30 And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard and the
servant went down into the vineyard; and they came to the tree whose natural
branches had been broken off, and the wild branches had been grafted in; and
behold all sorts of fruit did cumber the tree.
31 And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard did taste
of the fruit, every sort according to its number. And the Lord of the vineyard said: Behold,
this long time have we nourished this tree, and I have laid up unto myself
against the season much fruit.
32 But behold, this time it hath brought forth much fruit,
and there is none of it which is good.
And behold, there are all kinds of bad fruit; and it profiteth me
nothing, notwithstanding all our labor; and now it grieveth me that I should
lose this tree.
33 And the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant: What
shall we do unto the tree, that I may preserve again good fruit thereof unto
mine own self?
34 And the servant said unto his master: Behold, because
thou didst graft in the branches of the wild olive-tree they have nourished the
roots, that they are alive and they have not perished; wherefore thou beholdest
that they are yet good.
35 And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said
unto his servant: The tree profiteth me nothing, and the roots thereof profit
me nothing so long as it shall bring forth evil fruit.
36 Nevertheless, I know that the roots are good, and for
mine own purpose I have preserved them; and because of their much strength they
have hitherto brought forth, from the wild branches, good fruit.
37 But behold, the wild branches have grown and have overrun
the roots thereof; and because that the wild branches have overcome the roots
thereof it hath brought forth much evil fruit; and because that it hath brought
forth so much evil fruit thou beholdest that it beginneth to perish; and it
will soon become ripened, that it may be cast into the fire, except we should
do something for it to preserve it.
Jacob 5:33-37
The Lord of the vineyard finished his work caring for his
trees and went home. After “a long time had passed away,” the Lord
and his servant returned to work in his vineyard. The time was coming, he told the servant, and
that he must harvest his fruit.
Nephi wrote about this time.
“For the time speedily cometh that
the Lord God shall cause a great division among the people, and 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).
Commenting on this passage, Jacob would say, “And the day that he shall set his hand again the second time to recover
his people, is the day, yea, even the last time, that the servants of the Lord
shall go forth in his power, to nourish and prune his vineyard; and after that
the end soon cometh” (Jacob 6:2).
Paul Hoskisson writes:
When the Lord arrived again after
"a long time" (Jacob 5:29) to inspect his vineyard, he found that the
mother tree had "brought forth much fruit, and there is none of it which
is good. And behold there are all kinds of bad fruit" (Jacob 5:32). This
is *precisely the situation of the (Christian) world as described by the Lord
to the Prophet Joseph in the Sacred Grove (Joseph Smith–History 1:19). The
mother tree in Israel that had borne much good fruit in the early Christian era
had become entirely corrupt. As for the first transplanted branches, they also
carried nothing but bad fruit. The good section of the last tree, the righteous
Lehites, had been entirely destroyed by the evil branch, the apostate Lehites,
so that nothing but wild fruit remained on it also. The apostasy had been
complete and universal in all the trees representing Israel. Yet the roots
remained good (Jacob 5:34).[1]
The Lord and the servant went to the vineyard. They came to the tree with the grafts and
found it full of fruit. The Lord tasted
of the fruits. Even though he had spent
much time nourishing and caring for it, it brought forth bad fruit.
Grafting can be used to change the
variety of fruit a plant produces. As an example, several kinds of apple stocks
can be grafted onto the same rootstock so the same tree bears several kinds of
apples. An important point is that grafting cannot be used to create new kinds
of fruit or flowers, even when the scion and stock belong to different species.
If a Bartlett pear scion is grafted onto a quince stock the tree will produce
Bartlett pears. Bringing forth good, bad, and all sorts of fruit on one tree
would require grafting; it would not happen naturally. Thus, it is not
surprising that the tame tree with its wild grafts would produce all kinds of
fruits (Jacob 5:30), but the branch planted in the nethermost part of the
vineyard would not naturally bring forth good fruit on some branches and bad
fruit on others, unless someone had come in and grafted wild material onto that
scion. Perhaps this is why the Lord of the vineyard asks, "Who is it that
has corrupted my vineyard?" (Jacob 5:47).[2]
Describing this situation, Paul Hoskisson writes:
When the Lord of the vineyard came
to look at the earth near the end of the Apostasy, he found that none of the
various trees of the house of Israel, with or without Gentiles grafted in, were
bearing good fruit. Jacob 5:31–32 describes this condition of apostasy,
"The Lord of the vineyard did taste of the fruit, every sort according to
its number. And the Lord of the vineyard said: Behold, this long time have we
nourished this tree, and I have laid up unto myself against the season much fruit.
But behold, this time it hath brought forth much fruit, and there is none of it
which is good. And behold, there are all kinds of bad fruit; and it profiteth
me nothing." (What an apt description of the Apostasy.) This was the
condition of the world in 1820.[3]
Seeing the tree brought forth bad fruit, the Lord asked the
servant, “What shall we do unto the tree,
that I may preserve again good fruit thereof?”
The servant replied the branches grafted onto the tree
nourished the roots. Not only have they
not perished, they are alive and good.
The Lord told the servant the tree was worthless. The roots “profit
me nothing so long as it shall bring forth evil fruit.” Still, the roots are good, and he
preserved them for his own purposes.
At first, the Lord of the vineyard
appears unsure of the cause of decay in his beloved olive tree. He grafts wild
branches into the tame rootstock hoping to revitalize it, and he grafts tame
shoots onto other trees in case the tame root dies (Jacob 5:7–8). After seeing
how the wild grafts flourish, he knows that the roots of his beloved tree are
good (Jacob 5:36) and thus resolves to keep trying, eventually deciding to
clear out the wild branches that had been grafted in and to graft back in the
original stock from the trees in the nethermost parts of the vineyard (Jacob
5:52).[4]
The wild branches on the tree had overrun the roots. This is why it was producing bad fruit. It produces so much bad fruit, “it beginneth to perish.” Unless a way is found to preserve it, it
must be burned.
As trees age it becomes more
difficult for the roots to continue to grow and obtain nourishment for the
tree, while the foliage is still very active. The equilibrium is broken when
mineral substances from the roots become less available. When this happens
rejuvenation pruning is necessary to reduce the aerial portions of the tree.119 Accordingly,
when the older rootstock of the main tree in Jacob 5 is rejuvenated by
extensive grafting, it cannot keep up with the vigorous new growth of the wild
stock (Jacob 5:37), and pruning and grafting are necessary as a corrective
measure.[5]
[1]
The
Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob, Paul Y. Hoskisson, Maxwell Institute,
accessed April 12, 2014.
[2]
Botanical
Aspects of Olive Culture Relevant to Jacob 5, Wilford M. Hess, Daniel
Fairbanks, John W. Welch, and Jonathan K. Driggs, Maxwell Institute, accessed
April 4, 2014.
[3]
The
Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob, Paul Y. Hoskisson, Maxwell Institute,
accessed April 12, 2014.
[4]
Botanical
Aspects of Olive Culture Relevant to Jacob 5, Wilford M. Hess, Daniel
Fairbanks, John W. Welch, and Jonathan K. Driggs, Maxwell Institute, accessed
April 4, 2014.
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