Lesson 39: “How Beautiful upon the Mountains”, Old Testament Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual, 187
1. Introduction
a) Isaiah – sometimes referred to as "The Prophet" among the Jews
b) Characteristics of Isaiah's writings
i) Dualism
(1) Typical of Semitic literature
(2) Visions are not of one person alone, but of all great and significant servant messengers of Elohim
(3) Compares the “noble and great ones.”
(4) Demonstrates how God's servants work together in harmony to accomplish the work of the Father in all ages.
ii) Roles
(1) Three offices or callings mentioned frequently in Isaiah's writings
(a) Elias - the herald or forerunner (2)
(b) Elijah - the restorer (3)
(c) Messiah - the anointed (4)
(2) In the chapters of Isaiah we're studying today – 50-53
(a) Isaiah is Elias, the herald
(b) Joseph Smith is Elijah, the restorer
(c) Jesus is the anointed, the Christ
(3) Reading 1 – Joseph Smith described these three roles or callings as follows: “The spirit of Elias is first, Elijah second, and Messiah last. Elias is a forerunner to prepare the way, and the spirit and power of Elijah is to come after, holding the keys of power, building the Temple to the capstone, placing the seals of the Melchizedek Priesthood upon the house of Israel, and making all things ready; then Messiah comes to His Temple, which is last of all” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.340)
c) Isaiah – The Poet
i) Beginning with Chapter 40 with a preface to his great vision, Isaiah writes what are effectively 26 poems all relating to his vision of the servant of God.
ii) Characteristics of a book of poetry
(1) Not necessarily chronological
(2) Not necessarily a single narrative thread
(a) May not move progressively
(b) Epic poems might, but this isn't Isaiah
(3) The individual poems might have common themes and overlap
d) Why Poetry?
i) ASK - Is it easier to write 26 chapters in prose than it is in poetry?
ii) Why does Isaiah use poetry?
iii) Characteristics of poetry
(1) Requires more study to understand
(a) Read a poem 5 times more than prose in order to understand it
(b) If we read Isaiah 5 times, would we understand it as well as we understand Genesis, which is not poetry
(2) Works very well for hymns and music
(a) Brother Robison pointed us to some of the verses of "How Firm a Foundation" last week, showing how they were taken from Isaiah
(b) Also pointed us to "The Messiah" by Handel, which draws extensively from Isaiah
(3) Poetry can assist our memory
(a) Let's see how well we remember some Isaiah passages
(i) For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
(ii) How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! (Isaiah 52:7)
(4) Poetry's imagery can also increase the impact of the words
(a) We discussed imagery a couple of weeks ago
(i) An oasis with fresh water in the desert
(ii) A wall with the storm beating against it
(b) Speaking of the Atonement, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18)
(i) This poem shows Isaiah's use of parallelism – common to Semitic, including classical Arabian, poetry
1. Can be used to compare or contrast or both
2. Sins are one thing without a Savior and something else entirely with a Savior
(ii) Vivid colors
1. Scarlet
a. Obvious, stands out from other colors
b. The color of arterial blood – shows a serious wound
2. Snow
a. White
b. Quiet
c. Covers all the imperfections of the earth with a smooth and beautiful blanket
(5) Most classical poetry is meant to be read aloud and heard
(a) Translating a poem from one language to another effectively requires that the translator also write a poem
(i) King James' translators of Isaiah did a wonderful job
(ii) Paid attention to the beat
1. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given
a. Note the parallelism
(iii) READ Isaiah 53:2-4: For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:3-4)
(6) Poetry is the most concentrated and intense form of written or oral communication
(a) Reading 2 - “Literature . . . exists to communicate significant experience–significant because concentrated and organized. Its function is not to tell us about experience but to allow us imaginatively to participate in it. It is a means of allowing us, through the imagination, to live more fully, more deeply, more richly, and with greater awareness. It can do this in two ways: by broadening our experience–that is, by making us acquainted with a range of experience with which, in the ordinary course of events, we might have no contact–or by deepening our experience–that is, by making us feel more poignantly and more understandingly the everyday experiences all of us have. . . .
“Poetry. . . . has been regarded as something central to existence, something having unique value to the fully realized life, something that we are better off having and spiritually impoverished without.
“Initially, poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language.
"The difference between poetry and other literature is one only of degree. Poetry is the most condensed and concentrated form of literature, saying most in the fewest number of words. It is language whose individual lines, either because of their own brilliance or because they focus so powerfully what has gone before, have a higher voltage than most language has. It is language that grows frequently incandescent, giving off both light and heat." (Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, Laurence Perrine, Ed., 1983, 517-524)
(b) Examples
(i) William Shakespeare
1. King James bible was translated in 1604-1611
2. Shakespeare lived from 1564-1616
3. I wonder if the English priests translating Isaiah ever attended the plays of the most popular playwright of this era
(ii) Shakespeare – Henry V – Rousing his men before the great battle of Agincourt, fought on the day when Saint Crispin was honored on the Catholic calendar. Football fans will note a phrase used by Bronco Mendenhall to rouse his army to battle:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
(iii) Robert Frost – Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
(iv) Dylan Thomas – Fern Hill
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heyday of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
(c) Why has Isaiah written in poetry?
(d) Isaiah has had an incredible, overwhelming experience with his vision.
(i) He has seen the sweep of thousands of years of history
(ii) He has seen our day and the great work of gathering scattered Israel and building Zion.
(iii) He has seen the future Savior and both the manner and the results of Christ's Atonement.
(e) In order to convey both the message and the experience of his vision to us, Isaiah has used the most potent form of language – he has written great and inspiring poetry.
2. Messengers who bring glad tidings
a) Reading 3 – Isaiah 52:7 –
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
i) are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings
(1) Messages were carried by runners
(2) In 2 Samuel, when King David sent armies out to fight a rebellion lead by his son, Absolom, he was waiting for news of the battle in Jerusalem when a watchman saw a runner approaching
(a) READ – 2 Samuel 18:26-27
26 And the watchman saw another man running: and the watchman called unto the porter, and said, Behold another man running alone. And the king said, He also bringeth tidings.
27 And the watchman said, Me thinketh the running of the foremost is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok. And the king said, He is a good man, and cometh with good tidings.
(3) Isaiah uses the feet to symbolize the messengers
(4) They are beautiful because they bring the message: "unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!"
ii) ASK – Who are the messengers today?
(1) Reading 4 – Mosiah 13:15-18
13 Yea, and are not the prophets, every one that has opened his mouth to prophesy, that has not fallen into transgression, I mean all the holy prophets ever since the world began? I say unto you that they are his seed.
14 And these are they who have published peace, who have brought good tidings of good, who have published salvation; and said unto Zion: Thy God reigneth!
15 And O how beautiful upon the mountains were their feet!
16 And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that are still publishing peace!
17 And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who shall hereafter publish peace, yea, from this time henceforth and forever!
18 And behold, I say unto you, this is not all. For O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that is the founder of peace, yea, even the Lord, who has redeemed his people; yea, him who has granted salvation unto his people;
(2) The missionaries
(3) What is the most important message these messengers bring – from Isaiah to the missionaries knocking on doors all over the world today?
(a) Reading 4: 2 Nephi 2:6-8
6 Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth.
7 Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.
8 Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise.
3. Isaiah prophesies of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice
a) Chapters 50-53 are full of prophesies of the Savior and His Atonement
b) Reading 5 – Isaiah 50:5-7
5 ¶ The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
7 ¶ For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
c) Reading 6 – Isaiah 51:6
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
d) READ Isaiah 51:22
22 Thus saith thy Lord the Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
i) Reading 7 – Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-20
15 Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.
16 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;
17 But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;
18 Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—
19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
20 Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit.
ii) READ – Isaiah 53:5
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
(1) Reading 8: In speaking of the agony at Gethsemane, B.H. Roberts wrote: "He felt the whole burden and mystery of the world's sin, and encountered the fiercest assaults of Satan.... His sorrow did not spring from His own life, His memory or His fears, but from the vicarious nature of the conflict. The agony was a bearing of the weight and sorrow of our sins, in loneliness, in anguish of soul threatening to crush His body, yet borne triumphantly, because in submission to His Father's will." (The Seventy's Course in Theology, 2:127)
e) Parallel Statements by Isaiah and Abinadi
i) Reading 9: Isaiah 53:8-11
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 ¶ Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
ii) Mosiah 15:10-12
10 And now I say unto you, who shall declare his generation? Behold, I say unto you, that when his soul has been made an offering for sin he shall see his seed. And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed?
11 Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord—I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God.
12 For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now, are they not his seed?
f) Reading 9: Elder Russell M. Nelson said: “His Atonement is infinite . . . in that all humankind would be saved from never-ending death. It was infinite in terms of His immense suffering. It was infinite in time, putting an end to the preceding prototype of animal sacrifice. It was infinite in scope—it was to be done once for all. And the mercy of the Atonement extends not only to an infinite number of people, but also to an infinite number of worlds created by Him. It was infinite beyond any human scale of measurement or mortal comprehension” (Russell M. Nelson, “The Atonement,” Ensign, Nov. 1996, 35).
4. Isaiah describes some of our responsibilities.
a) If we understand the Atonement, what do we do to bring its effects into our lives?
i) READ – Isaiah 51:1, 4, 7
1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
SKIP
4 ¶ Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.
SKIP
7 ¶ Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
- Comment – We are never so righteous that we cease to need the word of the Lord, whether spoken in scripture or through His servants, the prophets
ii) Reading 10: Isaiah 52:1-2
1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
(1) Elias Higbee wondered about the meaning of these two verses.
(2) READ Doctrine and Covenants 113:7-10
7 Questions by Elias Higbee: What is meant by the command in Isaiah, 52d chapter, 1st verse, which saith: Put on thy strength, O Zion—and what people had Isaiah reference to?
8 He had reference to those whom God should call in the last days, who should hold the power of priesthood to bring again Zion, and the redemption of Israel; and to put on her strength is to put on the authority of the priesthood, which she, Zion, has a right to by lineage; also to return to that power which she had lost.
9 What are we to understand by Zion loosing herself from the bands of her neck; 2d verse?
10 We are to understand that the scattered remnants are exhorted to return to the Lord from whence they have fallen; which if they do, the promise of the Lord is that he will speak to them, or give them revelation. See the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses. The bands of her neck are the curses of God upon her, or the remnants of Israel in their scattered condition among the Gentiles.
iii) READ – Isaiah 52:11
11 ¶ Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.
(1) Reading 11 - President Spencer W. Kimball said: "The Lord said, 'Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.' (Isaiah 52:11.) And we must state and restate and call to the attention of our children and their children that chastity and cleanliness are basic in the Church. Parents should teach their children in their home evenings and in all their activities as they rear them that unchastity is a terrible sin, always has been, always will be and that no rationalization by any number of people will ever change it. As long as the stars shine in the heavens and the sun brings warmth to the earth and so long as men and women live upon this earth, there must be this holy standard of chastity and virtue." (quoted in Companion To Your Study of the Old Testament, pp305-306)
Conclusion
