1 Nephi 21

(All of my own thoughts are in blue type. Green 1/21  Orange 4/22 Brown 2023 )

CHAPTER 21

Messiah shall be a light to the Gentiles and shall free the prisoners—Israel shall be gathered with power in the last days—Kings shall be their nursing fathers—Compare Isaiah 49. Between 588 and 570 B.C. Gilieadi says this is a "servant" passage. 

  1 ^aAnd again: Hearken, Listen...O ye house of Israel, all ye that are broken off and are driven out Nephi may have loved this passage because he knew Isaiah was talking specifically to his people because of the wickedness of the pastors of my people; it was the wickedness of the Church in the Old World that Lehi's family was broken off. Nephi uses Isaiah's words to dispel the belief of his brothers that they should not have left Jerusalem. It was prophesied... yea, all ye that are broken off, Lehi's family were not the only ones...many of the ten tribes of Israel were also broken off and even though they have lost their identity of being of the house of Israel at Jerusalem, God has not forgotten them or the covenants made with them. He claims them still and will gather them again that are scattered abroad, who are of my people, O house of Israel. We also know that there are a group of the ten tribes that did stay in tact and they are going to come out of their hiding soon.
Listen, Another plea to listen O ^bisles, another reference to those relatively few on the isles of the sea...such a great statement that each soul is remembered by God. Another thought, is that Isaiah considered the Lehites of 'the isles of the sea', since they were an ocean away from the old world. Surely Nephi felt Isaiah reaching out to his people. Notice also that isles is plural...suggesting that Lehi's family were not the only ones Isaiah saw broken off unto me, and hearken to listen is to hear the words, but to hearken is to obey them ye people from ^cfar; the Lord hath called me from the womb; Wondering if this is a "born again" reference...Isaiah seems to be saying that he is prophet, not by self-selection, but from a fore-ordained calling. As such, his words carry the same weight as if from God himself. Such is the case with all God's prophets from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. Gileadi says this is not Isaiah speaking about himself, but he's prophesying what the end time servant will say to the world...he's speaking to everyone, everywhere. 

  2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; To the worldly, God's words are sharp, like a sword that can cut us. To the righteous, God's words are as the sharp, honed words of truth that are our only weapon of offense against the wicked. The rest of our protection lies in our armor in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; There are multiple references here. God removed Lehi's family to hide them from the rest of the world; Joseph Smith, a direct descendant of the house of Joseph, had been hid from the world until the restoration. Then, God polished him through adversity; We can also be hidden from the world through God's protecting hand. We also will be polished through our adversity and can become a prepared servant of the Lord to be used as an arrow in His hand. Swords are useless if they remain sheathed. Arrows have no use if they stay in the quiver. But when they are drawn, it is because someone is being attacked; something needs defending. Then they become useful, powerful, and their reputation becomes known. In my desire for the church and God's "sword" to be more visible, I must accept if that is to happen, I am also going to have to accept the adversity and persecution that will provoke it. God's will be done! Gilieadi says the endtime servant is hidded from the world for a time. He is the Lord's mouth, sword, hand. 3 And said unto me: Thou art my ^aservant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. All who come into Christ's church, by covenant, become the house of Israel. Since it is God's "work and glory" to bring to pass the immortality of man, through man's making and keeping covenants with Him, this is how God is glorified. We add to God's glory by bringing others into the covenant and by keeping our own covenants with Him. To stay with the "sword/conflict" theme, when God comes out the victor, there is glory in the triumph. The servant is given a new name, "Israel" after he passes his test, just like Jacob's name was changed to Israel.

 4 Then I said, I have labored in ^avain, I have spent my strength for naught and in vain; surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. Every prophet, or disciple of the Lord, for that matter, has felt the frustration and sadness of praying, teaching, worrying, fasting, etc. for those who have turned from the Lord. Nephi, through Isaiah, now shares his worry for us. We have his words, his worries, before us. He has seen our day, our hard hearts. He asks us now to search our own hearts. Are we truly hearing his words? Do we allow them to take us to the Savior? Are we asking in faith to understand and apply them?

This happened to Moses. The servant will also have opposition at the beginning and will even be marred. 
  5 And now, saith the Lord—that ^aformed me from the womb that I should be his servant, this speaks of fore-ordination; we were called to do certain things before we were born to bring Jacob again to him—not the least of which, is to bring our own families back to to Christ though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, because of agency, we may not be able to do/accomplish all we desire; yet God sees all and accepts of our efforts and obedience just the same. We should not let anything discourage us from unyielding obedience to the Lord and carrying out our divine purposes here on the earth and my God shall be my ^bstrength. If we trust only in our own strength we will fail. But in the strength of the Lord "we can do all things". It is vital that we learn to hear and hearken to the voice of the Lord over all other voices. Be familiar with and have experience with the fact that His thoughts and ways are not your ways (man's ways). In other words, do not discount the quiet whisperings that may seem to run counter to what you think makes sense. His promptings, however, will come with peace in spite of your mortal, natural man confusion. Also, God's timing is perfect. It is not ours to worry about where we are in the conflict. Just serve the perfect Commander and you will be counted as part of the victory. The servant has a reversal of circumstances as will the House of Israel. He will lead the last gathering. First he has to convert all the people from being an idolatrous people and renew the covenant with them. He will be empowered like Moses was. 

  6 And he said: It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the ^atribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a ^blight to the ^cGentiles, Who is being referred to here? Is it Isaiah? Who is the "servant" who will raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore Israel? Is it Christ? So hard to know just by reading...Though the Gathering of Israel is a great and grand responsibility, the Lord says it is a "light" thing compared to the responsibility to take the gospel to ALL the world. We, the Gentiles, are now commanded to be a light to others… that thou mayest be my salvation Read Elder Ballard's conference talk. He makes it very clear that the responsibility to share the gospel is no small thing and he alludes to the fact that ignoring this commandment will bring condemnation and obeying it will bring salvation...not just to those you bring to the Savior, but to your own soul. Serious task with eternal consequences unto the ends of the earth. The end time servant's mission is to everyone. He comes to light up the darkness of the wicked and bring the light of God's covenant to the them. 

  7 Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nations abhorreth, To walk the path of the Savior, we must expect that following Him means rejecting the world. And rejecting the world will always bring the world's judgment and persecution. We need to accept that and not fear it. Right now the church seems to be working really hard to not be rejected or despised by the world. Seems very confusing to me... this is the end time servant's test. He's rejected, despised and abhorred by his own people just like Christ was to servant of rulers: Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord that is faithful. The promises are sure. Eventually "every knee will bow and every tongue confess" that Jesus is the Lord. God will be faithful to every promise and reward the faithful with His faithfulness if you endure the persecutions that will come from standing as His witness "at all times and in all things and in all places." The servant's circumstances will be reversed and all not familiar with God will worship him when they see the things he will do with God's power like Moses did with Pharaoh. First he was "called", but now he is "chosen" and endowed with power permanently. The servant is performing his mission while the anti-Christ is doing his...destroying the world. 

  8 Thus saith the Lord: In an acceptable time have I heard thee, Always God asks us to pray to him - about everything. In our trials, we become impatient. But we must always remember that 'in an acceptable time' He will hear us (answer us. We don't feel 'heard' until we get what we want). Patience precedes all miracles, it seems. And patience is something we DO, not something we FEEL.  Waiting upon the Lord and His time table is a supreme act of faith when we are suffering. And He will reward that faith by continuing to mold our lives for our good, according to His grand and divine design through the refining fires of affliction. O isles of the sea, Isaiah used this phrase to describe the people's of the Americas (this message is to us) or perhaps anyone not of his continent... and in a day of salvation have I helped thee; Every time we make a covenant with God it becomes our 'day of salvation', for by accepting His terms for our lives and obeying His will, we secure His promise of salvation and I will preserve thee, when in the middle of our crisis, we must remember that He will preserve us. This trial will not destroy us and give thee ^amy servant every person that brings you to a covenant position with God is "this servant" He has given you (prophet, missionary, priesthood holder, temple worker...)for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; God's original covenant people of Israel have forgotten the heritage of the covenants God made with them. Everyone who enters the waters of baptism inherits the promised covenants God made with Israel and become His covenant children going from a desolate heritage of their former choices to salvation through their covenants. Or maybe the baptism is only the outward promise of a future inward covenant and remission of sins. Maybe we have a desolate heritage because we are not seeking this second baptism, though we have a right to inherit the promises. The pattern of the Children of Israel is repeated in the last days. Some kind of bondage-darkness-converted-exodus-wicked destroyed-plagues upon Babylon-instructed-given an inheritance in a promised land.

  9 That thou mayest say to the ^aprisoners: Go forth; Every person who turns from God is a prisoner to their own wrong thinking. When we bring the truth of the gospel to others and they accept it, it changes this thinking and they are free to 'go forth' from the prison of their limited thinking to them that sit in ^bdarkness: Show yourselves. When we are confident before God, we want to be with Him. When we turn from His ways, we sit in darkness. If He were to appear, we would hide. But having repented and promised to walk always in the truth, we are free and desire to 'show ourselves' to Him and long to be with Him and walk in His Spirit always. They shall feed in the ways, Christ offers to feed us in our daily walk and when we allow Him to do so, we find our pastures are now in high places and their ^cpastures shall be in all high places. The 'highest' place on earth are God's Holy Temples. When we accept the covenants of God we are able to feed in these pastures, the very ground that He walks and the ground that will lead us back to Him. The servant will lead the Lord's people like Moses did and provide for them. 
  10 They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor the sun smite them; Surely Nephi identified with both of these physical symbols for spiritual needs. In those years before they sailed for the Promised land, they had experienced much hunger and thirst and the heat of the day. This passage refers to our day and time, when there is no longer a 'famine' of the word of God because of the Restoration of the Gospel for he that hath mercy on them "all we like sheep have gone astray", but the Good Shepherd is always there, calling us back to His fold. shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them. But it is not enough to just be 'in' the fold. We must be willing to go where He leads; to feed in His green pastures; to drink of His water. Without obedience to the voice of His Spirit, we will continue to hunger and thirst and suffer the heat of the consequences of our pride.

  11 And I will make all my mountains a way, The Lord's temple is His 'mountain' and the ordinances and covenants received therein are 'the way' to eternal life. Another interpretation is saying I will turn all my trials and hard things in to a way to further purification and sanctification and my ^ahighways shall be exalted. In ancient times, mountains were seen as obstacles, but when you ascend the 'mountain of the Lord' through the path of obedience, you find that He has cleared the path through all your trials.

  12 And then, O house of Israel, behold, ^athese shall come from far; and lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim. China The Lord is gathering His covenant people as prophesied, along his 'mountain way' and 'exalted highways'. It is a physical and a spiritual gathering in preparation for the building of Zion to prepare for the return of the Son of God. It is our great latter-day work!

  13 ^aSing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; for the feet of those who are in the east shall be established; and ^bbreak forth into singing, O mountains; for they shall be smitten no more; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his ^cafflicted. These words speak to the Great Millennial Day, when Christ will come to rule and reign and end all suffering. Actually hoping it refers to some relief before the "end" We go through suffering and affliction because of our wickedness. But if we repent that will end and new birth comes. 

  14 But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not. God's people, throughout history, have and will continue to have cause to question if He has forgotten them. We grow weary of purifying trials and persecution. Pres. Monson said in this last conference,

"...From the bed of pain, from the pillow wet with tears, we are lifted heavenward by that divine assurance and precious promise: “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”⁷ Such comfort is priceless....Our Heavenly Father, who gives us so much to delight in, also knows that we learn and grow and become stronger as we face and survive the trials through which we must pass. We know that there are times when we will experience heartbreaking sorrow, when we will grieve, and when we may be tested to our limits. However, such difficulties allow us to change for the better, to rebuild our lives in the way our Heavenly Father teaches us, and to become something different from what we were—better than we were, more understanding than we were, more empathetic than we were, with stronger testimonies than we had before. This should be our purpose—to persevere and endure, yes, but also to become more spiritually refined as we make our way through sunshine and sorrow. Were it not for challenges to overcome and problems to solve, we would remain much as we are, with little or no progress toward our goal of eternal life...May His promise ever be our watchword: “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”¹⁰I promise you that you will one day stand aside and look at your difficult times, and you will realize that He was always there beside you."
We have much progress to make from where we are to becoming like the city of Enoch. Unfortunately, we will progress because of our pain. We will say this like the end-time servant did. We have to pass the test while going through our afflictions.

  15 For can a ^awoman forget her sucking child, that she should not have ^bcompassion on the son of her womb? Is this another "born again" reference?  Yea, they may ^cforget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. The image of a mother and her newborn child is powerful. What nursing mother can forget she has a child as her milk comes in every two hours? What mother does not want to respond to the hungry cries of her infant? There is no image more comforting than that of a nursing infant, held close to her mother's own warm, soft, life-giving body. Such is the love and concern of the Lord for His children. The covenants made with Israel are not forgotten and their fulfillment in these latter days are and will be grand and sweeping. Nephi has seen it in vision and uses Isaiah's words to express his own additional witness.

  16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the ^apalms of my hands; I love this phrase and what it represents; the crucifixion, the personal debt that has been paid by the Savior for me… thy walls are continually before me. The Savior chose to retain the evidence of his crucifixion and atonement in his body. The price He paid out of love for each of us is continually before him as He moves through the eternities.

  17 Thy children shall make haste We are in the prophesied "Day of Hastening". All that has been revealed is being used to hasten the work of God. Even when the early Saints forged away from their persecutors, the great railroad that crossed the plains, that they had so recently crossed on foot, was joined, east to west, just north of Salt Lake City, thus hastening the ability to spread the gospel.  against thy destroyers; and they that made thee ^awaste shall go forth of thee. All of the temporal blessings that have been revealed to 'hasten the work of salvation' can also be used to help us personally cast out of our lives things that waste our time. But Satan has skillfully turned most of those blessings into a curse to distract us, rather than refine us.  Archibald F. Bennett recalled, “Sister Susa Young Gates related to me that she once asked her father [Brigham Young] how it would ever be possible to accomplish the great amount of temple work that must be done, if all are given a full opportunity for exaltation. He told her there would be many inventions of labor-saving devices, so that our daily duties could be performed in a short time, leaving us more and more time for temple work. The inventions have come, and are still coming, but many simply divert the time gained to other channels, and not for the purpose intended by the Lord” (“Put on Thy Strength, O Zion!” Improvement Era, Oct. 1952, p. 720).

  18 Lift up thine eyes round about and behold; all these ^agather themselves together, and they shall come to thee. And as I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on even as a bride. As the great Latter-Day gathering continues and increases, all those who respond to the invitation to become the Children of Israel will find themselves clothed in the holy robes of the priesthood and not only sealed in God's temple as families, but through covenants and ordinances, they will bind themselves to the Savior. The imagery used to express this relationship is marriage; the highest, holiest, and most binding relationship one can enter.

  19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants; It is prophesied that Zion will fill North and South America (TPJS, 362) and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.

  20 The children whom thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the first, shall ^aagain in thine ears say: The place is too strait for me; give place to me that I may dwell.

  21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart: Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am ^adesolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? And who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where have they been? After the Jews return to their place in God's fold, they will be amazed to see the millions of Gentiles that are now the "children of Israel" counted as one with them.   
  22 Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will lift up mine hand the end time servant to the ^aGentiles, and set up my ^bstandard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their ^carms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. When ancient Israel returns, it will be upon the shoulders of the Gentiles. Israel will return, but in a state of humility, not the ancient state of pride and domination they once held.

  23 And ^akings shall be thy ^bnursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they the wicked shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth, the day will come that all those who have persecuted the saints will recognize the Lord and His people. Also, the kings and queens may refer to those anointed to become kings and queens through temple ordinances... and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that ^cwait for me. This is the test! Hope and wait for the Lord until He renews your strength! We will all face times when we will feel to say, "How long, O Lord!" Here the Lord assures us that if we will wait patiently and endure our trials clear to the end, we will not be ashamed of Him or the work we have valiantly stood for. And perhaps we will not be shamed by others anymore either.

  24 For shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the ^alawful captives delivered? In ancient times, the victorious party in war could keep their spoils and their captives. The Lord promises to deliver all men from their enemies. The greatest prison, however is sin and the Redeemer of Israel promises He can deliver ALL men from the chains of the greatest of all enemies.

  25 But thus saith the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children. Nephi assures us that he has seen the day of our deliverance, both temporally and spiritually. He wants us to cleave to this promise and assurance; to know and trust the Lord through all our trials. Israel is assured, that though they would be scattered and wander for centuries, that her children would be gathered again in the latter days, and return to their covenant relationship with God. The captive are not the righteous elect who go on the exodus. Those are remain on a lower level, not the "precious" category.
  26 And I will ^afeed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; Can you read the words, flesh and blood and not think of the sacrament? Those who reject the Lord and consider themselves able to live and move about on their own will be left to themselves. But they will come to realize that the only bread and water that satisfy is that which is offered by the Savior of all mankind and all flesh shall ^bknow that I, the Lord, am thy ^cSavior and thy Redeemer, the ^dMighty One of Jacob. This is Isaiah and Nephi's great testimony and witness! I wonder if he said "thy" instead of "their" because if you don't accept Him, then He isn't your Savior. He cannot save you in your sin. You have no Redeemer or Savior unless you believe in Him and follow Him.