Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
Revision 8.12 Proselyting and a Davidic King of Israel

Revision 8.12 Proselyting and a Davidic King of Israel

Last updated on: January 16, 2021 at 8:26 pm by Dan Peterson

Revision 8.12 Proselyting and a Davidic King of Israel 2021-01-16T20:26:23-07:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We spent some time yesterday walking around the geological wonderland of Snow Canyon State Park, and will probably go back today. (It’s fairly close to where we stay.). Most prominent in this photograph are ancient dunes of Navajo sandstone, deposited roughly 180 million years ago. There is also an abundance of much more recent lava.

But the return of the Jews to Palestine is an astonishing thing, something that manifestly cannot be disconnected from the events that will ultimately occur in that area. Indeed, we need only think for a moment about the sheer improbability of the whole thing to begin to see its miraculous character. What other nation has ever come back into existence as a sovereign state more than two thousand years after its disappearance? The empire of the pharaohs is gone. Nobody thinks seriously of resurrecting the ancient Babylonian Empire (although the late Saddam Hussein liked to strut about as if he were some sort of Babylonian monarch). Mussolini tried to resuscitate the glories of the Roman Empire but ended his career hanging upside down, revealed to all as a tyrant and a buffoon. And Hitler’s “Third Reich,” claiming to restore the lost Roman Empire itself along with the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne, was supposed to last a thousand years. It managed, though, to survive only twelve—and those twelve years were cruel, barbarous, and utterly fraudulent.

But little Israel—the footpath of the ancient world, walked over and trodden down by every army that moved along the King’s Highway, deprived for many years of self-rule and then finally scattered to the four corners of the globe, persecuted and butchered as perhaps no other people in human history—little Israel maintained itself as a people and is now reborn as a state. What is more, its ancient language, Hebrew, has come back to life as a language of literature, business, and science. (Ancient languages are not always so easily maintained. In Ireland, attempts to keep the old Gaelic tongue alive are failing even as I write.) The mere fact that Israel is a commonplace subject of newspapers, magazines, and television news should not be allowed to obscure for us the miraculous fact of its sheer existence.

With all of this, however, there still remain steps toward the Second Coming that we are not yet authorized to take. Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have consistently taught that the time to take the gospel to the Jews has not arrived. “Jerusalem,” said Brigham Young in 1854, “is not to be redeemed by the soft still voice of the preacher of the gospel of peace.” Why? Because, he said, the Jews had rejected Christ and Christ’s gospel as it was taught by the early apostles and prophets and were now destined to be “the last of all the seed of Abraham to have the privilege of receiving the New and Everlasting Covenant… It is impossible to convert the Jews, until the Lord God Almighty does it.”[1] Speaking in 1857, Wilford Woodruff recalled the many times during his travels when he had seen Jews pray for their return to Jerusalem and for the coming of their Messiah. “When I have seen this,” that great missionary said,

my soul has been filled with a desire to proclaim unto them the word of God unto eternal life, but I knew I could not do this, the time had not come, I could not preach to them… They do not believe in Jesus Christ; there is an unbelief resting upon them, and will until they go home and rebuild Jerusalem and their temple more glorious than at the beginning, and then by and by, after this Church and kingdom has arisen up in its glory, the Saviour will come to them and show the wounds in his hands and side …and then their eyes will begin to open… and they will for the first time receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour, they will begin to comprehend where they have been wandering for the space of two thousand years.[2]

It is at least partly this sense that the time has not yet come for the preaching of the gospel to the Jewish people that underlies the Church’s promises made in connection with Brigham Young University’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies.

There are other things that have yet to occur with regard to Palestine or Israel. The ancient King David evidently lost his exaltation as a result of transgression, so his blessings and role are to be given to another. “The Priesthood that he received,” said the Prophet Joseph Smith, “and the throne and kingdom of David is to be taken from him, and given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised up out of his lineage.”[3] Several of the ancient prophets seem to have known of this important figure. “Alas!” wrote Jeremiah,

For that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.[4]

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.[5]

The prophet Zechariah used a man by the name of Joshua, the son of Josedech, as a visual aid to make his point:

Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH…and he shall build the temple of the Lord: Even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne.[6]

Hosea appears to have known of a Davidic king who would follow a period of apostasy, a period in which the Israelites would have neither a functioning state nor a functioning priesthood.

For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.[7]

The prophet Ezekiel, writing from Babylonian exile, knew a great deal about this figure of the latter days.

Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all… [I] will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.[8]

The emphasis on unity is noteworthy. “Ephraim shall not envy Judah,” writes Isaiah, “and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.” “They shall be no more two nations,” declares Ezekiel, “neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.”[9]

[1] Journal of Discourses 2:142.

[2] Journal of Discourses 4:232.

[3] History of the Church 6:253; compare Doctrine and Covenants 132:39.

[4] Jeremiah 30:7-9.

[5] Jeremiah 23:5-6.

[6] Zechariah 6:12-13; compare 3:8.

[7] Hosea 3:4-5.

[8] Ezekiel 37:21-28.

[9] Isaiah 11:13; Ezekiel 37:22.

Posted from St. George, Utah

Uncategorized

Apocalypse

apocalyptic

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Previous Post

January 15, 2021

"The Most that Evidence Can Do"

Next Post

January 17, 2021 The, Umm, Will to Believe

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who prophesied about the birth of Jesus in the Old Testament?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Isaiah Ezekiel Daniel Jeremiah