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Segment 1
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This week begins our study of the prophets. That's Isaiah to Malachi, 17 books of prophetic teachings and words from God's authorized servants who spoke with the Lord and then spoke for the Lord, sharing His message with the people between about, mm, 900 and 500 BC, and their messages are also for us today.

So we begin our study this week with a prophet who is one of the most often quoted in other books of scripture, including being quoted by the Savior Himself, and he's also one of the most difficult to understand. But don't worry, you guys. We have a guest this week who's going to help us get the most out of this prophet's writings.

And like Nephi, I have a feeling that we will be delighting in his words when we're done. Welcome to the Sunday on Monday Study Group, a Deseret Bookshelf Plus original, brought to you by LDS Living, where we take the Come, Follow Me lesson for the week, and we really dig into the scriptures together. I'm your host, Tammy Uzelac Hall.

Now, if you're new to our study group, follow the link in our description. It's going to explain how you can best use this podcast to enhance your Come, Follow Me study, just like my longtime listening friend Jenny Taylor. Jenny, I loved meeting you. Thank you for saying hi. Now, another awesome thing about our study group is each week we're joined by two of my friends, but sometimes it's just one, and that's what we get this week.

And I could not be more thrilled or more thankful for this friend for joining us. Let me introduce you to Dr. Kerry Muhlestein. Hi, Kerry. Oh, hi. Thanks so much for having me on. It's always good to have you back. You're one of my favorite guests 'cause you, not only do you know so much, but you're just so personable and normal for all that you know.

Ah. You're very smart. Well, I, I, I, I don't know what to say about that. I'll just try and be normal for a minute or something. I don't know. Just, just say thank you, 'cause you've earned it. Oh. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. Hey, you do a lot of trips to Egypt. Uh, didn't you just recently get back from one? Yeah, I've been in Egypt, uh, for the first six months of this year.

I spent about half my time in Egypt. Wow. Tell everybody what you do in Egypt. Well, I'm a, an archeologist, so that was, uh, this year was a big season. That's part of why w- I was there so long, and, uh, that's most of what I do. Sometimes I'm doing tours. I, I took students around and taught them, but most of the time I'm just digging in the dirt Do you teach at BYU still, or is that part of the teaching?

Yeah. I teach at BYU, so I, I had a research leave this semester because of the special season we were having. Uh, and, and so I didn't have to teach classes winter semester other than teaching the students. I, I taught a class for them, and then taught them while they were there, but- Oh my gosh ... um, this, this semester or so, that doesn't happen for me very often.

But this time we had a, a different kind of season, so we just focused on being there. What does that mean, a different kind of season? Or you called it a special season. Yeah, so we're, we're transitioning from one phase of the excavation to another, where a- as I'm looking at about, at my career, it's gonna take me six to 10 years to analyze and publish what I've excavated.

Uh, and I'm, I'm thinking I'm six to 10 years away from retiring, so we made this our very last season of actually excavating. Ooh. We'll still do some conservation, some going in and an- analyzing things, and th- there'll be follow-up things. But we're kind of now focusing on that second phase. So it was, it was the last season, so there were a number of things I had to do that I wouldn't normally do, and you have to leave some extra time because it's kind of famous in archeology, it's always on the last day you find something cool.

So I had to leave time for beyond that last day, so. Can you give us a little bit of a teaser? Like, what did you find? Uh, this year we found the, the biggest tomb that we've found, the most chambers and most burials of any tomb that we've found before. So there were 14 chambers and about 42 burials in there.

So- And no one has found it? Yeah. Well, it was plundered at some point, uh, anciently. So there were some robbers that found it. Uh, and that's part of the puzzle of putting it together. It may have been plundered or it may have been reused. We're still trying to figure that out. So see, this is the phase two- Okay

trying to figure out what was going on. Uh, it may have just been that someone decided, "Okay, this is a nice tomb. We're gonna reuse it," and they kind of tossed the bodies that were in there and then rebury themselves. Or, well- Wow ... they didn't rebury themselves, buried their family members or something.

Mm-hmm. But, uh, I'm, I'm starting to lean that way be- because while there were burials that had certainly been disturbed, each of the chambers had a nice burial in it. But in the end, we're- Wow ... we're still trying to figure it out. So there were mummies intact in what you found? Well, somewhat intact. Wow. Uh, and there were also some nice, uh, coffins that were somewhat intact, but not, not completely intact.

And I just have one more question. I'm so ... This is so awesome. I love it so much. Tell me what it's like for you when you find this. Like, when you first, when you see it for the first time, what is your reaction like? What's it like? Uh, it's, it is always exciting when, uh, like we, we were digging down and, and, uh

So this is a tomb, it's an interesting kind of tomb where they actually punch through a hard crust in the earth, and there's a hollow space that they hollowed out and made bigger underneath. Um, so we were digging down and got to where you could, uh, you could tell, like suddenly the sand's giving way and so on.

And, and I shine my flashlight in and can see a perfectly rectangular chamber. That's always a thrill to say, "Oh, we just found something." Wow. So yeah, that, that, that's a fun- Wow ... thing. Oh my goodness. How do you know where to look? Usually, you, I- I mean, we're in an area that's really dense, so almost anywhere you looked would, would work fairly well.

But you in particular, the, the ... You kind of develop an eye for seeing the sand sits differently in this area than it does in the, the surrounding area. So there's probably something hollow under there. Oh, that's really cool. Oh, my goodness. Okay, Kerry, that is awesome. I'm so excited for you. Good luck for the next six or seven years.

Thank you. Six or 10 you said. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. Okay. Well, I don't know about you guys, but just listening to that, I am so excited to hear what Kerry has to teach us today, because we are gonna really dig into Isaiah. Kerry is an Isaiah scholar in addition to being an archeologist, so he has written so many incredible books.

I highly recommend you looking up his name, buying anything he's written. He actually has a new book out this year, and we've talked a little bit about it before at the beginning of the year, but I just think you need to have this. I own it. It's called Inspirations and Insights from the Old Testament, and it's a Come, Follow Me commentary.

So you follow the Come, Follow Me lessons for the year. So when I got to Isaiah 1, I thought, "Who better to have than Kerry?" 'Cause I love what you've written about these chapters, and we're just gonna use your book as well as your teachings to dive into Isaiah 1. So everybody, if you wanna know more about my guest, make sure you check out our show notes.

You're gonna find a bio and a picture of him, and you can find that at ldsliving.com/sundayonmonday. So grab your scriptures and something to mark them with, and let's dig into Isaiah chapters 1 through 12. First things first, Kerry, the thing I love about the Come, Follow Me manual is that right at the beginning, before we even get into Isaiah, there's this really cool chapter between what we just studied last week and we're about to study called Prophets and Prophecy.

And I'm just curious to know, why do you think they put that there? Well, I think it's to help us understand that we're moving into a different phase of the Bible, right? Okay. We've been doing histories, and then we, we start doing what we call the writings. We, you know, we've got poetic books like Psalms and Proverbs and, and Job and so on.

Uh, and now this is a completely different genre, where we are reading the actual words of prophets. We've gotten that a little bit in the histories when you have someone quoting thirdhand a prophet, you know, and then Isaiah said... I mean, then, uh, Elijah said this, or something along those lines. But now we're getting the prophets themselves.

Yes. One of the things that I loved learning, Kerry, was that when it comes to all the history that we've studied, it's oftentimes you want to... When you're reading the Old Testament, you think it's chronological in order, but it's not. And at the very beginning of this whole year with Come, Follow Me, we bracketed off what the different sections were in the index.

So you can see, okay, here's what we're studying. So we get to the prophets, and the pr- and we're gonna talk about this later, the prophets aren't even in chronological order. Yeah. But the thing I love is this is where Lehi fits in as well. Like, if we had a book of Lehi, l- like from Old Testaments, his, his book would be here, too, along with Isaiah and with Zephani- Jeremiah, Joel, all these prophets.

So I think that's kind of cool to, for everyone to kind of put in their brain, like, this is where Lehi would fall. Yeah, I, I agree. And, uh, w- this, this kind of writing seems somewhat familiar to us as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because it, it will... I mean, Nephi, he gives us both history and prophecies.

The Book of Mormon mixes them together, but we get a lot of s- teachings that are f- kind of like what we get in the Book of Mormon quite frequently. Mm-hmm. So one of the things that I asked Kerry to do was before we even get into the Book of Isaiah, I asked him to come prepared to share maybe one of his favorite prophetic prophecies from the prophet books, something that the prophet, one of these prophets had prophesied about, that will kind of prove the point that it's important to study the prophets and prophecy.

Take some time with that specific section in the Come, Follow Me lesson this week. Do you have a favorite prophetic prophecy? Oh, I don't know if I could say I have a, a favorite. Or one you like. Yeah. Yeah, but there, there's one I'd be willing to share, and since we're in Isaiah, I'll, I'll share that one.

Cool. Uh, to me, a- and I know we'll talk a, a bit about Isaiah chapter one in a minute, but to me, one of the most powerful sets of verses in the scriptures is in Isaiah chapter one, as we go from, say, about verse 15 Uh, through 18. And I, I just find it so powerful because Isaiah talks about not, not, God not answering our prayers because our hands are full of blood, so w- you know, we, we've been sinful and so on, and there's, there's more symbolism we could get into there, but we don't have time.

But then he pleads with us to, to make ourselves clean, and I love the transition from verse 16 to 17. He says, "Cease to do evil," that's the very last line of verse 17, "and then learn to do well." So he, he pleads with us to stop doing the bad things, wash, make clean, then learn to do well, and he tells us things we should do.

Seek judgment, w- that's a concept that people don't understand. I've tried to explain it on my podcast. Uh, hopefully we can get it a little bit better. But anyway, "Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless." And then we finally get to those famous verses, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

But to me, this whole idea of i- he, he sets up what makes that last verse possible, verse 18, by pleading with us to, to cease to do evil and learn to do well, and, and to come to God so he can answer our prayers. And to me, it, it's beautiful and powerful. When I was serving as a bishop, I found that set of verses was more useful than just about any other, and I find it in my own life as I think about what I need to be doing.

I find that set of verses to be really powerful. I love that so much. Wow. In fact, as a seminary teacher, verse 18 is the one you memorize with all of your- Yeah ... students, right? Yeah. That's the Scripture mastery scripture. But I would say after what you've taught us, let's make sure 17 is as important as verse 18.

I love that. I'm highlighting that right now. Yeah. "Cease to do evil and learn to do well." That's the key. Yeah. And, and there's a real principle in there that as you're trying to stop a bad behavior, if you don't replace it with a good behavior, it's awfully hard to stay away from that bad behavior, right?

And, and, and- Yeah ... Isaiah just teaches that with that little juxtaposition, right? "Cease to do evil. Learn to do well." What's your advice when you've been with students on how to learn to do well? What's a step? Uh, well, I think it's actually there in, in that verse. We often just, we, when we, we read seek judgment, what we need to understand is that that means you're supposed to help things be right for people.

Oh, that's cool. Um, take care of people is, is basically what that's meaning. And so look for chances to help people, to serve. That's really what it's saying. And I, I think, um, so I'll just refer you wh- uh, in my podcast, the episode we did on the Book of Judges, at the beginning I explain what, what judging and judgment really means.

We misunderstand it most of the time, but what it really means in the Old Testament, but it's used that way in the New Testament or the Book of Mormon. And we're gonna see the prophets use those phrases a lot, and if we use our modern English understanding, we won't get it. If we understand it this way, uh, as I say, the short version is here, learn to try and make things right, make things the way they should be for people.

But you can get the longer explanation, uh, in my podcast. But that's really what he's telling us to do so that we can come to God I, I love that so much 'cause now I'm connecting it to the scripture in Ezekiel that talks about what the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was. Because I love these two verses where it says that, "The iniquity of the sister Sodom was pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness that was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy.

They were haughty. They were committed to abomination before me. Therefore, I took them away as I saw good." Like, it just goes back to that idea that they did not learn to do well, that they did not cease to do evil. So, and that's one of the things I love that you write in your book. You said that the idea of all the books of the prophets have four main themes.

I'm just gonna put these in here. And if you wanna put these in your scriptures, I recommend it because he beautifully sets these up, Kerry. I love how you did this. The first main theme is Israel needs to repent of idolatry. The second theme of the prophets is that Israel was failing to take care of the poor and the fatherless and the widow, just like we talked about.

The third theme is that Israel was relying on going through the motions of the Law of Moses rather than on having their hearts turned to the right place. And the last theme was that God wanted Israel to repent and return to him, and that he... And then I love this, that he would never give up working on them.

What a great theme. So that is what you wanna know and understand as you're going into reading these 17 books about the prophets. And Kerry, I love how you just set this up. The goal w- really overall, the main theme of all these prophetic words is cease to do evil and learn to do well. I, I might put that on my fridge for my kids to see.

Yeah, we should make it a magnet or a, or a T-shirt, shouldn't we? Yeah. Totally. Vinyl lettering to put above your, your b- uh, your door. Yeah. Okay, that is such a great discussion. So right there we have this idea of what prophets are about. So in the next segment then, we get to dive into the most often quoted of all the prophetic books, as well as the most oft-quoted prophet by the Lord himself.

We'll do that next

Segment 2
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All right, Kerry, who is the most often quoted prophet, not only in scripture but also by the Savior himself? Oh, that's Isaiah Isaiah. In fact, if you just go to the Bible dictionary, it's gonna tell you that. I love that it says right there. And I also like that he was also quoted by Paul, Peter, and John in his Revelation.

So that means Isaiah must be pretty important. And then in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, they quote from Isaiah more than any other prophet. So it's pretty important to know- And, and so do the Dead Sea Scrolls, by the way ... Oh, yes. Thank you. The Dead Sea Scrolls. So Isaiah's pretty important.

Yeah. So I asked Kerry, just first of all, teach us about Isaiah. Like, who is he? Does he have a family? What does his name mean? Like, I have so many questions. Ready, set, go. Fire hose. Who is Isaiah? All right. Isaiah is a, a prophet who has a very long ministry during a really, really crucial time. God saved his big gun for this crucial time, and, uh, uh, he's, he's incredibly gifted.

I am willing to say if he is not the most gifted writer we've seen in the history of the world, he's in the top five. He is amazing. So he, he lives in Judah, and he, in fact, he lives in Jerusalem. He seems to have access to the royal court, and, and tradition is that he's actually King Uzziah's cousin, and that he's Hezekiah's father-in-law.

We have no idea whether that's true or not, but that's the, a long-standing tradition. In any case, he's born around 770 BC, and he receives his call when he's fairly young. Uh, he, he only has a couple of children, and so that means he's probably in his early 20s. Mm-hmm. Uh, so that, we, we usually don't think of him when he gives that famous prophecy, the Immanuel prophecy, that he's, like, the age of my students, but he likely is.

We, we don't know for sure, but, but probably. Um, so he, he's, he, he prophesies from somewhere around 750, 740 to around 690, so over the course of several kings, and it's a really crucial time period. This is, during his ministry, he will be warning both kingdoms that if they don't repent, they'll be destroyed.

The Northern Kingdom will ignore him, and the, the scattering of Israel will happen during his ministry. Despite his best efforts to get the people to change, they will be scattered. And the Southern Kingdom will come very close to that, but because Hezekiah will listen to him, and, and Isaiah is the guiding force that gets Hezekiah to do what he does, the Southern Kingdom is spared from being destroyed and scattered at this time.

So he plays a really crucial role during that. Uh, uh, you asked about his family. He's married. He has children who feature in his prophecies. His names are, are, are prophetic names. Uh, their names are, uh, we know of at least two of them. So, uh, uh, just a, a f- fantastic person. He's, he's serving at the same time as other prophets.

This is not unusual when you have really dire times. Like, God is warning people, "If you don't repent, you're gonna be destroyed." He usually sends a number of prophets. So Micah is a contemporary. He lives just, uh, a few miles away from Isaiah, is from a town that's about 20-something miles away, 25. Uh, they, uh, Micah's ministry is shorter than Isaiah's.

It fits completely within Isaiah's ministry, so they almost, if they didn't know each other, they were certainly familiar with each other. He may have been contemporary with Amos. Uh, he probably was with Hosea and perhaps with Amos. Uh, if not, he's influenced by Amos. Most likely Amos would've been prophesying right before him.

Uh, there's another prophet we don't really know anything about named Zechariah that, that, uh, it's not the Zechariah who has a, a book named after him. He's much, much later in history. But there's a Zechariah we learn in 2 Chronicles that is a, a prophet that guides Uzziah, and Isaiah will start prophesying during the end of Uzziah's reign.

And so he, he may have known, uh, uh, this Zechariah. If not, I'm sure he knew of him and is influenced by him. And there's kind of a long-standing tradition starting with, with Samuel and Nathan that there were, was a prophet that would advise the kings of Judah, and that seems to go from this Zechariah to Isaiah.

We don't really know, but it seems like it. In some ways, he's the, the, the successor to Zechariah, a, a guy who we don't really know anything else about. But th- that, uh, just fascinating life and, and an amazing, long, powerful ministry. Tradition is that he's actually killed by Hezekiah's son, Manasseh, sawed in half as he's hiding in a tree from, from Manasseh.

We don't know if that's true or not either, but anyway, a lot of fascinating traditions and a, and a powerful, powerful teacher. Wow. This is cool. Tell us a little bit about his wife. W- actually, uh, what do we only know about her? Well, w- we know a couple things. One, she's called a prophetess. Yay. And, uh, that's, that, that is a significant thing.

I wish I knew more about her. I'd like to meet Mrs. Isaiah. We don't know her name. I, I wish we did, but we know that they have children in fulfillment of prophecy, and that will serve as prophecies. And so she's actively raising not only the, the, uh, you know, wonderful children, but children that are going to serve as signs to people in their generation.

I have my own little side belief about her because she is called a prophetess. Yeah. I can't help but think that she had something to do with some of Isaiah's writings when he writes about the intimate relationship between a mother and her suckling child, and the idea of can a mother give birth and forget her son, that idea.

Like, I just wonder if she had something to do with that because unless you've done that as a woman, I don't know that a man really understands the emotions attached to those verses. So any time I read in Isaiah anything that has to do with women, I'm like, "I wonder if she had something- Yeah ... to do with.

Hey, let me, let me just plug this in there. Or if she even chose the names of her son, 'cause as a prophetess, she may have already known- Yeah ... what was about to happen. So- I, I like your thinking ... that's Tammy 101. Yeah, there you go. Well, I like your thinking, and, and I think if she's not giving him some of the phrases as they have discussions about the, the topics and the things God is telling Isaiah to, to say.

So I, I think we could say for g- the example you used, uh, how c- you know, could a, a, a mother abandon her suckling child, either she has talked with him about that and he's gotten ideas from her, or, or at the very least, he has seen what kind of a mother she is and has been inspired- Yes ... by that to be able to use that phrase, right?

It's, it, it's one or the other in my mind. Again, I don't really know, but I, that's how I think. Oh, I think that's awesome. Yes, very cool. Now, one of the things in our show notes that you're gonna wanna go check out is there has been a lot said about Isaiah from other prophets and Jesus Christ, and we put so many different scriptures about what the Savior has said as well as important scriptures from the Book of Mormon about what Nephi has said.

So if you wanna use those in your lesson or in your own personal study, highly recommend that. But one of the things that we wanna make sure you understand is that we have been commanded by Jesus Christ to study Isaiah. And so knowing that, and that's in 3 Nephi 23:1, where the Savior literally says to the people, "A commandment I give unto you that you seach the, search these things diligently," meaning Isaiah.

And so Kerry, I'd just like to know from your own perspective, as you have studied Isaiah over the years, why is that a command that we should obey? What can you get out of Isaiah? Oh, there is so much, and, and I'll, maybe I'll start by saying I think as members of the church, this almost creates a, a difficult complex for many members of the church, because we have this commandment from Christ that we need to study Isaiah, and yet many members say, "Okay, I study it, and I get nothing out of it."

Right. They get really frustrated during those chapters in the Book of Mormon and so on. And so then they just feel guilty. Uh, i- it's in fact what inspired me to start teaching the Isaiah class. Other people had been teaching it, but for me to start teaching the Isaiah class at BYU and to write, uh, my commentary on Isaiah was because I wanted to help people not feel so guilty and frustrated about this when I think it is possible to just love, love, love Isaiah.

But you have to get, uh, develop some skills. But to, to, to go to the second part of your question, Isaiah, th- and this is part of why you have to develop some skills, Isaiah teaches in a way that can have so many meanings. Mm-hmm. And with s- with such poetic ability that it can reach us on a deeper level.

Those, those images, like the ones we've already said, "Though your sins be, be scarlet, they can be white as snow," right? That, that is an image that we can understand, and so it, it sinks into our heart, and it reaches us on a different level than if I say, "You know you can repent," right? Yeah. I- if, if you say, "No, your sins might be scarlet, but they can be white as snow," that touches us and evokes something in us.

And so the, uh, He, He teaches in a way that will yield something to you today and yield a different something to you tomorrow and a different something to you 10 years from now. Mm-hmm. And each time will reach you on a deep level. Oh, I think you're absolutely right, especially for anyone who's ever done laundry.

You know the impossibility- ... almost of trying to get blood stains out of clothes, like a kid's bloody nose or anything- Yeah ... like that. When you hear that, you're like, "It takes a ton of work." Yeah. And Heavenly Father's like, "Yeah, it might. But it also can... It's totally doable. It can be done." Yeah. "So don't worry."

So I love that you brought up that imagery. So the thing I love that you said earlier, though, when I asked you about Isaiah, is you said, "You can love," uh, you said that with emphasis. "You can love," then you said, "love, love Isaiah." So guys, in the next segment, Kerry is gonna give us some tips about how we can love, love, love Isaiah.

We'll do that next.

Segment 3
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So there's a fun story that Kerry shares about this idea of how we can love Isaiah. So Kerry, share the story that you did with your class, and then give us some tips on how to love Isaiah. Yeah, this was the first time I was teaching that Isaiah class. Uh, I'd, I'd asked to start teaching it, as I said, because I really wanted my students to understand, and I was working on a commentary on Isaiah, and I knew that working with them would help me do, you know, uh, know how, what questions people had.

And I felt like, uh, we were getting towards the end of the semester, and th- they'd made some fantastic progress. Uh, one of the things I love, I, I, I have assignments that I just walk them through step by step how to do something, and by the end of the class, it, they know their last assignment is to write a verse by verse commentary on a chapter.

And at the beginning of the semester they see that, and they are deer in the headlights- ... scared of this, this thing. And I love that at the end, almost universally, I have students saying, "It was easy. I had no idea this could be easy for me, but it was easy for me." So we were getting to that time where I was thinking, "Okay, we're, we're getting there," and I was having a, a quiz that I thought would be kind of...

I, I wanted to have a couple fun questions in the quiz. But before class started, I overheard some students talking to each other about relationships, right? And, uh, someone asked a, a girl, uh, saying, "Okay, you've been doing something with this guy, you know, how's that going?" And she said, "It's complicated." And, uh, a, a minute later we were doing the quiz, and I just had the fun question in there.

I said, "So have you learned to love Isaiah?" Right? Which I was deciding would be the, the title of my book. I said, "Have you learned to love Isaiah?" And this same girl just said out loud, loud enough for everyone, she said, "It's complicated." And I, I thought it, it, uh, it encapsulated well the fact that she did love Isaiah, but there were some things about it that were kind of difficult.

She still had a complicated relationship with Isaiah. But I feel like at, by the end, she, she was closer to the just purely loving Isaiah. That's awesome. Okay. So give us some tips about how we can love this complicated book. I would say the first thing is you have to learn to slow down. Hmm. Don't read Isaiah at the...

or don't think you're gonna read Isaiah at the same speed you were reading First and Second Kings. It's not a story that you read quickly. It's not a story at all. It is packed, every chapter packed with beautiful, complex symbols. So you just have to be ready to slow down and say, "What is this symbol?" And that's the next thing.

Focus on the symbols. That's, that's why we have to slow down, because so easy we just say, "There's a symbol. Move on." And I think the key is to focus on those symbols and make sure you understand what's going on. And we usually skip it, skip at least half of the process of what I call unpacking a symbol.

Mm-hmm. So let's, let's choose one. Let's, let's- Yeah, I was just gonna ask you that. Take us to a verse that we can slow down and unpack a symbol. All right. So let's, let's just go right to the beginning of Isaiah chapter one. Okay. Verse three: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider."

Now, I'm choosing an intentional ... or intentionally a very simple symbol, and yet it's still easy to skip over this, right? So one of the things that people do is they usually s- s- start on what I would say is step two or three right away, without doing step one. Step one is to come to know the actual literal symbol very well.

Now, we ... That's easy to kind of skip over here and say, "Okay, well, I know, uh, uh, what an ox is. Uh, and I know what an owner is, and I know what an ass is, and I know w- uh, I think I know what a crib is," probably better translated as, as like, um, a manger, right, or a feeding trough. Not a place where you sleep, but, but a manger or feeding trough.

And it's easy to say, "Okay, I know that," but, but it's worth saying, "Okay, what else should I know to really understand this?" What ... I- i- in ancient times or even today, a, a good owner, what d- what happens with him and his, his cows or his donkeys? Uh, interestingly, just this Sunday in my ward, we had, uh, the guy who was teaching elder's quorum, a wonderful member of our, our elder's quorum presidency, was sharing that when he was growing up, they had a, a bunch of cows, and his father could go out and call

He, he'd named each cow, and he could go out and call out the name of a cow, and that cow would lift its head and locate the, his father and start walking towards him. He said he or others could call that name and nothing would happen. But because this guy took care of his cows and fed his cows, and he, they knew he would take care of them, he could call them and they would come.

Now that is so cool, the idea, 'cause you always focus on the ox, but focusing on the owner- Yeah ... that's a great way to think of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Well, I just went to a rodeo a couple of weeks ago, and I remember the woman who won barrel racing. She got the gold medal for it, and the interviewer asked her how she was able to do so well, and the woman gave all the credit to her horse.

And she just kept saying, "I knew the horse could do it. I knew that w- after we had trained and I..." She just kept saying, "The horse, the horse." And she didn't take any credit at all for the amount of work it took to win that barrel race. And I thought, "What a good owner." Yeah. Like, this is so cool, Kerry, you're teaching us this, 'cause we know, we get the ox, but he knoweth his owner 'cause the owner's nice.

Yeah. The owner gives credit. I mean, I've, I've done keyhole and barrels and, and, uh, pole racing as well with, uh, with horses, and it's absolutely true. You have to learn to love your horse and have your horse love you, and you have to trust each other for that to work, and that's part of what he's, he's hitting at here.

So if you spend some time just kind of thinking about it at the very least, but with, uh, internet searches and so on, it's not hard to learn about some of these symbols. So when you, when you're reading Isaiah, stop and learn the, the literal symbol, and then you can go to the next stage, right? And you, you can't do stage two or three if you haven't really done stage one well.

You can't do those well. So then I'd say the next stage is, okay, w- what would this have meant symbolically for people in Isaiah's day? And I think this is one of the keys, not only for symbols, but for everything in Isaiah, to try and figure out the original context. And, and we'll talk more about that later.

But th- what would it have meant for people in Isaiah's day? How would they have taken this? And then you can get to step three, which is, okay, so how do these symbols apply to me? And you can do that better having done steps one and two than, than having skipped over those things. And that's where I think you were kind of going with, with the, the woman with the keyhole, right?

Then suddenly you're saying, "Okay, now I can see what this means for me." Uh, was it keyhole or barrels that you said she used? Barrels. Yeah, barrels. Barrels. Okay, sorry. Um, and you can then start saying, "Okay, I see what this means with my relationship with God"- Yeah ... once you've been able to look at the relationship of the ox and the owner and what was going on in Judah in, in Isaiah's day.

I mean, Kerry, I have verse 3 marked a ton, right? I have things circled, underlined, notes to the side. I've studied verse 3, and now it's totally different to me today because of what you just taught us. Because now I'm reading this. So if, if from my experience from what you said, I put trust above the word knoweth, the ox knoweth his owner because of this level of trust, 'cause the owner loves the ox or loves the horse.

And then you t- we, I looked back at this, the ass his master's crib, and in my mind I'm thinking it's because it's a place where he is rested. Yeah. It's a place where he's been comfortable. Because if it is what you said below, a manger or a stall, it's where he knows he can go at the end of the evening and just have his burdens unloaded, sleep until the next day of work, and- And be fed

and be fed. And be f- yes, and be so comfortable. So then you go to the end, "But Israel doth not trust. My people doth not consider," or they, they don't, they haven't experienced the fact that they can just rest and be fed in my care. Yeah. Or at least they don't- ... remember when I have done it, right? Yes. That's one of the things, like, like a dog knows who feeds it.

The, the ox and the ass knows who feeds it, and sometimes we think we fed ourselves. Oh. We think like, "Uh, we are the ones who got that food in that crib." But no, it was God who was feeding us, and we forget that. Wow, that was awesome. Kerry, that is just one verse, and look how much fun. We just spent all that time studying one verse, and that's the other thing I think we need to remember, is that when it comes to studying the scriptures, specifically Isaiah, just spend time on one verse, and you've done a great job studying Isaiah, right?

Amen. Don't feel like you have to read the whole section and say, "I did it." Yeah. I would say it's better to read a little bit well than to read a lot not very well. Absolutely. My mind, that is, that was so much fun. I love studying the scriptures. Yeah. In fact, really quickly, tell everybody the name of your podcast, because you didn't mention it- Oh

earlier, but, uh, it, now's an appropriate time by what we just experienced with Kerry. What's your podcast called? It's called The Scriptures Are Real, and that's, that's what we try and do, is go through the little things- ... to help you see the real, the reality of what's going on with the scriptures. Oh, amen.

The scriptures are real. Okay. What are your last tips, then, for reading and loving Isaiah? So I would say that, I mean, those three that I gave are just for understanding symbols, but probably the other key things, one we've mentioned a little bit, is to recognize that Isaiah's prophecies apply to multiple time periods, but you need to understand that first time period.

99% of the time there is a meaning in the first time period, in the original- Yeah ... time when Isaiah's actually speaking. If you understand that better, you'll understand your own time period better, and then that allows you to apply it to us better. Okay. Four great tips on studying, on loving, loving, loving Isaiah.

I'll add one, one more. Please. Uh, i- it's, it's, well, it's integrally tied to what we just said, but if you don't understand something of the history of what's going on in Isaiah, you're not gonna, you're not gonna get most of his prophecies. And, and we'll, we'll show some examples of that in a moment. But he, he really is rooted in his own time.

He is giving it in a way that applies f- to us, for sure. Mm-hmm. But his, his prophecies will make so much more sense. And you don't have to know a lot, just a, a little bit to, uh, recognize. And we've actually done it in our 2 Kings readings, right? We just have to tie it in. So 2 Kings 15 through 20. If you know the, uh, review that as you do Isaiah, and that's his time period.

It will help you figure out what's going on in these prophecies. Wow. This is so much fun, Kerry. It is fun, isn't it? Oh, I knew it. Yes. It's good, clean fun. It, th- yeah, didn't Hugh Nibley say that? "It's good, clean fun." Probably. I love that. Okay, this has been awesome. So in the next segment, then, here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna take the last two things you talked about, recognizing the time periods and understanding the history, to get the most out of Isaiah, and we'll do that with Isaiah 1 coming up next.

Segment 4
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So let's do some more good clean fun, Kerry. Let's dive into Isaiah chapter one, and my first question for you is, is Isaiah one chronologically first? No, and in fact- Hmm ... Isaiah is largely chronological, but not completely. Uh, so you'll find a number of chapters that are not in a chronological order, but especially chapter one.

It's from probably two-thirds of the way through Isaiah's ministry. It seems to be a chapter that comes just after the near destruction of Jerusalem and its miraculous deliverance and, uh, the, but the, the destruction of the Judean, uh, countryside. That seems to be when it is, he, he gives this. It fits the context of what he's talking about, and at some point, either he or one of his disciples or someone much later decided that this chapter so perfectly summarizes the major themes of Isaiah that it would work like a preface, similar to section one in the Doctrine and Covenants.

I kind of think it happened later- Yeah, that's what I was thinking ... because... Yeah, yeah, it is very similar. You notice with Nephi, when he quotes Isaiah, he starts with chapter two. I mean, he, he, in I Nephi, he has some chapters he's teaching from, but when he decides, "I'm just gonna teach people from Isaiah," he starts with chapter two, which chronologically is, I, we think, the first chapter- Hmm

in Isaiah. So it's likely that in Nephi's day, that was the first chapter, and that it was- Okay ... later that someone said, "This other chapter, it, would be a fantastic preface," and moved it to the beginning. That's pretty cool. Okay, so let's get in then. If, if Isaiah w- chapter one is sort of like the beginning, but not really the first chapter, but sort of this preamble before it, then tell us what are some of the major themes from Isaiah one?

Why would they have put this first? Uh, Isaiah one is so powerful, and what he is basically saying... So, uh, now we need to know the history a little bit. As I said, he is talking to Judah when Judah has been ravaged by the Assyrian king Sennacherib, and m- almost all of the cities were destroyed. Great suffering going on, great desolation, and Isaiah's using this as a teaching moment to say, "Look at what has happened to you because you didn't turn to God soon enough."

And, and basically the theme is if you humble yourself and come to God and allow him to cleanse you, he will save you. But when you don't, when you do things your own way, sorrow, sickness, and devastation is what follows. And that's really the theme of the entire book of Isaiah, but especially chapter one.

Well, and if you go to verse eight, who's he talking about right here? Because it's ... Is he just specifically saying to the women? And verse eight says, "And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city." Boy, I love the symbolism. Yeah. But before we get into that, who is, who is the daughter of Zion?

So Isaiah will so frequently use a poetic device where you, you use a part to represent the whole, kind of like we will say, "All hands on deck." We, we don't actually just want a bunch of hands to show up on deck. Um, w- we, that's what we've ... Because we want people who are using their hands to do things, we started calling sailors hands, right?

Yeah. So, uh, it's a similar thing. So he will often refer to Jerusalem as representing all of Judah, or sometimes all of Israel, and one of the names he uses most often for Jer- Jerusalem is Zion. Partially because there's a hill there that is either being called that or about to be called that. It's a little difficult to know the timing.

But he uses Zion to refer to all, to Jerusalem, which is referring to all of Judah, and then specifically often he will just refer to the daughters or the daughter of Zion as another part to represent the whole. And that one seems to be Often when he's trying to say, "Look, if we take the most pure, amazing part of you that the thing that we would expect to be most perfect, and we see that it's having problems or it's been besieged or it's suffering, then of course everyone is suffering."

And that seems to be what he, he does quite often, and I think that's what he's, he's doing here, where he says the daughter of Zion. So the, the, the young, tender, beautiful part of Zion is what's left. Mm-hmm. The pure part of Zion is what's left, and it's all that's left in all of Judah. I love this imagery, as you said, cottage in a vineyard or a, a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.

So he's trying to get you to think of a field with nothing in it except for one thing, and that's Jerusalem, because all the other cities have been destroyed. So everything else in Judah is, is torn down, and there's just this one big city left standing in the midst of an empty... well, uh, not quite empty field.

It's got cucumbers in it, right? But- Yeah. ... uh, but pretty close to empty field. Wow. Okay, so make sure in verse 8 you mark that. It's a haunting image, yeah. It really is a haunting image. And I, I love the, again, what you've taught us, 'cause now I'm thinking of all these things. Like a little cottage, I'm picturing it in my mind, in this vineyard.

And then a garden of cucumber, like a lodge in a garden of cucumber. Like, it's so good. He is such a great writer. Yeah. And for everyone listening, make sure you mark daughter of Zion and write what Kerry just taught us. It means Jerusalem, Israel, or Judah. And I'll just do my little soapbox, because when you get to Isaiah 3, we're not talking about just the women.

No. Can we just be clear about that? Yeah. And one of my favorite moments was I was at a seminary institute in service years ago, Kerry. This was so long ago. And like back in like, hmm, early 2000s, and this woman was asked to teach about Isaiah 3. She was a longtime seminary institute teacher. And she gets up and the first thing she says is, "Don't you dare make Isaiah 3 about young girls who dress immodestly.

Don't you dare make your lesson about young girls needing to dress better." And I was shocked because that's exactly what I was planning to do. Uh-huh. Like, I thought, "This is the time to teach a lesson on modesty," and she just completely gave me a 180. Like, I flipped around and I'm like, "What is this about?"

So make sure you mark that daughter of Zion, he's talking to all of Jerusalem, all of Israel, all of Judah. That's my little soapbox. Okay. Okay. So Kerry, in Isaiah 1, what else do you want us to get out of this chapter? Is there something else you can just take us through like you've done on some of these other verses?

Yeah, let's, let's look at some verses that hit on, on one of the things you mentioned earlier, which is that God keeps, through his prophets, keeps telling Israel, uh, uh, so I'm including Israel and Judah together there, that it's not enough to go through the motions of the Law of Moses. They have to have their heart in it.

Okay. So this is one of the things. They're relying on the wrong things, is what Isaiah is trying to teach them. And so they haven't been relying on God. That's part of what chapter, you know, verses two through four are. They're, they're re- they think they fed themselves, as we said, rather than recognizing that God, uh, fed them.

And he's saying- Mm-hmm ... why do you want to be sick in the way that you're going to be sick as a result of that? And look how this has resulted, that there's all this destruction. Fortunately, God's left us a little bit so that we'll survive. But then he turns to what that is they have re- been relying on in verse 11, where he says, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?

Saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he goats." So th- that's interesting, because he has asked them to do that. Mm-hmm. Right? It would be pretty easy to say, "Wait, you told me to do this, and y- and you're saying you're tired of it, and you don't delight in it."

Yeah. But the, the key's in verse 13. "Bring no more vain oblations," all right? And this word for vain means, like, emptiness, that there's nothing in it, right? It's- Like Ecclesiastes? Yeah, although that one will often use a word that means fleeting. It's a word related to breath. Okay. Like, it, it lasts for hardly any amount of time, and this is more of, like, empty.

Oh, cool. Okay. Uh, so you're bringing me ... You're, you're bringing offerings, but they're empty. Well, why are they empty? Because your heart is not in it. Right? So then, then we get the, the idea where he says your, your, your new moons and your Sabbaths and the calling of assemblies, those are all things, sacrifices he's asked them to make.

There are specific things you do on the Sabbath, specific things you do at the beginning of the month. That's what a new moon is, the beginning of the month. Or assemblies, or there are specific times you're supposed to call assemblies. So he's saying, "Okay, you're, you're doing the things I've asked you to do, and yet I, I, I cannot away with it.

I can't take it." Right? "It's an abomination unto me. I can't stand that you're going through these things, but your heart isn't in it." Uh, it, for us, I could say, "Don't give me 1,000 ministering visits and 1,000 times of showing up to partake of the sacrament where you're not really thinking of me. You're not really thinking of the people you're ministering.

You're not really doing that out of love for me or love for them. D- don't do that anymore. It doesn't do anything for me or you, so why are you doing it," right? I think that's w- what, uh, would be the equivalent today. Yeah, especially in verse 14 where he says, "Because they are a trouble unto me, I weary to bear them."

Wow, those words. Like, you're right, he's just saying, "It doesn't, it, it doesn't matter to me. I don't need that unless your heart is in it." Yeah. Kerry, that's so cool. Now, I'm not gonna say, uh, you know, so okay, if your, if your heart's not in it, don't ever do any good things because often in the doing we can get our heart in it.

Sure. But that's really the point. Start, start doing it, but be trying to get your heart into it. Oh my gosh, that's awesome And that leads exactly into the verses we talked about before- Mm-hmm ... where he says, "When you spread forth your hands," which is a, a, an image of supplication. Yeah. "I'm not gonna hear you.

And when you make prayers, I won't hear you. Your hands are full of bread, uh, blood, and then wash and make you clean," right? So it, he goes specifically from you're going through the motions to, look, you're, you need to repent. This is changing everything in these verses, 'cause then he gets right into there.

So how do you do it? Well, you cease to do evil and you learn to do well. Yeah. I love just thinking on these verses right here. Yeah. 'Cause again, it goes back to my, my question that I asked earlier and the thoughts in my head, like, when I th- 'cause I think I'm doing well, but it really does call everyone to attention to consider are you?

And, and not that it's saying, like, I need you to work harder, I need you to be more, try harder to be better every single day. But just the idea for each of us individually, it goes back to this idea, like, is my ministering empty? 'Cause I think there absolutely have been times when v- visiting teaching was empty.

I just check it... I'm, I'm so glad we've changed from being visiting teaching where you just check off the box 'cause you dropped off a plate of cookies, to ministering, where you know your person so well that you hopefully you're in tune with the spirit enough. I think it elevates our ability to learn to do well.

Yeah. Yes. Very good. Wow, that's really cool. Wow, Kerry. Thank you. Is there a time in your life, like think about all those times, how have you learned to do well personally? Has there been a time where your heart's been changed? Oh, for sure, so many times. It's hard to, to think of a specific one. But I would say as I have, um, looked at people in sacrament meeting, uh, uh, often during sa- the partaking of the sacrament, I'm, I'm thinking of the Savior.

But sometimes I've looked at people and known of their, their heartaches and their sorrows. I can remember a specific time where someone in our ward had some pretty tragic things happen, and I looked at them accidentally as I was partaking of the sacrament, and I thought of what that was meaning for them right then.

Mm. And, uh, suddenly I started not just praying for the Savior to heal me or even my family, but for healing for everyone, and just so filled with love that, uh, it makes you wanna get out and, and help and serve more and, uh, you wanna pray that Christ will, will do that, but you wanna be part of it I like that example.

Well, that's gonna change the way I take the sacrament, so thank you. How about you? Oh, for me, the ceasing to do evil and learn to do well, I feel like I... my life is like a rollercoaster where I'm doing that constantly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in the pit of doing evil, and then I str- and then I go up the hill trying to do well, and then I come back down.

That's totally my life. But I can definitely think of a specific time in my life where I thought, "I need Heavenly Father's help more than I've ever needed it." Mm. And so the learn to do well part comes when I'm like, "Okay, I've, I've really gotta get it together. I need to go to the temple." Like, that's just happened recently.

"Boy, I haven't been to the temple in a long time," is the thought that I had in my head. And, and then the... And I thought that about myself, and then the thought came that I felt like was the Spirit that said, "That's okay. Just go again." Yeah. And so I did. I, I just went on my... You know, and it just felt so good to get back there.

And in fact, it's funny because I went in the morning to the temple, and then that afternoon my daughter wanted to go. And so I was like, "I'll go with you to go do baptisms." And so I went to the temple twice in one day. And while I could have just let it be a cool spiritual experience, then immediately I'm like, "I'm so good.

Look at me going twice in one day." How fast I turn- Ugh ... from learning to do well from ceasing to do evil. I'm like- Ugh ... "Wow, I'm great." So it just, it's just my life, but I love those moments where I can have those thoughts because I know my master. I've trusted in him. Mm. I know where I can rest, and I needed some rest.

That verse will forever be so important to me in verse three. I don't wanna get to the point where I don't know him or trust him or where I don't consider him and remember that he's the one that's feeding me. And that's, those are the moments where my little spirit's like, "Now it's time to go. You need to get back to the temple."

But then I love that the Holy Ghost is like, "It's okay. Yeah, just get back. No sadness, no shame, no guilt. You'll get there." So I, I'm grateful for that. And, uh, I think it's a constant in my life, ceasing to do evil and learning to do well. But I think when we continue to do that, our heart is in the right place.

And that's exactly what I think he's trying to tell these people right here. I don't expect you to be perfect. I just need you to keep trying. It almost feels like they stopped, right, Kerry? Like, they just... They weren't like... I don't know. I, I mean, I just feel like they weren't like us. I, I know our prophets and apostles are constantly encouraging us to turn to the Savior and to our Heavenly Father, but I feel like these people were so past feeling that they were just trying to say, "Come back to the basics," right?

Yeah, in some ways. Although, uh, they may be more like us than we, we think. Ooh, talk to me. I, I, I feel like- If I were going to s- to put what he was saying into some other ... I mean, we've done it a little bit with ministering some, but if I were gonna put it in, into other words that work for us today, I would say it is easy to decide if I say a prayer in the morning and in the evening, and I read my scripture somewhere during the day, and I show up for church on Sunday, I'm doing what God asked me to do.

Mm. And to just be doing that because God asked us to do it, which again is, is a decent motive. It's a good starting point. Mm-hmm. But at some point, it has to become more. At some point, it has to be, "What do you really want me to do, God?" And, and just a, a love-filled, anxious engagement with God and his children, right?

But it's very easy for it to be I'm, I'm, I'm doing this, I'm, I'm checking the list. Yeah. All right? Yeah. And, and it's easy for us to get into a check listing, which actually often makes us feel defeated and guilty and like it's impossible when we have a checklist mentality. Mm-hmm. But I think that's what they, he's saying.

You guys have a checklist, and you're making your sacrifices, and you're, you're showing up when you're supposed to show up, and that's not what I want. I want your heart. Wow, absolutely. Wow, Kerry. So cool. Well, thank you for teaching us about Isaiah 1. That was really incredible. I felt the Spirit so strong as you were teaching us those words.

Now, one of the things that you mentioned was that Isaiah's calling came when he was pretty young. So in the next segment, we're gonna turn to the chapter that is Isaiah's calling, and Kerry's gonna teach us some really cool symbolism. We'll do that next.

Segment 5
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Everyone turn to Isaiah chapter 6 and label this. Isaiah chapter 6 is called Isaiah's Calling. I really love this chapter. I remember the first time I learned it, I was taught by a professor down at BYU, and he went verse by verse, 'cause there is so much symbolism in here. It's a really fun chapter to know about.

And so I've asked Kerry to teach us about Isaiah's calling. And these verses, so much symbolism. It's really fun. So Kerry, teach us. Well, I, I love, love this chapter. And I mean, if we were really to get into it, we'd, we'd need about a hour and a half to two hours to go through- Agreed ... everything. Agreed. But, uh, let's just start out with saying this may actually be chronologically the first chapter, or it may be that Isaiah is getting some inspiration and something's coming to him, and he's, he's writing them.

And, uh, let's also just say that for most the prophets, we don't know how we get their prophecies. Really Jeremiah's the only one we know. He hired a scribe to write down what he was saying. Isaiah is literate enough that it is very possible he's writing his own prophecies. But in the end, we don't know.

But I'm just gonna speak as if that's what's happening. Okay. So it may be that he's writing these earlier chapters, and then this experience happens. Or it may be that this experience happens, and it just gets inserted here a- and that everything else comes after this. We, in the end, we don't know. I know with the way I write my journals, I usually write all these facts down, and while I'm writing I'm like, "Oh, yeah.

Wait, that really cool thing happened. I better, I better include that in my entry," even though- Yeah ... it happened way back. So I, I kind of feel- That's the nice thing about- ... like Isaiah if he did that ... electronic journals, right? Isaiah didn't have that. Oh, boy. Yeah. No, he could have used that. Okay. So i- in any case, it is right at the beginning of his ministry.

It's in the year that King Uzziah died, and we know that's when he starts his ministry. And he sees the Lord in the temple. So this temple is similar to the temple that's there in Jerusalem near where he's living, but this seems to be the temple in heaven, like the place God actually is. Maybe it's the temple in Jerusalem and God's coming down there, but it seems like he, he's seeing him in heaven.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, yeah, let's just start and see how far we get a- as we go through this. So- Okay ... he says, uh, in, "In that year that Uzziah died, I saw him sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." So, uh, again, let's stop and examine a symbol and see what we can get out of this. A, a train is the, the flowing parts of a robe that aren't necessary.

They are there to demonstrate the importance of event, right? So- Mm-hmm ... uh, you get a, a bridal train. That's to show you this isn't the kind of dress you'd wear every day. In fact, it's not very practical to wear it every day. But it is something that, that shows this is an important event. I remember when Princess Diana got married, like- Yeah

that, that, that was, like, a 30-foot train. Mm-hmm. To show not only is this a, a wedding, this is a royal wedding, right? So that, i- if his train is filling the entire temple, that is telling us this is the most important being. Yeah. Even more important than Princess Diana, right? Yeah. So it, it fills the entire temple.

Wow. And, uh, that's probably not literal, but maybe it is. In any case, he, he's using that as an image to tell us how glorious God is. Hmm. Love that. And I love the idea where a train follows behind the bride, and w- when... if you've ever seen someone f- take the train, and you've have to have people... Sometimes if the train is not that big, you can have one person shake it out and- Yeah

stretch it out. Yeah. But for Princess Diana, she had to have several people holding it and stretching it out and making sure that it filled. Could it also mean because it's behind the person wearing it, that it could also meant- mean, like, followers? I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there. Like, and the followers filled the temple?

Well, there's, it, it, it could, and there's something to that when you think of, uh, because this is reflecting God's glory. But remember, his work and his glory to, is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Mm-hmm. So does it represent those who are, are following him, who are, uh, worthy to be in the temple, so they are receiving eternal life, as it were?

Possibly, right? That's the beauty of Isaiah. Yeah, that's true. You've got all these possibilities for his symbols. I love to think of that because it means a lot of people are gonna make it, 'cause Satan wants us- Yeah ... to think, like, "Nah, you're out of the running." But it's possible that it filled the temple.

There's so many righteous, good people. I, I very much agree. Yeah. Okay, keep going. This is so fun. So above, above it stood the seraphim. So that's a word that literally just means fiery, burning ones. Mm-hmm. It's from the verb saraph, to burn. And I think this is a way... My experience, uh, from just reading, like, Joseph Smith's accounts of the First Vision and of angels and other accounts, I think that's a way of describing really light-filled beings.

They are so full of light, it looks like they're on fire, right? Neat. Yeah. That, that's my guess. In any case, you've got these really fiery, bright beings, and they have six wings. So now we have to stop and ask ourselves, are these literal beings with wings, or are, are they beings that are symbolic? And the answer is we don't know, but it's always important to learn from the symbolism one way or the other.

So a- and I like this because if you were to look at the temple where in, in theory, God's throne is in the Holy of Holies, right? Mm-hmm. Well, what's, uh, separating us from the Holy of Holies? It's a, uh, a veil, a piece of cloth with cherubim on it, or winged creatures that are kind of have to be somewhat similar to the seraphim, if it's not just another way of saying the same thing.

So instead of this symbolic kind of piece of, of material, you've got the actual seraphim in this vision, and then he describes them as having six wings. And fortunately, we can be helped a little bit with, uh, this, uh, as Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants, w- uh, not talking about this verse, but, uh, some other verses, talks about the symbolism and,

and that at least part of it is the ability to move. Yeah. So I think the, the twain or the two wings that he can fly with teaches us that these are beings that can move, that they can do things. They're beings of action. But then we have to ask ourselves why they're covering their face and the feet. So- Yeah.

One of the things that I've written in my scriptures is this idea where they're covering their face and their feet is out of reverence or respect, um, going to this idea of Moses where he's told to remove his shoes, and, um, that- that's the only thing I could think of that I've written in my scriptures, that just total reverence and respect that they have for the temple and his...

or for the Lord and His temple. Yeah. I, I agree. I mean, when you think about it, in some ways, these wings are serving as the veil. We were just talking about the veil, and that they're not seeing the veil here. Mm-hmm. But the- in some ways they're serving as the veil that, that separates even these holy beings from the holiness of God, and also from the unholiness of Isaiah, right?

So their faces are covered as if with a veil that you could cover your face with- Mm-hmm ... uh, th- because they're, th- they're not holy enough for God, and, and they're too holy for Isaiah. And I think you're right with the idea of the feet. So for example, feet are the most filthy part of you, right? They're- Yeah

they're what you bring the world in with you. That's why Moses is gonna take his shoes off. So, uh, there are lots of cultures where you wash your feet before you go into a holy presence. You don't want to bring the world in with you, and so they are covering that. And remember, the word cover is actually th- the word kippur, or, uh, that we translate as atonement- Yeah

right? Yes. If you cover something, it's atoned for, so they're covering that, that filthiness, and yet they can move and represent God. I really miss going into temp- do you remember when we were kids, and we'd go into temple to do baptisms for the dead, the first thing we had to do was take our shoes off- Yeah

before we could even walk in? I mi- I wish they'd bring that back. I mean, I know we do that in the dressing room, but there was just something so powerful about before you even walk a step further, take your shoes off. Like, it really taught me the power and importance of how you just said, "Feet are what you bring the world with you."

That was really cool how you said that. And that's one of the things, just as a small tangent, one of the advantages to getting good at studying Isaiah. You will have to get good at symbolism. Mm-hmm. We are becoming less and less proficient in the language of symbolism, and I, my opinion, I don't know, I'm not the inspired one, but my opinion, we're- we're losing, we're- we've actually been taking a lot of symbolism out of the temple over at least the period of my lifetime.

Yeah. And my guess is that's because we're dealing with people who are less and less able to, to understand symbols. But if we get good at symbols, and Isaiah's gonna help us with that, we're gonna get more out of the temple. Agreed. I'll g- I'll join you in that 100%. Well, and here's the idea behind this. If, if they really are out of reverence covering their face and their feet because He's so holy, verse 3, in my opinion, tells us how holy He is.

I love how- Yeah ... in verse 3 it says it three times, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord." I wanna know your opinion, Kerry. What is it about saying it three times? Well, a- a- a- as, as you know that, like, that's the only way to do a superlative in Hebrew. Right. Right? That is the way you say the most, most, most holy is a word.

So you've heard me do it in English a couple times. I love, love, love Isaiah. Right. Or I love, love this, right? Yes. Um, we do have other superlatives in English, but still, in vernacular when we're talking, the, our best way of say- There are, in formal writing, there are rules that sometimes prevent you from doing what naturally most expresses what you're trying to do.

So if I were writing this book about Isaiah, I would not say, "I love, love, love Isaiah," unless I'm ready to really Kind of be vernacular, which usually isn't what happens. But if we're just communicating, we all know that's the best way to emphasize the superlative. Yeah. This is the most I can say it, and it helps us feel it as well as, as saying it grammatically.

So that's exactly, Hebrew kept both the, the grammatical at matching the feeling element of their language so that when you say, "Holy, holy, holiest Lord," you are saying, "This is as holy as we can make it." Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad you said that. Everyone listening, make sure you remember that forever when you read scriptures, 'cause if you see something in threes, that's exactly what's happening.

It's the most. So- Yeah ... and that's how I love to say it. He is the most holy. Nothing's holier than the Lord. And so it makes sense that they would cover their face and they would cover their feet. And so here they are in the temple, and verse 4 then, teach us what it means when it says that the house was filled with smoke.

What's the symbolism there? 'Cause you immediately go, "It's on fire!" Yeah. But what is it? So there, there's probably a lot of symbolism in there. Uh, first of all, we know that they're, they've got the altar of incense, and this seems to be taking place at that threshold between the holy place and the holy of holy place.

Mm-hmm. So we've had, that, that's where the, the cherubim would be with the veil, and instead we've got the seraphim with their wings as veils. And the other thing that's right there is the altar of incense, which is particularly good at creating smoke. So there are a couple of elements of that. One, the, we, we learn from John the Revelator that at least one of the symbols of this smoke is the prayers of the saints ascending to God, which is the only way we can come into the presence of God is b- in, in mighty prayer.

We're praying for help to, to come into God's presence. So i- if this follows with your idea that there are a lot of followers, then there'll, there's a lot of prayer going on here. Oh, I like that. Right? And we're going to see that the next verse is Isaiah's very heartfelt prayer Okay, lead us into his heartfelt prayer So well, well, be- before we do that, then I, I, I, let's, let's do a little bit more with the smoke though.

Okay. Because one of the things that the smoke does is it's another form of a veil. Mm. I- in fact, when, uh, when Solomon dedicates the temple, and it's filled with smoke, with glory and smoke, so they have to leave, he says, "Well, God said he would dwell in thick darkness," which we say, "Wait a minute, why? God's about light.

Why would he, uh, be in darkness?" Mm-hmm. But in fact, if you study the, the theophanies or the times that people see God in the Old Testament, Genesis is a little bit different, but once you get to Exodus onward, there is always an element of, of cloud, darkness, smoke. There's something. God is trying to reveal himself to us, but he has to remain partially hidden.

We're not ready to see the fullness of God's glory, which he tells Moses in Moses 1, so we, we kind of get that. So I think there's a little bit of a, a hiding element in there, but there's another element that this idea of incense, a- at least in ancient Egypt, and I think it's present in Israel as well, this idea of incense, um, it's a different kind of smell.

Y- they can't use this recipe for incense anywhere else. It's a, a different kind of experience. Now, as, as inheritors of a Protestant culture, we feel like incense is weird. Mm-hmm. And we go to churches where they're doing incense, and we say, "Oh, weird. I don't know why they're doing that." But it's what the Savior would've been used to.

Like th- this is, for the Savior, this is part of worship, right? Yeah. Right. And for all of Israel for most of its history, so we're the weird ones. But anyway, uh, this idea of incense is a trapping of godliness. Ooh, I like that. He s- he smells different than everything else. He, um, looks different. Uh, it covers

So we can come back to this covering. It covers the smell of, of burning sacrifices outside of the temple. Mm-hmm. Um, and so there's an element of hiding God, an element of godliness, and an element of our pleading to God, I think, all of it within this, the smoke. And again, this isn't a little bit of smoke like you would normally expect.

Because God is there, the whole house is filled with smoke. It's filled, the whole house is filled with his train. The whole house is filled with his smoke. He's g- you know, everything is in the superlative here because- Oh, cool ... this is God who is the most of everything. Oh, that's awesome. He's, he's omni everything, right?

Mm-hmm. Is, if we're gonna use those Greek words. And then like you said, that, that leads us to verse five Okay ... where he realizes as, and this is almost every account you get of someone coming into the presence of God or angels, there's an element of fear involved with it because they realize the difference between that being and themselves.

Yeah. And it's overwhelming. And the fact of the matter is, if you're not going to be transfigured, you can't survive the presence of God. So you, there, there should be an element of fear in this to some degree, right? Mm-hmm. And Isaiah realizes the difference between his holiness and God's holiness. They've just talked about the holiness of God.

The, it's, it demonstrated by the, the veiled wings. It's demonstrated by the smoke and the post moving, and he realizes, "I am not worthy to be here," probably similar to Moses when he realizes, "Okay, if I weren't having the glory of God transfigure me, I couldn't survive this." And so he says, "Woe is me, for I am undone, uh, because I am a man of unclean lips."

I think that's just a way of saying, you know, if we were to think of this idea that, that what comes out of your mouth represents who you are- Mm-hmm ... and what you really are. The Savior teaches that. He realizes, "Because I am not holy, I'm in trouble, and because I come from a fallen... I'm a fallen man from a fallen group and a fallen people who are unholy, I'm in trouble because mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts," or Jehovah of Hosts.

Mm-hmm. So I, I think he has that natural reaction that everyone seems to have when they behold the glory of the Lord, and his expression is heartfelt and genuine. Basically, "I need help." Oh, I like that. What an important prayer- Yeah ... for all of us. We all have to be feeling that, don't we? Yeah. Yeah. Well said.

Wow, Kerry. Thank you. And like you said, we could spend an entire hour on this chapter, but it's worth knowing just the little bit of symbolism you taught us, how it just elevated this calling that Isaiah received, and to consider that he may have been in his 20s, that's mind-blowing- Yeah ... how young. He could have been this young father with kid, two, two, two kids that we know of for sure, and to have this experience.

But I love how human he is. "I am undone." I, I think all of us can relate to that feeling, 'cause we are undone. We're not ready yet, and we need his help. We need the holy, holy, holy one to help us return to him. So thank you, Kerry. That was good. Okay, so then here's what we get to do in the very last segment.

We saved the best for last. We get to talk about the most important person that Isaiah talks about, and we'll do that next

Segment 6
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In Isaiah, go back to Isaiah chapter one, and one of the things you wanna write right there on that page is this: Isaiah is Jesus Christ-focused. In fact, the name Jehovah is found about 450 times in the Book of Isaiah, and that is really important to know. It talks about him or the Lord. You could also say the word Lord.

So Jehovah or Lord is found over 450 times. It is Jesus Christ-focused. So, 'cause right now we just got caught up in all of this idea about the people and they're not repenting, but it really is about returning back to their savior. And so there's some great verses about this. Now I'm gonna share one of my favorite ones, and then I'm gonna let Kerry share one of his favorite Jesus Christ-focused Isaiah scriptures.

But before we do, we're gonna start, first of all, with a quote from President Nelson in his 2024 general conference talk called The Lord Jesus Christ Will Come Again. Listen to this important quote, and then we're gonna jump in to where some of these words come from that he uses. So Kerry, will you read this quote for us?

Yeah. "My dear brothers and sisters, do you see what is happening right before our eyes? I pray that we will not miss the majesty of this moment. The Lord is indeed hastening His work. Why are we building temples at such an unprecedented pace? Why? Because the Lord has instructed us to do so. The blessings of the temple help to gather Israel on both sides of the veil.

These blessings also help to prepare a people who will help prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Lord. As the prophet Isaiah prophesied, and as memorialized in Handel's Messiah, when Jesus Christ returns, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. In that day, the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

Thank you. Those words come from Isaiah, those titles, Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God. So I'm gonna share with you my favorite word for the Savior. It's in Isaiah 7:14, and it's my favorite because when I learned it in Hebrew, I went, "Ah, that's so cool! It makes sense now." So Isaiah 7:14 says, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." And the name Immanuel was so cool when I finally connected it all in Hebrew because it literally means God with us. El is God, nu means us in Hebrew, and then ima means with, or im. So it really is God with us, and when I parsed that out with my Hebrew teacher, I just thought that is the best.

Like, I finally understand why Immanuel literally means God with us. Now, President Nelson, 'cause we just got done talking about the temple and how important it is, and now he's saying that we are preparing for the Second Coming of the Savior. Isaiah was teaching the people return to the Savior and all of these wonderful things.

So Kerry, is there a prophecy about Jesus Christ that you particularly like in Isaiah? Oh, there are so many. I'm, I'm tempted to do Isaiah 52 and 53. I, I actually love 54 as well. Um, 28. But, but I thought I'd go to the one that President Nelson quoted there, uh, that's in, in chapter nine. But, but if I may just say that- Yeah

I, I mean, my very favorite is, uh, what I think is your favorite, the Immanuel. Just the idea that God is with us, that, that Christ is divinity with us, but also that He makes it possible for God to be with us, and He reveals to us what the Father is like and, and makes it so I can have God in my life. Those, those are beautiful, powerful things.

And if you understand the historical context of that prophecy and what's going on and how Isaiah's child and Hezekiah are fulfillments of it, then it helps you understand it better. Just a beautiful, powerful prophecy. Mm-hmm. But, but maybe we can send a, spend a second on the next part that President Nelson didn't read.

Yeah. Um, verse seven. So we're in Isaiah nine verse seven. "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end." Now, that's, that's beautiful to think that when Christ comes again, second coming Christ, that His ruling over us, and that's what we want. We want a king. We want a righteous king, right?

Uh- Yeah ... His ruling over us and the peace that comes because it's Him, it won't ever end. It just increases. It grows. We have nothing but an upward trend of joy and peace. "And upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment." So this is, again, we need to understand judgment.

With making things right and making things the way they should be. "With judgment and justice from henceforth, even forever." So as, as the fulfillment of all prophecies about the Son of David and the throne of David and a righteous king, Christ will make it so that everything is right until the end of time, worlds without end.

I, just yesterday my wife and I were filming a little segment, um, for my podcast where we were talking about sometimes you don't see the miracles you want, sometimes your prayers aren't answered, and how heart-rending that can be. But wh- while it doesn't end the pain we feel in this life, the comfort is we know at some point, and President Oaks has taught us this, at some point Christ makes everything right.

It all gets worked out. It all becomes right. We're all happy. We're all full of joy. It ends up being okay. That's what Isaiah's saying when he says, "He establishes it with judgment and with justice." And to know that is beautiful. And why will it happen? Because the zeal of Jehovah of Hosts, so Christ, the zeal of Christ, Jehovah of Hosts of armies, He will come with His armies and He will make it all right.

He will perform it. So the reason we can have peace and have it for forever is because Christ was zealous and is zealous in doing what His Father wants Him to do

Tell me more about this idea of the video you and your wife recorded. Why did you share that? What's the story? It was part of our episode on Esther, but it w- it really came from an episode we did on, um, Elisha and miracles, and we talked about miracles. And I had some people reach out to me saying, "You know, we have these terrible, terrible things going on, and it looks like they'll go on our entire life," and they are heartrending things, "and we're not seeing our miracles.

And you're saying, you know, that, that faith brings about miracles." And I thought, "This is a, a topic that is worth addressing." Yeah. And, uh, it's, it's worth addressing well. So with Esther, there, there is the miracle of the Jews being saved, but the Jews don't always get that miracle. And so I had on, uh, Justin Top, who's, uh, in my department and, and is a chaplain and teaches chaplains, and, uh, he has to deal with that a lot, and m- and my wife.

Uh, so we had two different segments where we talked about sometimes the miracles don't happen. Sometimes things don't seem fair and right in this life, and, uh, that that's painful and, and it's not always just gonna be made okay in this life. But there is, uh, this trust that God makes everything right, and I think President Oaks has said that better than anyone I'm so grateful that you addressed that idea of miracles, 'cause I think that's really hard for a lot of people.

But when you've just taken verse 7, and especially because here in verse 6 it says, "He's going to be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." I don't think it's coincidence that that verse comes before verse 7. Yeah. Because He gives us all these really great titles for Him.

So if He is wonderful, if He is a counselor, if He is the mighty God- And I, and I personally think it's actually Wonderful Counselor, that I think that's a- Oh ... title, but anyway. Thank you. I do, too, 'cause when I read it, I actually stopped and went back 'cause I thought, oh, there's a comma there, but I think you're right.

Yeah, yeah. He is called a Wonderful Counselor. Let's read it that way. A Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. So if He is all of these things, then surely when He comes there will be no end to His peace or no... I mean, I just love how you've, you've taught us that, and that especially this idea He will establish with judgment, meaning making everything right, and He'll do it forever.

But I'm curious to know in Hebrew, what's the word for zeal? What does that mean when it says, "The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this"? Will it, will that word in Hebrew give us more insight? So this is the same word that sometimes we use in Hebrew to say that God is a, a jealous God or, uh, but it can also be zealous God.

It's a, it, it's, it's a verb that means passion really. Uh, and so because Christ is passionate about doing what God asks Him to do is how I would say this. Mm-hmm. That brings about the, His ability to bring judgment and justice. And so I would... And, and again, those in the good ways. We, when we hear judgment and justice, we think, "Oh, He's gonna say something bad about me."

No, to make things right, to make things the way they should be. Which can include if you did something wrong, then something has to happen as a result of that. Either you make it right or He makes it right. Mm-hmm. But the idea in my mind is that His absolute passion for doing the will of the Father makes it so that in His most painful, desperate hour when He is pleading, "If there's any other way, I would like to do it a different way," but He says, "Nevertheless, not My will but thine," that is because of ha- His predominant I, uh, core of who He is, is He loves the Father and will do whatever the Father wants.

So He is zealous or passionate about doing what the Father wants, and that gets Him through that time when He would like to have stopped. And as a result, He can give us true judgment and peace that will never end. And for me, Kerry, what makes this such a prophetic statement, for me to believe that Isaiah really is speaking prophecy, is the word will at the end of verse seven, "And the Lord of Hosts will perform this."

'Cause the human in us might wanna say, "And the Lord of Hosts, He might perform it," or, "He, He's probably going to," or, "He, maybe He should perform it." But a prophetic statement to just be matter of fact, "The Lord of Hosts will absolutely perform this," gives me such assurance that this is coming from God. This is a message through Isaiah to all of us today, that He will make it right.

Whatever that is in your life, there is so much hope in that word judgment. I love that you've taught us about that. Because sometimes, like you said, judgment seems harsh, but there is, it is hope-filled that He's gonna just make everything right. That gives me comfort, that this wonderful counselor, I love that you taught us that, this wonderful counselor, this mighty God, this everlasting Father and Prince of Peace will do that for us.

So thank you for teaching us that, Kerry. Wow. It's just beautiful stuff from Isaiah. It really is. And I just think when we take the time to just study, even just verse by verse, take the time, you will learn so much, not only about our savior, Jesus Christ, but also about yourself and your relationship to Him, that you are the ox, and you do have a crib.

And just remember that. So thank you for teaching us about those verses. That's it, Kerry. We're done. That's the end of our discussion. Ah, well, it's fun. Too short, but it's fun. Thank you. Oh, so short. Okay, so just take a minute and gather your thoughts. Is there anything that strikes you from this discussion today, any eternal truth that we have learned or talked about?

Well, I'm gonna go first. I love verse three. Taking the time to really go through verse three, like I said, I've marked it a ton. I thought I understood it. But when you make us apply it, and we become the people in those ver- ... Like, it just was so awesome. I, I wanna teach verse three forever now. Whenever I teach a class, I'm gonna say, "Let's start with verse three before we do anything," 'cause it's so good.

So thank you for really teaching us Isaiah 1:3. Uh, m- m- my pleasure. A- a- as we've been talking, I am struck again, and I've been struck with this a thousand times, but I'm struck again with the beauty of this language and the power that has to evoke something very meaningful in me. God loves us so much he sent a prophet who I'm sure had gifts from the pre-existence, but God undoubtedly magnified those gifts so that as you've said, primarily so that we can understand His love and the gift of His Son better.

And as much as I've studied these things before and thought about that before, I am currently feeling a higher appreciation for Christ and what He did for us, and our ability to understand that and be grateful for it because of Isaiah, so thank you for that. You bet. Well, thank you, 'cause now I can say I love, love, love Isaiah even more.

Yay. Yay. So thanks, Kerry. That was a great discussion. Thank you, guys, and have a great day. You too, friend. Okay. See ya. Bye. Well, what did you learn? Do you love, love, love Isaiah now? Oh, I hope you do. In fact, I would love, love, love for you to share what you learned from our discussion today. What struck you about the words of Isaiah?

Comment on the post that relates to this lesson and share your thoughts. You can get to both our Facebook and Instagram by going to the show notes for this episode at ldsliving.com/sundayonmonday. And it's not a bad idea to go there anyway because it's where we'll have the links to all the references and a transcript of this whole discussion.

So go check it out. The Sunday on Monday Study Group is a Deseret Bookshelf Plus original brought to you by LDS Living. It's written and hosted by me, Tammy Uzelac Hall. And today, our fabulous study group participant was Kerry Muhlestein. And you can find more information about my friend at ldsliving.com/sundayonmonday.

Our podcast is produced by Cole Wissinger and me. It is edited and mixed by Cole Wissinger, and our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next week, and please remember that you are God's favorite.