Isaiah 3-5

These chapters are such a roller coaster. Isaiah seems to go from talking of how evil Israel had become to the wonderful gathering of Israel. I have really tried to understand each of the symbolisms and relate them to what that would have meant in the time of Israel and how that could relate to us now. One of the verses that stood out the most to me was in 5:20

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. "

Boy this really describes our world today. Especially if you think about television and movies and the morals that seem to be so "normal".

Chapter 5 also has one of Isaiah only parables. He gives a great parable of a vineyard that reminds me a lot of Jacobs allegory. There are not many parables in the Old Testament. They are mostly in the New Testament.

I really like studying the chapters and getting as much as I can out of them and then listening to the BYU professors discuss their take on it. It gives me even more insights that I would not have thought of. Like in 5:29. This could easily relate to missionaries of today as the "young lions". I am sure I am only getting a small sampling of the depth of Isaiah, but I am feeling the spirit and learning so much that it is not really as scary of a book than I have always thought.

Isaiah 1-2

I am not exactly sure, but I think it took somewhere between 2 or 3 hours to go through these chapters. Using the student manual and the footnotes has been so educational. I can understand ancient parables that Isaiah uses and how his writings applied to his day and also to us. the margins of my scriptures quickly filled up with notes and meanings. I was also able to chunk sections of scriptures together to help me understand the general meaning or topic.

So one of the most awesome things was in the footnotes regarding Isaiah 2:16. Nephi qoutes this scripture from the brass plates as well, but it has a small phrase that the KJ does not. Not that exiting except the Greek version of the bible has the phrase too, but is missing a phrase that KJ has. The BOM has all three phrases. In other words: The Greek (Septuagint) has "ships of the sea." The Hebrew has "ships of Tarshish." The BOM has both, showing that the brass plates had lost neither phrase. I learned from the Student Manual that scholars may suggest that Joseph Smith had taken the phrase from the Greek verson. The problem with that is that Joseph did not know Greek and there is no evidence that he even had access to the Septuagint when he was translating the BOM. The only conclusion: The BOM is true of course!

Isaiah

I have always found Isaiah to be very intimidating, but intriging. I am beginning a chapter by chapter study along with the student manual so that I can really get it. I am also listening to the BYU Insights to Isaiah series that I found on the website which has about 30 half hour discussions for the whole book. So far I am just trying to learn how to go about it with introductions, etc. I think with the study helps I will learn a lot so I am going to write down the most interesting things here over the next few weeks. I am very exited to learn and especially that we have so much more knowledge and understanding because of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and the Temple. I am not giving myself an exact timeline for the 66 chapters, because I want to cross reference and read the study helps as I go. So far, I have learned about how Isaiah was called to be a prophet in the holy of holies at the temple and how he was very humbled.