followHIM - Jacob 5-7 Part 1 • Dr. Matthew L. Bowen • April 8 - April 14 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

Ever wondered how we, as Latter-day Saints, can effectively gather Israel amidst the enormity of the task? Join Dr. Matthew Bowen as he delves into Jacob 5, uncovering the role of Jesus Christ in His work and His unwavering love for all His children, across generations. Discover how He orchestrates the gathering process and collaborates with His servants.SHOW NOTES/TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM15ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM15FRPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM15PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM15ESYOUTUBEhttps://youtu.be/L0CDLBhBCjoALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcast00:00 Part 1–Dr. Matthew Bowen00:42 What to expect in this episode01:15 Introduction of Dr. Bowen02:13 Bio of Dr. Bowen03:01 Isles of the Sea and working on our portion of the Vineyard04:48 Preparing to read the allegory07:51 Everyone will receive the Atonement10:55 Jacob 5:15 - A temple metaphor and the Divine Council13:46 Jacob’s life story and “Let God Prevail”19:12 Jacob 5:3 and Isaiah 5 - Beginning of decay21:55 Jacob 5:6-7 - First branches move out and wild ones brought in24:25 Jacob 5:8-10 - Grafted branches and servants27:23 Paul Hoskisson splits it into seven time periods28:48 Jacob 5:15-28 - Day of Former Day Saints and ways to divide the allegory31:54 Jacob 1:1-14 - Nurturing and first scattering34:14 Hank summarizes history of Israel after the Exodus36:08 Israel demands a king39:52 Main takeaways from Jacob 5:1-1443:10 Dr. Bowen on Exodus 14-1746:10 Elder Holland on the allegory48:35 Hugh B Brown “God is the Gardener”52:50 President Benson: Turning our lives over to God56:34 Jacob 5:15-28 - Gentile grafts produce good fruit59:55 Jacob 5:58-63, 67-73 - Joy in the vineyard1:04:57 Dr. Bowen shares a story about his mission 1:06:53 End of Part 1 –  Dr. Matthew BowenThanks 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 NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name's Hank Smith, and I'm your host, and I'm here with my tame co-host, John, by the way, and Dr. Matt Bowen. John, we are in Jacob 5, 6, and 7. What are you looking forward to? I think a lot of people, they understand Jacob 5 as a vineyard, but they don't know what to do with it. All of us go, this is a long chapter. Why is this in here? I love this chapter, John. I didn't as a kid. I'll tell you, I remember when my parents would say, okay, we're going to read five verses each. And I thought, I'm never going to go to school. Three days like i said john we're here with dr matt bowen he's out in the religion department at byu hawaii matt what are we looking forward to today jacob five six and

seven so what we have in jacob five is an extended parable about the atonement of jesus christ and its effects on the human family and how that atonement relates to the gathering of Israel in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. And then Jacob will tie it up. I think he intended to conclude his record in chapter six. He ties it up with some references to the Psalms and to Isaiah in chapter 6, and then in chapter 7, perhaps as an unintended coda to the book of his encounter with Sherem, and the impact that had on him and his people. That helps us appreciate some other things that happen later in the Book of Mormon, where we have other individuals who come using specious logic and rhetoric in an attempt to get people off of the covenant path. Lots of good stuff in these chapters.

Our first anti-Christ figure in Sheram. I'm reminded of what Elder Holland once wrote. He said, this allegory is a declaration of divine love. John, we haven't had Matt on the podcast in a couple of years. We were way back in the book of Exodus. Did such an incredible job. Why don't you introduce him to us? Yes, we're glad to have him back.

This is Dr. Matthew L. Bowen. He's an associate professor of religious education at BYU Hawaii. He received a master's degree and PhD in biblical studies from Catholic University of America. He is married, has three children, and the temperature where he is is about twice as high as it is where I am and where Hank is right now. But we're really glad to have you. We're a little jealous, but we're glad to have you back. Thank you. Great to be back. Sometimes that I'm isolated from some of my friends and colleagues over there, but love my friends and Ohana and the students here. And I feel like it's a real privilege to be where I'm at and do what I'm doing. And it's a privilege to be here with

you guys on this podcast. Thank you, Matt. Is this the section where Jacob says we are upon the isles of the sea? Is that here or is that in 2 Nephi? him to give to the people. When we get to Jacob 6, verse 2, we'll need to talk about Isaiah 11, 11, because I think it has some special application actually to where I'm at at BYU Hawaii and what's going on here and the work that is expected of us over here in particular at this school. I think that's something that will interest our listeners. What's it like out there, BYU Hawaii? Now, Matt, before we turn it over to you, let me read a portion of the Come Follow Me manual. There are many, many people who haven't yet heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you ever feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the task of gathering them into the Lord's church, what Jacob said about olive trees in Jacob 5 has a reassuring reminder. The vineyard belongs to the Lord. He has given each of us a small area to assist his work,

our family, our circle of friends, our sphere of influence. And sometimes the first person we help to gather is ourselves. But we are never alone in this work, for the Lord of the vineyard labors alongside his servants. God knows and loves his children, and he will prepare a way for each of them to hear the gospel, even those who have rejected him in the past. And then when the work is done, all those who have been diligent in laboring with him shall have joy with him because of the fruit of his vineyard. A beautiful opening paragraph to a beautiful section of scripture. With that, Matt, where do we want to start?

I think we may want to start at the framing of the allegory just at the very end of chapter four. We don't need to spend a ton of time here, but it is interesting to me that he leads in with, he talks about the hard-heartedness of the Lord's people, despising the words of plainness. One of the reasons Isaiah was commissioned to give the people a difficult message back in Isaiah 6, you'll remember, is the Lord wanted to make the message difficult for those who were hardening their hearts. Zenos' allegory may actually be another example of this, where you have the message somewhat encoded

because the Lord wants people who are open to his spirit and learning through his spirit to be able to get the symbols and the meaning it's like jesus's parables there are a lot of layers here but he starts off by blending quotations from isaiah chapter 8 verses 14 through 16 from isaiah 28 16 and from the halal Psalm 118.22, with this image of the stone, the rejection of the foundation stone upon which the Lord's people can have safe foundation. And how even after the rejection of that stone, it can become the great and the last and the only sure foundation upon which they can build. Then he asks this question, and now my beloved, how is it possible that these, after having rejected the sure foundation, can ever build upon it that it may become the head of their corner? Again, that's quoting from Psalm 118.22. The Psalms, remember, they're the hymns of the temple, the hymns of the Jerusalem temple.

It's really significant that we're getting Isaiah together with the Psalms here. And then he says, Behold, my beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you, if I do not by any means get shaken from my firmness in the spirit and stumble because of my anxiety for you. Great Jacob word there, anxiety. A lot of people have talked about that. But that word mystery should be a real signal to all of us that what's coming next is symbolic and sacred. It's going to be something like what we get in the temple endowment, where you have a narrative that's told in a very symbolic way with many layers of meaning. The narrative in the endowment

helps us see this too, how it all works out in the end. Elder Bruce and Sister Marie Hafen have talked about how the endowment's the story of experiencing the fall but then receiving the atonement receiving the blessings of the atonement and one of the things i love about the allegory of the olive tree is it's a story about how the entirety of the lord's vineyard including his own people the natural tree and the natural branches of the tree ultimately receive that atonement i wanted to mention that word mystery again jacob 4 18 that word i will unfold this mystery unto you the word mystery whether you connect it with greek mysterion or mysteria the plural mysteries or the hebrew sold we're talking about confidential teaching into which one needs

to be inducted that's what jacob's trying to do he's going to induct us into that and then he leads in chapter 5 verse 1 behold my beloved brethren do you not remember to have read the words of the prophet zenas which he spake unto the house of israel saying That's a very typical type of formulaic proclamation that Hebrew prophets use. Isaiah, we see him use that a lot. And then he says, That is probably the hebrew verb mashal i'm going to liken thee o house of israel unto a tame olive tree he's going to make a parable about the house of israel that compares the house of israel to a tame olive tree which a man took and nourished in

his vineyard and it grew and waxed old and began to decay so this parable is about the house of israel and i think in these first three verses this is the only place where we get any names this helps us map where this whole thing's going to go i really appreciate this introduction i like to think of this as a jacob chapter 5 is the a of a Q and A and the Q is Jacob 417. Here's the question. How is it possible the Jews after rejecting the sure foundation will ever build upon it? So it becomes the head of their corner. And then as Matt just said, okay, we'll hearken to the words of Zenos.

He's going to answer that question. It's a long answer. It's not jeopardy. It's a long answer here, but here how the jews will eventually be able to build on christ the messiah i've often wondered did zenas know about this good spot across the oceans i mean it's fascinating to think about what did zenas see in a vision so that he could put this allegory together but that helps me, okay, this is the answer to the question in Jacob 4.17. So thanks for starting there.

Yeah. Matt, Jacob 5, is the heading kind of interfering here? I'd have to look at the 1830 edition to see where the original chapter break is. But a lot of these chapters in the Book of Mormon, the way that it's in the present text, Orson Pratt arranged them differently than they were in the Book of Mormon the way that it's in the present text. Orson Pratt arranged them differently than they were in the earlier editions. And they have a tendency to kind of wipe the slate clean after you finish a chapter and start a new one, where this one is a direct connection. Yep. And we probably shouldn't let it pass that, remember, he's talking about the Savior becoming the head of the corner. That's a temple metaphor, a temple building metaphor. The Lord's people are going to be built into a perfect temple. That's the idea with Christ as

the head of the corner. This whole thing invites us to read it in terms of the temple. I did an article years ago where I talked about all of Jacob 5 as a temple text. So I hope we can talk about some of the temple aspects of this whole text. It works in many ways like the endowment does for us in the temple. We'll see divine counsel language like, come let us go down, like in verse 15, for example, and where we have members of the divine counsel working together, kind of like we find elsewhere. Yeah. Might be good to remind everybody, who is this Zenos? Okay. He was on the plates of brass. He was an Old Testament era prophet that doesn't appear in our current King James Old Testament. Somehow Jacob had access to this allegory of Zenos.

Am I saying that right? Yeah. In fact, Noel Reynolds did a study years ago where he identified places where Lehi starts to refer to Zenos, I think in chapter 10, some other places in Nephi 2, chapter 19. For example, there are several references to Zenos there. But there are allusions to this allegory that show up in the Book of Mormon even before we get here. Yeah, maybe it was on their minds or in their reservoir of gospel knowledge.

Yeah, and for some reason, Jacob feels very motivated when he reaches this point in his personal record to give it all to us. I'm really grateful that he did. Yeah, I've wondered before if he reads through the small plates and says, all right, they've referenced this enough times that the reader maybe won't know the actual source. It was an inspired decision. And as much as when you're doing family scripture study and everybody has to read two verses or five verses, and as much as the kids see the length of the verses and panic, I'm just really glad that he... And Jacob's the one that mentions how hard it was to engrave the words on the plates.

I mean, that's what he says earlier in the book. It was difficult to write it down, but he took the time to get the whole allegory on the plates and in his record. That shouldn't pass without notice. Yeah. And Matt, I don't know anyone better than you at connecting Book of Mormon and Old Testament. Two years ago, he was showing us Lehi throughout the Book of Exodus. It was awesome. Maybe we should look for a little bit of Jacob here. Of course, Jacob, the son of Lehi, the brother of Nephi, he's named after the patriarch Jacob that we're familiar with from the Old Testament.

The new name that Jacob there in the Old Testament that he gets in Genesis 32 is Israel. You wonder what Jacob's thinking, you know, as he's unpacking this, he says, he's quoting Zenos at this point, hearken ye, O house of Israel, and hear the words of me, a prophet of the Lord. From Genesis 32 onward, the name Israel comes enormously significant within the biblical text. I see in the allegory something of either a reflection of Genesis 32. You remember it's in Genesis 32 that Jacob, the patriarch, wrestles one who is described as a man. In Hebrew, the word is Ish. It is a synonym, by the way, of Jacob's either had power or struggled with God and men and prevailed. President Nelson has talked a lot lately about the significance of the name Israel, meaning let God prevail.

The name Israel can mean let God contend, let God prevail. There have been commentators that think that, and I happen to be one of them that agrees with this, that it's not an etymological or what we would describe as a literal scientific etymological derivation of the name Israel. Jacob names the place Peniel because he saw God face to face and it was preserved. Some commentators have pointed to the idea that the name Israel is echoing the idea of Ish, which is man, Ra'ah, which is has seen,

and El, or Elohim, God. The name Peniel then fits with his having seen god face to face but it's jacob there in the story struggling with someone who's described as a man or even a divine man well what is the parable here i will liken the israel to a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard. Well, what's this tree, this tame olive tree within the vineyard going to do? It's going to struggle with, in fact, kind of wrestle with the owner of the vineyard, with the Lord of the vineyard. But what's going to happen at the end of this?

Jacob walks out of that experience in genesis 32 with a new name and a blessing that's only realized in stages in fact he'll even after going to bethel and genesis 28 he'll even have to go back there again this great blessing that he gets upon his entire family is realized in stages and i think jac Jacob actually in the story has to move from a point in which he is really trying to assert his own will to reaching a point where he's letting God prevail in his life. The end of the allegory, this is in verse 75.

You remember that the Lord says at the end of all of this, behold, this last time have we nourished my vineyard and now behold us that I have done according to my will. That might sum up the entirety of the story. God, in the end, he prevails. The Lord prevails in the vineyard. His will prevails. Psalm 40, ancient Israelites would go into the temple. They would come and they would delight to do the will of god psalm 40 7 through 8 joseph smith later when he was introducing the temple ordinances

for the naboo temple doctrine and covenants 128 verse 5 he says we're doing this to answer the will of god everything that's happening in this allegory is about how God will prevail, how his will will be done. Remember the Savior's instruction to his disciples to pray that the Father's will would be done on earth even as it is in heaven. I think that is an idea that we need to understand as being closely associated with the purpose and the function of the temple. C.S. Lewis used to talk about bridgeheads, that the world had been the province of the adversary in a lot of ways, and that we established bridgeheads. That was the idea of Aslan, Aslan moving, Christ is on the move, and eventually things are going to work out and the world is going to be what it was intended to be that it will fill the measure of its creation what is supposed to happen here will ultimately happen one of the reasons i love this text so much is we can see it on the individual level or as the individuation of people's personal stories,

but also collectively what the Lord is doing with large groups of people. It's incredible. Matt, right out of the Come Follow Me manual, it says, Jacob 5 is a story with symbolic meaning. This is what you've been telling us. It describes trees and fruit and laborers, but it's really about God's interactions with his people throughout history. So as you read the basic story, think about what some of the things in the story might

symbolize. So as we walk through, Matt, should we just kind of get the story and then talk about the symbol and then read the story and talk about the principle? Would that work? Let's do it. Where do you want to start? Verse three? Yeah, we might as well start with verse 3. For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, unto a tame olive tree. It begins with a tree that's doing what it should do. A lot of students, when we talk about Isaiah 5 in my Isaiah classes, they see the intertextual connections between Isaiah 5 and the vineyard there. Remind us what's in Isaiah 5, Matt. It's that parable of the vineyard where you have the grapes, the Lord's looking forward to the vineyard bringing forth grapes, and instead it brings forth wild grapes. It's not

producing what it's supposed to be producing, what it was designed to produce so it starts out with the tree the tamal tree it has been doing that up to this point so he took and nourished it in his vineyard and it grew and waxed old and began to decay by the way there are a lot of repetitions of three like this and the allegory and elsewhere this tree is starting not to do what it was intended to do and designed to do. In verse three, you mentioned began to decay. In the Spanish translation of the Book of Mormon, it means it began to dry out. And I've thought about that as the living water, no longer taking that in.

Yeah, that's nice. And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth and he saw that his olive tree began to decay. And he said, I will prune it and dig about it and nourish it. So there's the three. That perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches that perish not. There's some debate about what the name Lehi means, whether it's jaw or cheek, lehi, there has something to do with, there's also a Hebrew word, lachah, which has to do with having the vitality of life in it. And I wonder if maybe the Lehi's faithful family members saw maybe allusion to themselves because they recognize pretty quickly

that they're part of this process of israel being scattered throughout the world he doesn't want to lose this tree i'm going to prune it dig it nourish it yep he doesn't want to lose these young branches either came to pass that he pruned and digged about it and nourished it again the three according to his word it came to came to pass, after many days, it began to put forth somewhat little young and tender branches, but behold, the main top thereof began to perish. There is a way to read this in terms of what the data that's being given here in verse 6,

and then in verse 7, where we can read this as a reference to the northern kingdom of Israel. What happens? It came to pass that the master of the vineyard saw it, and he said unto the servant, It grieveth me that I should lose this tree. Wherefore, go and pluck the branches from a wild olive tree, and bring them hither unto me,

and we will pluck off these main branches that are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire that they may be burned. This is the first reference to we're going to start taking branches out and we're going to start bringing wild branches in the resettlement policy of the assyrian empire was when they would conquer nations which often involved a lot of death and destruction for existing settlements and cities they would remove conquered people into other parts of the empire and then they would resettle peoples from other parts of the empire into the newly conquered territory and that is what happens in the north. By the 722 or 721 BC, that process had mostly been completed. Not everyone in the

northern kingdom had been taken out of there. Some had fled south. Lehi's family might ultimately be descendants from those refugees that fled out of the northern kingdom around that time, around 722, 721. But you have a few people who are left in the land and a lot of new people brought into the land. And that is maybe one way we can read verses six and seven. Those wild olive trees, that's coded language for non-israel by nature you know or gentile so matt the olive tree is struggling he put some work in and it has some little bit of growth it's little young tender branches but still the top the main portion hasn't worked. Yeah.

Then he says, verse 8, and behold, saith the Lord of the vineyard. So now that's another signal that this isn't just a man. This is another prophetic formula, like thus saith the Lord, or saith the Lord. Saith the Lord of the vineyard, I will take away many of these young and tender branches and i will graft them whithersoever i will this is a four hour echo of what we're going to get later and i think about verse 75 that i mentioned that he's done according to his will he's beginning to do this i'm going to whithersoever i will And it mattereth not that if it so be that the root of this tree will perish, that I may preserve the fruit thereof unto myself. So he's going to keep a part of Israel alive no matter what,

whether the tree itself in the land decides to continue to not do or be what it's supposed to be. He's still going to preserve israel somehow in the vineyard so wherefore i will take these young and tender branches and i will graft them whithersoever i will there it is again and now he's giving instructions to the servant take down the branches of the wild olive tree and graft them in the stead thereof. And these which I have plucked off will I cast into the fire and burn them that they may not cumber the ground of my vineyard. And it came to pass that the servant of the Lord of the vineyard, and I think appropriately, so as prophets, who is the servant of the Lord here? It depends.

I don't want to be wrong, but could we take this as God, the father and the savior, or even in this one, verse 10, could this be Peter and Cornelius? Am I off on both of those, Matt? It's an open question. I wonder, there's a point in Isaiah where he describes, well, the Assyrians as the axe or the tool in his hands in doing something. The more disquieting possibility here is that the servant is this horrible nation. But I think it's ambiguous enough that maybe we still understand this as referring to members of the divine council who are involved in carrying out his will down in the vineyard sometimes these gentiles are brought into would you say the church or into israel is that what we're saying they're actually put in this case in the land under the assyrians now we'll get to this i think a little bit later because this isn't the only time we have this interactivity

between the natural tree and wild branches. Paul Hoskisson divided this whole allegory up. I don't know if you've ever seen his article on this. It's in this book right here. The allegory of the Olive Tree became a book. Yeah. So this was the first year I was serving as a missionary in the California Roseville Mission, which I'll hopefully get a chance to say something about because it relates to my whole experience with this text. Pretty early on in its existence, scholars associated with the Foundation for Ancient Research in Mormon Studies put out that book. And Paul Hoskinson has a study in it where he divides this entire allegory into seven time periods. Beginning in verse 3, we get the founding and the aging of the house of Israel. Verses 4 through 14, we get the nurturing and the scattering of the house of Israel. We're coming up on the end of that.

We're going to get to a little bit later, verses 15 through 28, the days of the former day saints. Verses 29 through 49 will take us through the great apostasy. 50 through 74, the gathering of Israel. 75 and 76, the millennium. Then verse 77, the end of the world. We might be tempted to think, oh, why isn't the millennium the seventh? Because we sometimes identify that with the Sabbath and rest, but it's really not until

the bad is completely cleared out, then the vineyard is burned with fire, or Doctrine Covenants 88, you have the celestialization of the earth that this whole process is really complete matt that makes perfect sense so 1 through 14 verse 15 starts with after a long time had passed away so you have that new storyline and then you said 15 through yeah so 15 through 28 this is what dr huskisson calls the day of the former day saints. It's the only time in this allegory when the Gentile graphs produced good fruit. And you have righteous and unrighteous Lehites. And as you mentioned earlier, what did Zena see with this good spot of ground. I've made an argument elsewhere that the name Nephi, actually this was building on work that John Gee had done, that the name Nephi is actually the Egyptian lexeme nefer, which with the final letter later on, this actually starts still during the late kingdom, the third intermediate period and onward, the normal pronunciation of that word weakens at the end to nefi nefi or nufi

and if that's true if that's what the name nephi means the name nephi means good or in the faulkner's lexicon good goodly fair of fine quality this would explain some things like why the nephites see themselves as the fair ones. You remember Mormon's lament, O ye fair ones. The Nephites often see themselves in terms of being good or fair. Nephi himself says, I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents,

which doesn't mean strictly good per se, but means of good quality. He's of parents who are of fine quality. You wonder if they start to see themselves in Zenos' allegory when they talk about the good spot of ground and that they're the part of this branch in that good spot of ground that's bearing good fruit, if they would read this and identify themselves or see themselves in that.

If I'm teaching Sundayay school i could say all right let me break this up into 1 through 14 15 through 28 29 through 51 yeah 49 or 51 okay 52 to around 74 75 and then those last few verses as second coming millennium yeah 75 to 76 millennium and then 77 is the end it's kind of nice to take a chapter like this that's so long and break it up into sections like that that are concise that you can try to understand one then the next one then the next one i like something like one. I like something like that. You're eating the elephant one bite at a time. There's a really beautiful chart in the manual. See this full color chart for those of you watching that has those divisions of the four visits and the millennium kind of helpful, like you said, Hank. Oh, John.

So I just explained something you said that was in the manual. Wonderful. I love it when I reinvent the wheel. When you're literally on the same page, even. Look at that. Literally the same page. Matt, how would you summarize this first section, 1 through 14? The Lord sees this decaying tree and he's like, we got to move? Yeah. So we've had the nurturing and scattering of Israel in his first attempt, as you mentioned, to save the tree. The Lord's going to attempt by prophets, and you could read in here maybe Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, as Dr. Hoskinson does to reclaim Israel. Rulers and ruling classes, meaning the main top, that word top in Hebrew, Rosh, head, is often used as a title for leaders. Isaiah uses it to refer to capital cities and even

the head of the head, which is the head of state. Oh, interesting. So we're losing the leadership. Yeah, we're losing the leadership. In fact, those are the first ones to get exiled, typically. The Babylonians, when they adopt the Assyrian policy of exiling peoples, at least according to the Deuteronomistic writer of 2 Kings, they take the upper crust. Yeah. They take the elites. The intelligentsia. And that's why Isaiah talks about babes will rule over them because they grabbed anybody that could start a revolt. They take them first.

Yeah, exactly. So if somebody invades, we all need to act really tame. Right, Hank? I'll be tame, as you said. Yeah. How do you catch a unique rabbit? You neek up on it. How do you catch a tame rabbit?

Tame way. You neek up on it. How do you catch a tame rabbit? Tame way. You neek up on it. That one might get used at home. My daughter absolutely cringes when I tell these jokes. Come on, that's a great one. My daughter Adele likes to tell what she describes as dad jokes too. But sometimes I tell jokes that are so cringe for her that she just says, oh, why did you do this to me?

Hey, that sounds like the tree. So this one might get used in that context. That's right. Let me see if I understand. I think I have a basic understanding of the history of Israel. John, jump in here if I'm getting this wrong. I have heard have a basic understanding of the history of Israel. John, jump in here if I'm getting this wrong. I have heard Hank do the history of the houses of Israel, what, in an hour? Is that a talk you did?

Yeah, I hope I'm right. It's someone like Matt who can correct me. The Lord establishes the covenant, we would say, with Abraham and Sarah, all the way down through the Exodus, bringing them back into the land after Joshua, and then they start to go bad again. Is this about the time where they're choosing kings? Yeah, the period of the Judges is cyclical apostasy. This will relate to what John's going to say in a few minutes. There's this point in Judges 10 where the writer says,

the Lord was grieved or pained for the misery of Israel. In Judges 10, 16, we have the writer of the text saying, and the Lord's soul was pained for the misery of Israel. You're going to talk more about how he's grieved. Terrell Givens describes God, he's the God who weeps. We've got Moses 7, and we've got the Savior weeping over Jerusalem, we've got the Savior weeping at the tomb of this tree that actually represents his offspring, what they are doing and not doing. So Matt, would it be fair to say this first section, Israel came back into the Holy Land after the Exodus, they chose kings, went into apostasy, and the Lord pains his soul,

and he says, in order to save these people, I'm going to have to scatter them. I wrote a lot of my doctoral dissertation on the issue of the monarchy and the problems that that brought into Israel as a whole. In fact, the Deuteronomistic writers lay the blame of a lot of what happens to Israel at the feet of the monarchy in both the north and the south. That's 1 Samuel 8, right, Matt, where the Lord says, this is a bad idea. Yeah, they ask for a king, and Saul's name, interestingly, means asked. You could understand that even more forcefully, demanded. They demanded, they asked, they insisted on this king. And the title of my dissertation, you won't be able to see this because it'll be reversed but you see this yeah it's

according to all that you demanded it's about how even back at the time of moses they were asking for intermediary leadership they're asking for moses to step between them and Jehovah. They wanted an intermediary. They didn't want to come into the immediate presence of God. They didn't want to have an unmediated relationship. Well, later on, they're asking for an even more mediated relationship. And they want kings that will go and fight their battles for them. And they say that they want it because that's what all the nations round about them have.

They want to be like the nations. And President Benson talked about experiences, the school that only fools keep going to. And he talks about Samuel principle, that Lord sometimes grants our unwise requests as we insist on them. I think Martin Harris here. I have never heard that quote. Let me find it. The Lord sometimes grants our unwise requests as we insist on them. I think Martin Harris here.

I have never heard that quote. Let me find it. I love that. Yeah. My grandpa Jarman used to say, experience is a dear school, but we fools will learn in no other. That's what he used to say. I think I've got this from President Benson. This is from a speech that he gave at BYU.

He says, quote, God has to work through mortals of varying degrees of spiritual progress. Sometimes he temporarily grants to men their unwise requests in order that they might learn from their own sad experiences. Some refer to this as the Samuel principle. The children ofrael wanted a king like all the nations the prophet samuel was displeased and prayed to the lord about it the lord responded by saying to samuel they have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that i should not reign over them now think back to the beginning of chapter four just before the

beginning of the allegory, what had they done? They had rejected the stone on which they had had safe foundation. This wasn't just what the religious elite in Jerusalem had done during the time of Jesus, but this is what Israel had been doing almost all along, is rejecting Jehovah as that stone. Makes perfect sense. And so he says, I've got to do something about this. If they keep going the way they're going to go, they're going to perish. I think this fits in with the allegory too.

President Benson continues. He says, the Lord told Samuel to warn the people of the consequences if they had a king. Samuel gave them a warning, but they still insisted on their king. So God gave them a king and let them suffer. They learned the hard way. God wanted it to be otherwise, but within certain bounds, he grants unto men according to their desires. Bad experiences are an expensive school that only fools keep going to.

Rather than say those dumb Israelites, a more profitable thing to do is say, okay, well, how am I sometimes like the Israelites that we're talking about in this given situation? Like when we talked about the Exodus, the constant murmuring, our first reaction shouldn't be those dumb Israelites. Why don't they get it? It should be, wait a minute, how am I being like them sometimes? When I'm honest with myself, I look at my life and say, yeah. I am like that. I do this sometimes.

This first section, I think we understand the history. Israel is going to be scattered. Matt, you talked about Assyria coming in, taking the northern kingdom of Israel in 721. The southern kingdom being taken by Babylon 587. That's also the time that Lehi leaves Jerusalem. That's verses 1 through 14. What should be our main takeaways? Let's say I'm at home or I'm on my commute and I'm listening. What do you think we get out of this? John, let's start with you. One of the wonderful takeaways I had from the whole two years ago, Old Testament year, was that God

is not detached and disinterested, that he is involved and he's interested. And I really saw that in the Old Testament a lot. And this phrase, it grieveth me that I should lose this tree, in preparation, I started underlining those. And I found that or something like it in verses 7, 11, 13, 32, 41, 46, 49, 51, and 66. I remember a book years ago called Great Teaching Moments. A bunch of CES guys got together and wrote this. And in the chapter by Kelly Hawes, he told about trying to have a home evening and sending kids to their rooms to read this allegory. And the 11-year-old comes back and goes, if I had an orchard with a hundred trees and I lost one, I wouldn't care that much. But then it hit me, trees are people. And that was a great moment for him to go, these aren't just trees,

these are people. And then you kind of see why the Lord cares so much. So that's what I start to see here. I teach an Isaiah class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, two sections of the Isaiah class. And I loved it because they both figured this out. It's in Isaiah 35, where Isaiah talks about the wilderness blossoming as the rose. Then we looked at Doctrine and Covenants 45, which talks about Jacob flourishing the wilderness and the Lamanites blossoming as the rose. And I said, what's the difference between these two quotations? And the both classes got it. It was beautiful the way that they dawned on them. In the Doctrine and Covenants, it makes it clear that it's people that we're talking about. The tree in the allegory, the branches, the fruit, even the fruit in some cases are people.

I mean, there's ways to read the fruit. Fruit can be a symbol of deeds and actions. It's also a term that denotes posterity. We talk about fruit in that sense too. Hank, you were mentioning what is the main point that we take away here. This allegory is about the Lord's people. It's about his children. It's about how is his will going to prevail among these children that are contending with him, striving against him.

How can moral agency be held intact? How can he honor individual agency and his will will prevail? It's a mystery, but that's what Jacob said it would be. But he's unpacking it in these rich, layered, multi-tiered symbols, how that's going to happen, how he can honor our moral agency, and yet how his will is going to prevail in his vineyard. Matt, you just connected us to a great guest we had two years ago. His name's Matt Bowen. Oh, I remember him. You look a lot like him.

Yeah. The lesson was in Exodus 14 through 17. And we have a little booklet on our website, Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It's free. You can get it on our website, followhim.co, where we have highlights from each lesson. And Matt says this in that lesson. So Matt, I'm going to quote a great teacher to you here. We're going to quote you to you. Yeah. He says, we need to remember the Lord has a strategy.

Sometimes we need to step away from our perspective and step into his perspective. Then you say a little bit later, the Lord is the ultimate chess master. And he is thinking there is nothing your agency can do that my accounting cannot account for. So you kind of see that in this vineyard, don't you? He's saying, oh, you're going the wrong way. It's a big chess game. I'm going to move the pieces all around. He is playing 5D chess.

Even if we think we're playing 4D chess, he's playing 5D. We're not going to ever be able to do an end around on him he didn't see that coming yeah that never ends well you remember saul going back to the story of the kingship when the lord stopped giving him revelation he thinks he can go get it through illicit means goes to a medium it doesn't. And there are some other stories like that within history, Jeroboam and the prophet Ahijah. You think you can trick the Lord into giving you the revelation that you want to be able to do it your way. I just got released on Sunday as the bishop of a student ward. And one of the powerful lessons that I learned during that time. And the current state president, Felipe Cho, who's my colleague here, helped me see this. Things do not go well when we try to do it our way, when we try

to assert our will above God's will for us. The Lord sometimes allows us to punch the rock and beat ourselves on the rock sometimes in our attempts to have it our way. But when we decide I'm going to let God prevail, like President Nelson has been telling us we need to do, things change. When we start to do it God's way, some of the challenges and other things that we face go away. Not all of them, because we're living in mortality, and that's the nature of mortality. But there are certain issues and problems that we have in our lives because we continually try to assert our will over God's will. But when we recognize when we're doing that and we decide I'm going to do it God's way

rather than my way, many of those problems go away and become better. Matt, you think like Elder Holland, or he thinks like you, one or the other. He says this long parable does outline Israel's history, but soon enough, the attentive reader senses a much more personal story coming from the printed page, the grief and godly pain of a father anguishing over the needless destruction of his family. And he's going to do something about it. He's not going to just sit and watch you go into destruction. Let me ask you both a question. Do you think in this first section, we might be seeing the lord saying look this is not going well i'm going to help you and this helping might hurt a little bit it came to pass that he

pruned it and digged it sounds a little painful what do you both think it's clear that he's committed to saving the tree and saving the vineyard yeah he's committed but you're exactly right this is going to involve pruning and there's another vineyard parable in isaiah 27 and one of the words that's used there jacob's fruit has to be purged and the word is actually kapar it's the word for atone here's another elder holland quote from christ and the new covenant page 165 he says clearly this at one month is hard demanding and at times deeply painful work not just for the lord of the vineyard but for the trees too as the work of redemption always is there is digging and dunging there is watering and nourishing and pruning and there was always the endless approaches to grafting all to one saving end that the trees of the vineyard would

quote thrive exceedingly and become quote one body the fruits being equal unquote with the lord of the vineyard having, preserved unto himself the fruit. Now starting page 166. From all the distant places of sin and alienation in which the children of the Father find themselves, it has always been the work of Christ and his disciples in every dispensation to gather them, heal them, and unite them with their Master. He just used that three trio two in every dispensation the work of christ and his disciples is to gather them heal them and unite them with their master

i think you're right on here matt there's an older talk given way back in 1968 not too many us on this podcast were on the earth at that time. Two-thirds of us. I was not. Yeah. Two-thirds of us were still in the premortal life. 1968, you can find this. We'll link it on our website called God is the Gardener by Hugh B. Brown. You can actually hear the audio of this on the BYU website and his voice is just fantastic. So the story is wonderful and the voice is wonderful. He's talking to BYU students, I think at a graduation. He talks about how they're going to meet disappointment in their future. And they're going to wonder if God lives and where he

has gone. He says to them, don't be discouraged if you don't get all the things you want just when you want them. He says, can I tell you a quick story out of my own experience? 60 years ago, I was on a farm in Canada. So we're talking like turn of the century. I had purchased the farm from another who had been somewhat careless in keeping it up. I went out one morning and found a current bush that was at least six feet high. I knew it was going all to wood. I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad. There was no sign of blossom, no fruit. He said, I had some experience in pruning trees before we left Salt Lake to go to Canada as my father had a fruit farm. So I got my pruning shears and went to work on the current bush, clipped it, cut it down. So there was nothing left, but a little clump of stumps. As I looked at those stumps, I yielded to an impulse, which I often have to talk with inanimate things and have them talk to me.

It's a ridiculous habit. One I can't overcome. As I looked at this little clump of stumps, there seemed to be a tear on each one. And I said, what's the matter? current bush? What are you crying about? And I thought I heard that current bush speak. It seemed to say, how could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as large as the fruit trees and the shade trees. And now you've cut me down. All in the garden will look on me with pity. How could you do it? I thought you were the gardener here. So I said, look, little current bush,

I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you'll never amount to anything. But someday when you're laden with fruit, you're going to think back and say, thank you, Mr. Gardner for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me. Then he tells this story that years had passed. I had made some progress in the first world war in the Canadian army, and he was hoping to get a promotion. He walks into this office where he's hoping to get this promotion. And the man says, Brown, you are entitled to this promotion, but I cannot make it. You have qualified and passed the regulations, but I cannot make this appointment. I looked over to his desk to see what my personal history showed. I saw written on the bottom of my history in large capital letters, this man is a Mormon. He excused me. That's all, Brown. I saluted him and left. He said, bitterness rose in my heart. And when I got to my tent, I threw my cap on the cot.

I clenched my fist and I shook it in heaven. How could you do this to me, God? I've done everything that I know how to do to uphold the standards of the church. I was making such wonderful growth, and now you've cut me down. And then this great moment, and then I heard a voice. It sounded like my own voice. And the voice said, I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you'll never amount to anything. And someday when you're ripened in life, you're going to shout back across time and say, thank you, Mr. Gardner, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.

And then he says he hits his knees and prayed for forgiveness for his arrogance and ambition. Really just a powerful, powerful story and analogy. Thanks for letting me take that time, guys. I love that Matt has helped us see, look, the Lord's will is going to be done in this vineyard. Man's will is going to have a run at it, but ultimately the Lord's will is going to be done. And I love that recently President Nelson quoted President Benson, one of my favorite President Benson quotes. I don't have the whole thing memorized, but I know that it starts, men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can.

And that sounds like the President Brown experience. It might seem like a sacrifice to give your life to God, but actually, he will make a lot more out of your life than you can. But you might not see it right at first when you're getting pruned. We would want what God wants for us, especially if we understand how much he loves us, more than we would ever want to metaphorically start living in a van down by the river through our own choices. When we think about it, that's metaphorically where we would end up. Whatever it is, if we choose something else other than what the Lord is offering to us, it'd be like ending up in a van down by the river rather than inheriting the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Thrones, principalities, powers, all of the rest of it, inheriting the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Thrones, principalities, powers, all of the rest of it,

inheriting the celestial kingdom. God is offering us so much more. We just need to recognize that even though it's sometimes a straight, narrow path to get there, it's got difficulties. I was 31 before I had met my wife, Susie. I'd started to wonder at that point whether I was overripe fruit on the tree. Most single adults in the church could relate to this. They sometimes wonder, why is it in this timing?

Why is this not happening for me right now? I have these righteous desires that I want to come to fruition, that I want to have happen, and they're not happening. I just have a testimony that the Lord is never going to abandon us. He's never going to leave us to live in a van down by the river. He's going to help us get to where we need to go. Sometimes that takes time. As Elder Holland has said, sometimes blessings come late, sometimes they come soon, sometimes they come late, sometimes they don't come until beyond the bounds of this mortal life, but for those who embrace the Savior and His promises, they come. I know that's a paraphrase, but that's the idea. Now, I'll be celebrating 50 years this coming July, but I've lived long enough to look at my

patriarchal blessing and to be able to see very specific things that have been fulfilled. I look at my wife, Susie. I look at my children, Zach and Adele and Nathan, who has passed to that next stage, but I'm grateful every day for them. I'm grateful that things worked out in the Lord's timing and not mine. I'm grateful that they happened His way and not the way I would have drawn it up if I had been charting every detail of what I wanted to do back when I was in my early 20s. The Lord is good and He is patient with us. He understands when we get frustrated. He understands. I have so many single friends,

not just from my time in D.C., but from other periods of my life, and I know that they are frustrated and they feel it at a deep level sometimes when the blessings aren't coming immediately. But it is my testimony that they will come in the Lord's time. And when we look back, we will want them to have come in no other timeframe. Beautiful, Matt. Beautiful. Why don't we move to 15 to 28? What is this section about? Paul Hoskinson summarizes it to this effect. He says, this is the only time when the Gentile

grafts produce good fruit. You have the righteous and unrighteous Lehites in the good spot of ground that ends with the, quote, the day of the Gentiles. So, this is the Christ setting up his church during this period of time. The church is, for the first two generations, really a Jewish church. Jesus' initial set of disciples and apostles, they're all Jewish until a little later you get Peter's vision and the incorporation of Cornelius' household. Pete Yeah. Acts chapter 10. coming into the church. The church grows really quickly in the Roman world. On the other side of the pond, you have things going on over here. Struggle with those two branches of the Lehites.

Right. Isn't that around verse 25? Yeah. He said unto the servant, look hither, behold this I have planted in a good spot of ground. I think that the Nephites would have read themselves into this. And I have nourished it this long time, and only a part of the tree hath brought forth tame fruit, and the other part of the tree hath brought forth wild fruit. Behold, I have nourished this tree like unto the others.

The way Dr. Hoskinson has this divided, running 29 through 49, the great apostasy, or through 52, depending on how you break this up. You get this phrase again, we've seen it before, come, let us go down into the vineyard, that we may labor in the vineyard. There's a couple things I want to bring out here that I think are worth noting. It may not be obvious to the readers of this allegory. The whole allegory envisions a tripartite universe, if you will, or a tripartite world. There's the place from which the Lord and his servants are coming down to work in the vineyard. So there's that upper realm. There's the place where the tree is the natural tree and then there are the nethermost parts of the the vineyard skousen says that was in the original

text rather than nethermost it was nethermost they're the same root but nether means lower we sometimes think it means out there like host. But the word isn't hithermost. It's nethermost, which means lower. So we've got the realm from which they're coming down to work in the vineyard. You've got the level where the tree is. And then you've got the nethermost parts of the vineyard. Think Netherlands. That means lowlands.

The word Holland means that as well. Like whole, down. lowlands the word holland means that as well like hole down the way the prophet joseph smith described the temple it represents the three principal rounds of jacob's ladder so the nethermost parts might correspond if you will to the outer court of the temple the ancient temple or the telestial realm that would make the place where the tree is, which some scholars have compared to the tree of life. I think there actually are traditions, and Elder Holland mentions this, that the olive tree is a tree of life. And that would correspond then to the terrestrial or to the holy place or to the garden of Eden. And then you've got that upper realm from which the Lord and the servants are

coming down. I think that's worth knowing. They come down from it again. They say, come, let us go down into the vineyard. There's divine council language that we may labor again in the vineyard. That's the first time we get that kind of,

that we may labor again in the vineyard. That's the first time we get that kind of that we may labor again language. But that's going to proliferate once we get down to about verse 58 and following, that we will nourish again the trees of the vineyard. I have grafted in the natural branches again, that perhaps the trees of my vineyard may bring forth again, and that I may have joy again verse 61 that i may bring forth again the natural fruit verse 63 that all may be nourished once again for the last time and there are several more instances of this. Verse 67, the branches of the natural vineyard will I graft in again into their natural tree. Verse 68, thus will I bring them together again.

And verse 73, and there began to be the natural fruit again. So what's the deal with this, we will do this again. And the word again, here, the name Joseph and the name of the patriarch, Joseph, the name of the prophet, Joseph Smith comes from the Hebrew verb. Yeah. Soft, which in its causal stem often shows up in the scriptures as you'll see for why you'll see for why you see food or some form of that.

It has the basic sense of to add but it has the added idiomatic idea of to do something again and it's the verb that shows up in isaiah 11 11 which jacob will quote in chapter 6 verse 2 when the lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover his people, the verb there is Yosef. And it's the same verb that actually shows up in Isaiah 29, 14. Hineni Yosef, the Lord says, I will proceed or I will add to do a marvelous work and a wonder. Well, back in 2 Nephi 25, verse 17, Nephi quotes those two Yosef passages together. And he says that it will be so that the promises might be fulfilled to Joseph in 2 Nephi 25, verse 21.

The promises might be fulfilled to Joseph. I don't know what's in isaiah's head but i think we can safely from nephi's text derive some things that are in his head and nephi is looking forward to the time when a choice seer who would be named after his father who would be named after the patriarch joseph remember this is in second nephi three this is lehi quoting this prophecy of joseph in egypt to his son joseph this is the four josephs in that chapter right i think nephi understands that joseph smith is going to be the agent of this yosef activity doing this again So it's really interesting to me,

especially when you consider that Zenos is probably a prophet of the northern kingdom, which is sometimes called in the Old Testament either Joseph or Ephraim. And you get a lot of this language about, at the end, that the Lord and his servants are going to do this again. We will nourish again the trees of the vineyard. Joseph Smith would have never seen this in the text,

but Jacob would, who had a brother named Joseph. Nephi would, who had a brother named Joseph. And they make a big point of their ancestry from joseph you remember back at the beginning of first nephi in chapter five that's a really important point to them that they're descendants of joseph then that you have a another descendant of joseph way in the future at second nephi three who's going to be the agent of so much restoration to the house of Israel. So I think we could read Joseph as one of these servants of the Lord that's being mentioned here later on in the allegory. And I mentioned that I served in the California

Roseville mission in 1994 through 1996. I served under John and Valerie Hoiberg in that mission, both of whom are ardent fans of the podcast, by the way, just so you know. Well, thank you. Tell them thank you for us. I will. I remember a zone conference, and I think if my memory is serving me right, this was still pretty early in my time out there, where we did a deep dive into Jacob 5. And it hit me then and has never left me since, just the incredible layering that this allegory has that this parable of zenas is so deep so rich and so symbolic we could spend the rest of our lives making a study of it and there would still be things to learn from it and that is one of the testimonies to me that Joseph Smith himself is not the author of this text. He is its translator.

He was the one who gets it to press, but he is not its author. This is an ancient text by an ancient author who saw a great deal. And worked hard on it. You can tell who honed it. Yeah, just the literary details of this. This is not something you could just dictate and then have all of these rich details be there. You just can't do that.

So what Joseph did is his translation gives us an ancient text that, as you said, is carefully crafted. Coming up in part two of this episode. That's a question that a lot of scholars have asked. Is this evidence for others in the land? A non-Lehite, right?