After writing about the Jews accepting Christ, he turns once
again to Isaiah.
But
with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove [HEB decide with
equity] with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth
with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the
wicked.
And
righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of
his reins [OR waist].
The
wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the
kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little
child shall lead them.
And
the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and
the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And
the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp [OR the horned viper], and
the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' [IE another venomous
serpent] den.
They
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full
of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11:4-9
The Lord will judge the poor (“And it shall come to pass that when all men shall have passed from
this first death unto life, insomuch as they have become immortal, they must
appear before the judgment–seat of the Holy One of Israel; and then cometh the
judgment, and then must they be judged according to the holy judgment of God” [2
Nephi 9:15]).
When the Lord reproves the meek of the Earth, He does so
with equity. The righteous will be
spared, “and with the breath of his lips
shall he slay the wicked” (2 Nephi 30:9).
Richard Dilworth Rust writes about the Lord’s dealings with
man.
In an imperiled world, The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is designed to prepare God's people for
the second coming of the Savior and to warn the rest of the world to repent and
to come unto Christ. The Book of Mormon is a distinctive witness to this. So
what is the nature of the circumstances prior to the Second Coming? At that day
Satan will "rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to
anger against that which is good" (2 Nephi 28:20). The Lord God shall
cause a great division among the people comparable to the later division
between the Nephites and the Lamanites in which "the true worshipers of
Christ ... were called Nephites ... [and] they who rejected the gospel were
called Lamanites" (4 Nephi 1:37-38). "The wicked will he destroy; and
he will spare his people, yea, even if it so be that he must destroy the wicked
by fire" (2 Nephi 30:10).[1]
Hugh Nibley continues.
Of particular interest to
Latter-day Saints are the prophetic parts of the Book of Mormon, which seem to
depict the present state of the world most convincingly. The past 140 years
have borne out exactly what the book foretold would be its own reception and
influence in the world; and its predictions for the Mormons, the Jews, and the
other remnants of scattered Israel (among which are included the American
Indians) seem to be on the way to fulfillment. The Book of Mormon allows an
ample time-scale for the realization of its prophecies, according to which the
deepening perplexities of the nations, when "the Lord God shall cause a
great division among the people" (2 Nephi 30:10), shall lead to worldwide
destructions by fire, for "blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke must come;
and it must needs be upon the face of this earth." After this, the
survivors (for this is not to be the end of the world) shall have learned
enough to coexist peaceably "for the space of many years," when
"all nations, kindreds, tongues and people shall dwell safely in the Holy
One of Israel if it so be that they will repent" (1 Nephi 22:26, 28).
The Book of Mormon is the history
of a polarized world in which two irreconcilable ideologies confronted each
other, and is addressed explicitly to our own age, faced by the same
predicament and the same impending threat of destruction. It is a call to faith
and repentance couched in the language of history and prophecy, but above all
it is a witness of God's concern for all his children, and to the intimate
proximity of Jesus Christ to all who will receive him.[2]
[1]
Warfare
in the Book of Mormon / Purpose of the War Chapters in the Book of Mormon, Richard
Dilworth Rust, Maxwell Institute, accessed January 5, 2014.
[2]
The
Mormon View of the Book of Mormon, Hugh Nibley, Maxwell Institute, accessed
January 5, 2014.
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