Chapter
5
Jacob quotes
Zenos relative to the allegory of the tame and wild olive trees—They are a
likeness of Israel and the gentiles—The scattering and gathering of Israel are
prefigured—Allusions are made to the Nephites and Lamanites and all the house
of Israel—Gentiles shall be grafted into Israel—Eventually the vineyard shall
be burned. About 544–421 B.C.
1 BEHOLD, my
brethren, do ye not remember to have read the words of the prophet Zenos, which
he spake unto the house of Israel, saying:
2 Hearken, O ye
house of Israel, and hear the words of me, a prophet of the Lord.
3 For behold,
thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive-tree,
which a man took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and
began to decay.
4 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,
that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not.
Jacob
5:1-4
Jacob
turns to the words of the prophet Zenos, relating the Allegory of the Tame and
Wild Olive trees.
Who
was Zenos? We know very little about
Zenos. He is one of four Old Testament
prophets quoted in the Book of Mormon.
He probably lived between 1600 and 600 B.C. His record was found on the brass plates. He
may have been an ancestor of Lehi (see 3 Nephi 10:16).[1] It has been described as “the most beautiful
prose expression of God's aspirations for the house of Israel during its
history here on the earth.”[2]
David
Rolph Seely explains why this is called an allegory.
The allegory of the olive tree in Jacob
5 is designated in the Book of Mormon as "the words of the prophet
Zenos" (Jacob 5:1)—the word allegory doesn't occur in the
Book of Mormon. Nevertheless, the intricacy of the details in Zenos's prophecy
and in Jacob's interpretation in Jacob 6 suggests it is to be read as an
allegory, and since the publication of the Book of Mormon most have interpreted
it as such, assigning each of the details to a particular people, period of
time, or event in the history of the scattering and gathering of Israel.4 Clearly
this is one of the ways it is meant to be read, though it is interesting to note
that there remains no consensus among interpreters on several of the details of
the passage, most notably the time periods of the various scenes.[3]
Zenos
begins by likening the house of Israel to a tame olive tree. The master of the vineyard nourished the
olive tree. It grew and then became old
and began to decay. When the master saw
it, “he said I will prune it, and dig
about it, and nourish it, that perhaps I may shoot forth young and tender
branches, and it perish not.”
David
Rolph Seely and John Welch explain the tame olive tree mentioned in verse 3.
The dominance and the development of the
themes of Exodus 15:17 [Thou shalt bring
them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O
LORD, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which
thy hands have established.] in
Jacob 5 are evident. Zenos begins with the image of "a tame olive tree,
which a man took and nourished in his vineyard" (Jacob
5:3, emphasis added). This seems to allude back to the planting prophesied
earlier in Exodus 15:17. As the plant in Jacob 5 waxes old and begins to decay,
further plantings and transplantings are mentioned by Zenos. Eight times the
English word plant or planted is used by
Zenos (Jacob 5:21, 23, 24, 25, 43, 44, 52, 54), showing the strength of this
metaphor from Exodus 15 in depicting God's dynamic relationship to his people.
Moreover, Zenos explicitly states that
the olive tree was planted and cared for in the man's own vineyard (Jacob 5:3).
Thus, the loving care and personal attention given to the vineyard by its Lord
show that the preparations made by the hand of the Lord and mentioned in Exodus
15 were not discontinued or abandoned.[4]
[2]
The
Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob, Paul Y. Hoskisson, Maxwell Institute,
accessed March 31, 2014.
[3]
The
Allegory of the Olive Tree and the Use of Related Figurative Language in the
Ancient Near East and the Old Testament, David Rolph Seely, Maxwell
Institute, accessed March 31, 2014.
[4]
Zenos
and the Texts of the Old Testament, by: David Rolph Seely & John
W. Welch, Maxwell Institute, accessed March 31, 2014.
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