pay the tribute. And you're right, you can miss it. He didn't send a present. You're like, what is this talking about? It was like big bricks of gold, many, many talents of gold. They were just like, we're just not going to pay it. It's not going to bode well for you. This scattering is talked about throughout the Book of Mormon. And I put this in the slide deck, so we'll have it for your people that are watching it. But I'm just going to read this bit here. The House of Israel was scattered on several occasions. The first was in 721 when the Assyrian Empire conquered the northern tribes. The second was in 586, when Babylon conquered Jerusalem and relocated many of the Jews. Finally, there's another scattering in 70 AD

after Jesus, when the Romans burned down the temple in Jerusalem and sold much of the population into slavery. As Nephi prophesied would happen, he prophesies this in 2nd Nephi 25. However, Nephi also knew from Isaiah that someday God would set up an enzyme for the nations. He will assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the disperse of Judah from the four corners of the earth. That's the message of the Book of Mormon. It said there's two gatherings. There's a physical gathering and there's a spiritual gathering. There's both. Both have to happen. Because of that, that spiritual gathering, and this is 1st Nepi 10, verse 13 and 14, they got to come to the true knowledge of the Messiah their Redeemer.

That's the goal of the Church of Jesus Christ's Latter-day Saints. The goal is let's spread that message to as many as we'll hear. For all the parents out there who have future missionaries, I do not understand how you can send a missionary out to gather Israel if they don't understand at least a little bit of the scattering of Israel. And that means parents need to know this. So in that sense, Second King 17 is relevant. It does help us to see these are real people.

We know that they existed. We are from them. Every one of us is from these individuals. It's a great story, but this is like David Carr says, a very traumatic story. How much of the moments in our life where we're closest to God come out of trauma or while we're in trauma? I think about that a lot. I think about Section 121. I think about the Bible.

I think about imagine what the apostles felt after watching Jesus die. Then he comes back and then he leaves. To me, that would be traumatic because he's alive and he's back and then he's like, I'm out of here. Then, oh, by the way, you're going to go get killed. Traumatic. Whiplash. Yeah. The Bible's coming out of trauma.

If you want a big picture of all this, like Hank, what you just said, you're sending out kids together, Israel. Well, how did they get scattered? Well, who is Israel and all that? If you want to see a really good. 30,000 foot overview of this, go to ntine.edu. Find Hank's talk, which had a big picture of what in the world's going on here. Going back to Abraham and the Abrahamic covenant, how are we going to bless the families of the world? How did the restoration go all the way back to doing this Abrahamic covenant to bless all the families of the world, together Israel? Go watch the talk because not only

is it really good, but it's your buddy Hank. So you can watch him explain this. beautifully, some really beautiful writing in that. How awesome to have President Nelson. He had these great little sound bites, like hear him, like let God prevail, this gather Israel thing. I love that he added on both sides of the veil. How are we going to bless the families of the earth? We get him to the temple and how we can gather on the other side too by going to the temple, putting all of that together. Hopefully in this context will help us see that. I would wanted to ask you both, because I like to call it a fortunate scattering because it scattered Israel all over the place. Was it a scattering for wickedness? Yeah, most of the time, except for

Lehigh, but it was a fortunate scattering because now people go out, we go gather them, they get their patriarchal blessing, they go, oh, I'm Israel. I'm from one of these tribes too. Is that okay if I call it a fortunate scattering? I think so. I mean, without it, we don't have the book of Mormon. before we leave chapter 17, the end of the chapter, verses 27 through 41. Big picture, here's what's going on. After the king of Assyria takes the elites, that's what I think. I think he's taking the elites. I don't think he's taking everybody, but whatever, however you want to read it,

after he scatters Israel and takes him, versus 27 through 41, the author of kings is telling you that the king planted people there, and he's putting religious authorities in there, they're dwelling there and they're doing religion wrong. This is the author of kings denigrating this group, the northern inhabitants of the land. I mean, if you look, it says in verse 37, the statutes and the ordinances and the laws and the commandments which he wrote for you, shall you observe to do forevermore, you shall not fear other gods. And the covenant that I have made, you shall not forget.

But verse 40, howbeit they did not hearken. Verse 41. So these nations feared the Lord. Lord and serve their graven images, both their children and their children's children, as did their fathers unto this day. To be sure in speaking, it's syncretism. They're following the Lord, but they're also doing religion wrong. That's what the perspective of this author is trying to say. It could be so confusing. You can read this and go, but it says they fear the Lord, but then it says they didn't harken, like, which is it? What scholars do is they look at this and they say, okay,

what's happening? Like I said, I don't know I wasn't there, but the best guess is they're doing Yahweh or they're following Jehovah, Jesus, as it were, they're following Jehovah, but they're doing it in a way that's not the way the author of kings would say is correct. The shout out to that is verse 29 and then specifically verse 32. It's super interesting because if you read Mosiah, Abedadai is like, well, do you follow the law of Moses and do you follow the Ten Commandments? And King Noah is like, well, yeah, we totally do. And Abenni is like, yeah, no, you don't. Mosaic cracks that window open a little bit to let us say it's interesting is some of that stuff's happening here. I'm not judging the North here.

I'm not here to say what they are or are not doing right. I'm just like looking at the text saying this is the complexity of the text how they're portraying it. If I had a 25 minute lesson, I wouldn't get into any of that. But that's what's cool about what you guys are doing is you put all this out there. Then people can, if they have three hours, they can put me on 1.5 speed and just speed. it up. Not you. There's other people. There's other people you can put at 1.5 speed. Mike Day is not one of them. I love the energy that we're getting here. Now, I'm going to share with you one thing about teaching. I think this came from a man named Rich Robbins, who's a fantastic teacher. He said, if you go to a dam, like the

Hoover Dam, if you see the force of the water coming out at the bottom of the dam, you see the incredible force that's coming out of there. It's because you know on the other side of that dam is a lot of water. He said a teacher's a lot the same way. When you see the energy and power that's coming out of their teaching, it's because they have so much stored up behind that. You can get that from Mike. You're going, this is amazing if we only had the time where we could go in and look at the other side and look at all he has stored up. I've always loved that analogy ever since I heard it. I can see it in a teacher like Mike. Let's keep going. We're on 18 next. Second Kings 18 through 20 is the reign of Hezekiah. The time period here is 715 to about

686 BC in that little space there. It talks about him being 25 when he's put on the throne. that's in verse 2. In verse 4 it says he removed the high places and he broke the images and he cut down the ashura. That's the growth. Then the author writes this in verse 5. There was nobody like him among all the kings of Judah nor any that were before him. For he claved to the Lord and departed not from following his commandments.

And then of course, if you're going to be a good king, verse 8, you've got to kill some guys. You've got to smite the Philistines. It's the Old Testament. We're clearing out chaos. Just in my scriptures next to verse 5, I wrote, 2nd Kings 23, 25. That's where the Deuteronomy says, well, actually, the greatest thing since life spread wasn't Hezekiah, it was Josiah. These are the twin darlings of the Deuteronomistic historian or the writer of Second

Kings. They love Hezekiah, and they love Josiah. Once you get verse 9 to about verse 14, there's a lot of trouble happening. The trouble is that Assyria is on the loose. They're conquering every place everywhere. And so on one of my slides, I put several reliefs. I went to the British Museum, which is fascinating. I would that everyone in your audience could at some time spend a day in the British Museum to see those massive reliefs.

And we see that the nation of Judah is just devastated by Assyria as they come in. This is what David Carr writes. as La Chiche was Judah's largest town outside of Jerusalem. And then the relief shown here, and I depicted here, is a vivid Assyrian depiction of the destruction of Lakish. Other parts of the relief depict Assyrian archers and stonethowers on the attack, Judean soldiers being impaled around the city and later scenes of people being led from the defeated city into exile. According to archaeological surveys, the Assyrians decimated virtually all of the countryside outside of Jerusalem. them. We see that in verse 14. It talks about in verse 13,

Senaherab comes against all the fenced cities and he took them. And then verse 14 says, Hezekiah, the king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria to Lakish saying, I have offended. Return from me. That which thou put us on me, I will bear. In other words, I'll pay tribute. Once again, that's what it means. The king of Assyria pointed into Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. That's the amount that they have to pay. I literally put this relief from the British Museum. I'm there taking pictures. I like put it in my scriptures. What does Hezekiah do? And this is, in my opinion, sad in verse 15 and 16, he cuts a bunch of gold and silver off the temple and gives it. Is this good? Do you see

where I have some tension? It's a fascinating history. But on one hand, the author says he's a good king and he does everything right. Can you imagine if the prophet of God was like just chisling off bits of the temple? Yeah, it's complicated. It reminds me a little bit of Captain Moronai where Mormon says, everybody should be like Captain Moronai. And then there's some things Captain Moron does that you're like, oh, wow. Wrote a pretty harsh letter to Pahoron. Yeah.

Yeah. We know not but what, you were traitors to your country. Yeah, you're like, wow. Pahoron's the guy who's just like, oh, man, I rejoice in the greatness of your heart. He's the one I go, wow. I mean, he could have gone, how dare you? You have no idea what you're talking about. I love that that's in the Book of Mormon.

It gives me hope because there's a lot of times when I'm on the wrong, then I have to eat crow and go, it's usually to my wife. I'm like, I was wrong. And she's like, yeah, you were. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Mike, is this where the Rob Chakaa steps in? Yes. Geek out moment really quick.

I call him the PIO, the public information officer of the Assyrians, is going to stand on the wall. Now, I spent some years in city government where I was, was elected city council. I remember being fascinated by cities hiring a PIO. Every city has one, especially now with social media. You have to have a public information officer. I remember going, I want that job. That sounds so fun.

Like you get to stand in front of the camera and explain this horrible thing in your city. Here's how we're going to fix it. And then I thought sometimes as a seminary teacher, you're a PIO. You have to stand up in front of the kids and go, okay, guys, we're going to read some really sketchy stuff in Genesis. Genesis 18, but bear with me, we're going to talk about Jesus. In this case, Rabshka is not a good guy. He's going to stand up and basically taunt the residence.

When I first saw, I know it's been 20 years, I'm sitting in this movie called The Return of the King. Now, I'd read the book, but I had forgotten much of it because I was a kid and I didn't understand it. But I'm sitting in here as an adult, and there's that scene where the mouth of Sorin is holding the mithril shirt of the The hobbits. He cast it at Aragorn's feet. Now, Aragorn is the Christ figure. And the mouth of Soren, in my opinion, I think Tolkien is channeling this bit. Because the mouth of soren, and that guy with the teeth, remember that scary dude? He says, the hobbits are dead. Mordor has won. You guys have to basically bow down to us because we're going to wreck you guys. Everyone's looking at Aragorn like, what do we do? And Aragorn's like, we fight. It's one of the greatest moments in cinema, because I think isn't that what Satan does? He basically says, you're outnumbered, we have the goods, and just surrender and just give up. This is such a dramatic part of scripture. If you set it up the right way, I think the students will go, oh, I can relate with that. Have you ever been in a time when you just felt like I'm hopeless and I don't know what I'm going to do?

That's what he does. He stands up and he says, verse 19, speak to Hezekiah. Thus say it the great king, the king of Assyria, what confidence is this wherein thou trustest? thou sayest but they are but vain words i have counsel and strength for the war now on whom dost thou trust that thou rebellest against me now behold thou trustest upon the staff of this bruise reed even egypt the idea is well egypt is going to save us judah might be thinking the rapchekos says that's not going to happen then he says verse 22 but if you say unto me we trust in the lord is not that he whose high places and whose altars, Hezekiah has wrecked.

That's my translation. He's wrecked him. He's taken him from Judah to Jerusalem. So he's basically giving a shout out like, you guys think Jehovah's going to save you. We've wrecked every one of those places. Now, the previous chapter, the author of Kings is saying, well, they worshiped Jehovah, but maybe they weren't doing it right. Maybe that's why those are in there.

But the whole point is he's basically taunting them saying, and it gets pretty vulgar. I'm not going to read the verses. but if you keep reading, even in the King James, they preserve the language. He gets really vulgar and says, things are going to go bad for you, then the key verse that I have highlighted that I want to talk about for your audience is verse 30. John, do you want to read verse 30? Actually, read 30 and 31. Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying the Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Harken not to Hezekiah, for thus sayeth the king of Assyria, make an agreement with me by a present and come out to me and then eat e every man of his own vine and every one of his fig tree and drinkie every one the waters of his cistern don't trust him mike this guy seems to know exactly what to say oh yeah he's good and so does the adversary doesn't the adversary know every one of my weaknesses i don't know if you guys ever have this happen to you, but there have been times when I'll be thinking, I'll have this negative tape playing in my head. And the negative tape is, yeah, don't talk about that. Don't testify of Jesus. Or I'll be out to go give a presentation and I'll hear a tape that says, you're going to do horrible. It's going to be

boring. Sometimes I wonder, is that my voice or is that another voice? The more I've come to grow and learn, I've learned those negative voices, that's not me. But they're real. I got to say this. I know we're in Kings, but I can't help myself. We got to go to Isaiah 37. Because it's the same time period, right? This is the same stuff. I'm reading the upper pool by the conduit and to the Fuller's Field going, that's Isaiah language right there. That's Hezekiah, too. This is it. I mean, let's get a big picture. Let's read the chapter heading, and then let's read verse 6 and 7. I'm going to pitch that to you guys. One of you do the chapter heading and one of you do 6 and 7. I really think Isaiah is going to give us a perspective

that's going to help the king's narrative really pop. Isaiah 37. Hezekiah seeks counsel from Isaiah to save Jerusalem. Isaiah prophesies defeat of Assyrians and death of Sonocchirib. Hezekiah prays for deliverance. Sinocryb sends a blasphemous letter. Isaiah prophesies destruction of Assyrians, and then a remnant of Judah will flourish.

And then here comes the spoiler. an angel slays 185,000 Assyrians. Sinoccarib is slain by his sons. Okay. That's a big picture. Okay. Now, these guys don't know history. So imagine you're in the city.

You're surrounded by walls. If there really were 185,000, I don't know. That word LF is squishy. LF can mean clan. It can mean group. It can mean thousand. I'm not here to settle the numbers question of the Old Testament. I don't think anybody can.

But the idea is it's a lot of people. Once again, I'm channeling my inner lover of Tolkien. We're at Helms Deep, and we're surrounded by this horde. They go to Ergon, what do we do? And he says, we're not surrendering these guys. We're not going to happen. With that picture in our head of all these people, let's read verse 6 and 7. This is Isaiah saying, Isaiah is a prophet.

And he's saying, hey, let me tell you what the Lord has said about this. Okay, this is Isaiah 37 starting in verse 6. And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say unto your master. Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him,

and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. So Rav Shakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libna, for he had heard that he was departed from Llam. Likish. Limna is a city southwest of Jerusalem. I have a map that will put in your video. And for those of you that are listening, you can't see the map. All the map is basically doing is showing all the places that the Assyrian army is just wrecking. And it's basically everywhere. Now, go from Isaiah's account to 2nd Kings 19. The words of Isaiah are in verse 6 and 7. At the end of verse 7, Isaiah says,

I'll cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. In verse 8 it says, Rav Shakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Lidna, for he had heard that he was departed from Lakish. And when he heard say of Tirukkah, king of Ethiopia, behold, he has come out to fight against thee. He sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying,

Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. What verse 9 is saying is there is like a pause in the fighting. There's a Kushite ruler of the Egyptian forces. And now Seneca Arab has a two front war. He's fighting the people in Judah. But now he's facing and fighting Egypt. There's a pause in the fighting.

While he's not coming to Jerusalem at this time, he sends a letter and he says, listen, I put a pin in that. I pause coming to get you. I still remember who you guys are. I'm still coming to get you. Don't forget. That's what's going on in verse 9 and 10. During that pause is where Hezekiah gives this prayer.

And the first slide that I'm giving you guys that I pulled this off the internet, I didn't paint this picture, but it's this beautiful image of Hezekiah on his knees. He's just praying. And that's Hezekiah's prayer, which is in Isaiah, but it's also in Second Kings. It's just a beautiful prayer. I'm going to read Hezekiah's prayer. I'm going to read from Isaiah. And you guys fall along at Second King.

kings. So Isaiah 37, verse 15 says, Hezekiah prayed into Lord saying, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubim. Once again, that's in the Holy of Holy. You're dwelling there. Thou art the God, even thou alone. Of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline thy ear, O Lord, and hear, open thine eyes, O Lord, and see, hear all the words of Senekerib, which hath sent to reproach the living God. Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries. They have cast their gods into the fire, for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand. That all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the

Lord, even thou only. Then Isaiah the son of Amos sent unto Hezekiah saying, thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, whereas thou hast prayed unto me against Santa Cereb king of Assyria, this is the word of the Lord, which has spoken concerning him. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despise thee and laugh thee to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. Cities were considered women in the ancient world. This is God speaking, but he's speaking as if he's coming and being personified as the city. The city of Jerusalem is despising this king of Assyria. Whom hast thou reproach and blasphemed? Verse 23. against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on high, even against the Holy One of Israel.

Here, God is identifying as the city itself. It's like this beautiful personification. This is one of the reasons why later, when Jeremiah comes 100 years later and says, hey, we're going to get destroyed, the collective memory of the people in Jerusalem is, no, it isn't, because it was preserved here. What I just read, is it really similar to Second Kings? almost exactly. I just love Isaiah. If you go to Isaiah 37, verse 32, I'm just going to read this. Out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount Zion, the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. Verse 31 says, the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. This is a beautiful sign that Isaiah is giving to Hezekiah, and here's the sign.

And I kind of skipped verse 30, but it's in there too. I'm just going to summarize it. In three years, Assyria is going to be gone. We're going to be able to plant again. And this land that's been devastated will again bear fruit. It's going to be okay. We're in a rough time. Trust the Lord. Then he says, verse 35 of Isaiah 37 says, I will defend the city to save it for my own sake and for my servants, David's sake. That's hearkening back to that promise that Nathan gave to David, where he says, the throne of David will be forever. It's never going to end.

This is Isaiah saying, we're going to be defended. And then again, in verse 6 of chapter 38 of Isaiah, he says, I will defend the city. That's kind of the big picture of Hezekiah's prayer and Isaiah's response. And I know some of it's in kings. I don't know why. I just always go to Isaiah, maybe because Jesus said we're supposed to. I got to read you guys something. The Bible Dictionary author, I think it's Robert Matthews.

He has a flair for... Oh, I've heard you do this, Hank. It sounds like a movie preview. Yeah, read it. It does. This is under Assyria in the Bible Dictionary. I like to read it with this voice. All Palestine now lay at the feet of the Assyrian.

One man alone. The prophet Isaiah. remained undaunted and encouraged Hezekiah not to surrender his stronghold. The prophet's confidence was justified. A great disaster fell on Sinoccarib's host. It's just a one man alone. Man alone. This is one of the greatest stories told in scripture. He is begging God. You can feel this prayer. At the end of 19, it says that the angel of the Lord went out and smote them and it killed all those guys. I love the end of verse 35. The Syrian army is now dead. It says, early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. That's sometimes my seminary students.

When I'm boring in the tears, I'll be like, hey, guys, Second Kings 1935, come on. They arose in the morning. They were all dead corpses. That's such bad grammar. Wait, did the corpses arise? That's what I like. When they arose, they went, hey. I think I'm a dead corpse. We're all dead corpses. I'm not dead yet. Mike, you brought up the Sinacharib Sinakarib prism. The Lord smote everybody but the king who had to walk home. All he could write was, yeah, I had Hezekiah pent up like a bird in a cage. That was the end of that story.

Yeah, that's the argument that biblical scholars say, they say, there must be some historicity to this because if you would have taken it, he would have said. You know, I wrecked your stuff. I ate all your steak out of your freezer. now I took your stuff. It doesn't say that, just as I hemmed him in. The other thing is the author of the text kind of puts it as he goes home, the king of the Assyrians, and his sons kill him. Yes, it does happen, but that's like 20 years later. The events here are around 701 BC, and the killing of the king of Assyria is in 681. But the author is condensing it to say,

can you see the Lord is in charge? Hank you mentioned that it was actually Gerald Lund, back when they used to do CES symposium, he showed a map of the United States, and he said, okay, imagine it like this. As Syria is the superpower. North and South Dakota are gone. Wyoming's gone. Montana's gone. Colorado's gone. And they're coming into northern Utah. And hey, when they hit Ogden, don't worry. I have a scourge reserve for them. When they hit Woods Cross, don't worry. When they hit Bountiful. And as Gerald Lund who said, you know, I'll stop him at Knob. He said, let's compare that to capital Hill, we see an army of 185,000 shaking their fists and yelling at us, and we're on Temple

Square. They're saying, we're coming to get you tomorrow that night. Here comes this angel of Lord Smote and 104-5,000. And when they arose, they were all dead corpses. I love that line. Yeah. It's my favorite. I think it's funny without trying to be.

If I were teaching this, you could teach prayer, sincere prayer. in those few verses. You can feel it. He's saying, save thou us. Please hear me. Do you remember the story President Packer told about the guy who can't feed his family anymore because his business is failing? And he's up at two and three in the morning and he can't sleep. He's like, well, I can't sleep. I might as do something. He goes to the office and he gets on his knees and he's like, Lord, what am I supposed to do? Everything rides on his business and it's not working. And he prays and he begs God and then he hears a voice or he gets a thought and he gets a sticky note and he just starts writing down, okay, do this, do this. And he just starts doing it every day.

And he's up at three every day. Weeks go by. And he's doing his to-do list that's coming to his mind after he prays, then one day he realizes that his business is feeding his family. The next thing he knows, it's succeeding. And then he hires a manager and he doesn't have to go to work anymore. And they call him as a mission president. I remember President Packer telling that story, and I was a young father, and I was like, this is Nephi's bow. When it's on you and your families are going to starve or eat depending on can you bring it? And can you imagine being in charge of a city. On one hand, you have a prophet saying you're going to be okay. And on the other hand, you see the mouth of Soren standing there on the wall saying, we're basically 99 and oh,

we're undefeated. We're a number one seed. We're going to wreck you guys. I love Hezekiah going to the temple. I love Isaiah. We'll be fine. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because, yeah, we'll be okay. And the Assyrians were the worst. What they did to people, it wasn't just like, take your land. Now you guys stand over here. They did horrible things to people and then displayed their carcasses and, too. Brutal. How would you feel about a nation that killed your grandma? What a great insight. The beginning of 20 really sets up the Josiah stuff, the idea that we're never going to be defeated. If you look in verse 6 of chapter 20, it says, turn again and tell Hezekiel thee, and on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of the Lord. And I

I will add to thy days 15 years, I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for mine own sake and for my servant David's sake. There is this idea that was in the ancient world, that cities, they were tied to gods. And so whatever God was in control, the city would be preserved. If the city was preserved, the God was powerful. By the city being preserved, it was the way for the people that live there to say, see, our God is God. But then the reverse was also true. If our God is God, then the city will be preserved. That viewpoint is going to spill over into the time period of Jeremiah and Lehi when Jeremiah and Lehi, both,

we have Jeremiah's words where he says, hey, you're going to get wrecked if you don't pay the tribute. There's other prophets that are false prophets that tell the king of Judah, you don't have to do that. Why? Well, because God's going to protect you. When I think about this, I don't know who said it first, but I'm sure we've all heard this. Just because we're raised in the church, or just because my dad's the bishop, well, it doesn't mean that you are going to have faith and everything's going to be okay.

Faith is not an inheritance. It is a choice. Every day when we get up, every day is a new day and we have to decide where we stand. I really like these verses. They're difficult because you can see, once again, the danger of misinterpreting scripture. We have to be careful,

and we have to be careful in our sense. Remember Jesus where he says, I can raise up stones to make children of Abraham. That's not the deal. Mike, I want to highlight something you just said that I think is so crucial to understanding First Nephi. This city was saved by Jehovah. How long before Lehi is this saving of Jerusalem? A hundred years, about 701 BC. It's going to get wrecked in 586. I don't know exactly when Nephi is. I think Nephi tells you the time period, but we're in that window of about 100 years. No wonder they didn't think it would happen. He's saying before. He'll do it again. If you remember, this is all tied in. Everything's connected. So Lehman and Lemuel, in my estimation,

my reading of First Nephi, they're actually being pretty religious. They don't believe Jerusalem's going to be destroyed. It says, according to the prophets. Well, one of the prophets is this prophet named Nathan. So in Second Samuel, he makes this promise to David, the inviolability. of the house of David is what I like to call this. He comes to him and he says in verse 9, I've made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth. One of the ideas in the biblical narrative

actually starts in the book of Abraham. God says, if you make my name great, I will make your name great. By the house of David building a house to God out of the Cedars of Lebanon on Mount Zion, by building a house to the name, God will make his name great. The promise is, in verse 12, when thy days be fulfilled, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers,

I will set up thy seat after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he will be my son. Now, that's hearkening to Psalm 2 and Psalm 110. Psalm 2 is the most quoted text out of the Old Testament in the New Testament. And the New Testament authors geek out and love Psalm 2. The idea is that the king becomes a son of God. Well, that's Jesus.

He's God's son. But that's also any righteous priesthood holder, male or female that holds the power of God. They become a son of God, the B'nai Elohim. They become God's son. We see this in the temple. So this is very much temple theology, like just mixed in with this history. And then verse 16 says, thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee thy throne shall be

established forever that's a promise given to the saints today one of the promises in the temple is i'm going to watch your kids i'm going to protect them this is psalm 91 the promise of inviolability the promise that the king is going to be protected this is also isaiah 52 which is in third nefi right around chapter 20 where it says no weapon that is formed against these shall prosper this is a promise from outside the veil. I don't take it literally that I'm not going to get hit by a car riding my bike. But what I take it as, yeah, I'm going to die, but my kingdom will go on because of Christ, because of the resurrection. The Christian interpretation of all this stuff is that the throne is carried on through Christ. Christ is king. And Jerusalem can get wrecked. That's okay. Or Augustine,

when he writes the city of God, he says, Rome can fall. The kingdom of God is what matters. That's what's important. But the people that lived in Laman and Lemuel's Day, they read these passages and they're like, Jerusalem's not going to get wrecked. Look, it's right there in the scriptures. First Nephi 2.12. And thus, Laman and Lemuel, being the eldest, did murmur against their father. They did murmur because they knew not the dealings of that God who created them. Neither did they believe that Jerusalem, that great city, could be destroyed, not even would be, could be destroyed, according to the words of the prophets. They're misreading scripture. They are misreading it, but it's so easy for us because we live here. What would we think if we were them? Sometimes my students will say, well, how do I know if I would

follow the prophet? And my only answer is, well, do you follow them now? Coming up in part two, Jacob 4, where he says all the prophets testify to Christ, what if the early versions of this stuff read more like the Book of Mormon, that they testify of the Messiah, the one who will come down and die. I believe that Moses taught this. I believe Exodus 12 with the Passover probably came with a lecture and Moses said this lamb we're killing is the son of man. That's not in Exodus 12, but I bet it was.