Abstract: The identity of “the people of Nephi who were spared, and also those who had been called Lamanites, who had been spared” (3 Nephi 10:18) as “a remnant of the seed of Joseph” (3 Nephi 5:23; 10:17; compare Alma 46:23–27; Ether 13:6–10) or “a remnant of the house of Joseph” (3 Nephi 15:12) is key to understanding Jesus’s Isaiah-based teaching at the temple in Bountiful in 3 Nephi. That teaching emphasizes iterative divine action (implied in the name Joseph [yôsēp], compare yôsîp) to restore and gather Israel and Judah. Like Mormon’s prophecies in 3 Nephi 5:23–26 and 26:8, Jesus’s sermon frequently describes the gathering of Israel in language that recalls Isaiah 11:11–12, especially the verbs yôsîp, ʾāsap, and qibbēṣ. The name Joseph is etiologized in terms of the Hebrew verbs ʾāsap (“take away,” “gather in”) and yāsap (“add,” “do again”), and the verbs ʾāsap (“gather in”) and qibbēṣ (“gather together”) are elsewhere used in harvest contexts, suggesting that ancient prophets and the Lord himself conceived of the gathering of Israel as a harvest ingathering.

I begin with an analysis of the name Joseph in terms of its distribution throughout the Book of Mormon text. The name Joseph occurs forty-two times total. It occurs six times in the first book of Nephi, the first four instances of these in connection with Lehi and Nephi learning from the brass plates that the family could trace their genealogy directly back to Joseph in Egypt (see 1 Nephi 5:14 [bis], 16; 6:2). The last two instances name Joseph as Nephi’s youngest brother who [Page 2]experienced the consequences of Laman’s and Lemuel’s fraternal abuse of Nephi (see 1 Nephi 18:7, 19). Joseph occurs most commonly in the second book of Nephi, sixteen times in total. Appropriately, most of these (thirteen) occur in Lehi’s words to his son Joseph in which he quotes the words of Joseph in Egypt (see 2 Nephi 3:1, 3–7 [6 x], 14, 16, 22, 25; 4:1, 3), including words about a latter-day father-son pair who would be named Joseph, that son being a “seer” like the patriarch Joseph (2 Nephi 3:15–16; compare Genesis 50:33 JST). Nephi mentions his brother Joseph as one of those who went with him when he fled from his brothers. Joseph occurs twice in the Book of Jacob, once in reference to Jacob’s younger brother, and the other in the prophetic oracle, “Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph” (Jacob 2:25).

The name Joseph does not occur again until the Book of Alma where it occurs seven times, once in reference to Joseph the son of Lehi, once in Amulek’s important identification of Lehi as a descendant of Joseph through Manasseh, and five times in Moroni’s covenant speech to the Nephites as “a remnant of the seed of Joseph” echoing an extracanonical prophecy by Jacob the patriarch regarding the “remainder of the seed of Joseph” and the “remnant of garment” (see Alma 46:23–27) and making a functional use of Isaiah 11:11–12.¹ Finally, the name occurs five times in the book of 3 Nephi,² where the focus is on the Lehites as the remnant of the seed or house of Joseph, and seven times in Moroni’s typological reading of the Joseph story as a prophecy of the restoration of the house of Joseph and the building of the New Jerusalem in Ether 13.

In this study, I will endeavor to show how Mormon highlights the importance of the name Joseph in his abridged “Book of Nephi, the son of Nephi, who was the son of Helaman”—i.e., 3 Nephi—in terms of the Hebrew concepts of iterative action (yāsap) and harvest “gathering” (ʾāsap, “to gather” also means “to take away”), the two verbs with which the name Joseph is etiologized in Genesis 30:23–24 and [Page 3]two of the key terms in Isaiah’s prophecy of the gathering of Israel in Isaiah 11:11–12. Mormon’s inclusions of Jesus’s extensive quotations and interpretations of Isaiah 52 in his teachings to the Lamanites and Nephites at the temple in Bountiful have an explicit orientation toward the “remnant of the seed of Joseph.” In his prophetic use and interpretation of Isaiah, Jesus repeatedly invokes the yāsap-related concept of iterative action—especially the iterative divine action implied in the name Joseph (“may He [God] add,” “may he do [something] again”). He also frequently makes use of the ʾāsap-related concept of harvest gathering or ingathering. He appeals to these concepts in order to foretell the divine actions that would restore and gather the house of Israel to the “land[s] of their inheritance” (theirs by covenant) and would bring about the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the building of the New Jerusalem in the western hemisphere.

“And Surely Shall He Again Bring a Remnant of the Seed of Joseph to the Knowledge of the Lord Their God”: Mormon’s Oath (3 Nephi 5:23–26)

The first two of the five mentions of the name Joseph in 3 Nephi occur in 3 Nephi 5, both in connection with an Isaiah-derived prophecy by Mormon that the Lord would “again bring a remnant of the seed of Joseph to the knowledge of the Lord their God” (3 Nephi 5:23).

The name Joseph (“may he [God] add”) constitutes a verbal name that implies iterative action with God as the subject. The first mention of the name Joseph in the book of 3 Nephi occurs in 3 Nephi 5 in the context of iterative divine action often expressed in the Hebrew Bible and the book of Isaiah with the verb yāsap/yôsîp: “Surely he hath blessed the house of Jacob, and hath been merciful unto the seed of Joseph. And insomuch as the children of Lehi have kept his commandments he hath blessed them and prospered them according to his word. Yea, and surely shall he again [compare yôsîp] bring a remnant of the seed of Joseph [yôsēp] to the knowledge of the Lord their God” (3 Nephi 5:21–23). The use of the verbal expression rendered “shall he again” between the twofold mention of the name Joseph suggests deliberate wordplay on Joseph in terms of the Hebrew verb yôsîp (to “add,” “do again”).

The collocation “remnant of the seed of Joseph” not only recalls Mormon’s earlier inclusion of the title- or standard-of-liberty pericope, but also its mention of the remnant of the coat of Joseph, and the [Page 4]symbolism pertaining to the “remnant of the seed of Joseph” that both items invoked. Moreover, Mormon employs the language of Isaiah 11:11–12: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again [yôsîp] the second time to recover the remnant of his people. . . . And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble [wĕʾāsap, “gather in”] the outcasts of Israel, and gather together [yĕqabbēṣ] the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” Isaiah’s prophecy alludes to the name of Isaiah’s son Shear-jashub (“a remnant shall return”),³ as do the many Book of Mormon passages that mention the gathering of this remnant.

Mormon’s emphasis on “assembling” (“gathering in”) or “gathering together” Israel and Judah in Isaiah 11:12 receives further exposition in his chiastically-structured prophetic oath. Framed on both ends with a hebraistic solemn oath formula, Mormon defines precisely how the Lord “shall . . . again bring” this “remnant of the seed of Joseph”:

Mormon’s prophetic oath in 3 Nephi 5:23–26 also exhibits textual [Page 5]dependency on at least two other prophecies on the small plates of Nephi that also quote or allude to Isaiah. Nephi records that his brother Jacob, in his seminal sermon on the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ, prophetically alluded to Isaiah 11:11–12 when he prophesied, “And it shall come to pass that they shall be gathered in from their long dispersion, from the isles of the sea, and from the four parts of the earth” (2 Nephi 10:8).⁵ Later in his record, Nephi similarly prophesied, “And it shall come to pass that my people, which are of the house of Israel, shall be gathered home unto the lands of their possessions; and my word also shall be gathered in one” (2 Nephi 29:14). The “gather[ing] home” of the house of Israel together with the “gather[ing] in one” of his word constitutes a variation of the theme articulated in 2 Nephi 25:17 where Nephi juxtaposes paraphrased quotes of Isaiah 11:11 and 29:14 (“The Lord will set his hand again [yôsîp] the second time to restore his people from their lost and fallen state” [Isaiah 11:11]. “Wherefore, he will proceed [yôsīp] to do a marvelous work and a wonder among the children of men” [Isaiah 29:14]),⁶ namely the concomitant gathering of Israel and the coming forth of additional scripture from the “seed” of “Joseph [yôsēp]” (see 2 Nephi 25:21).

“Are Not We a Remnant of the Seed of Joseph?”: A Joseph Contextualization of Jesus’s Isaiah-based Restoration Prophecies in 3 Nephi 15–21

The third and fourth mentions of the name Joseph help contextualize and frame Jesus’s ministry among the Lamanites and Nephites, as Mormon records it, in 3 Nephi 11–28. Mormon leads into what now constitutes 3 Nephi 11 with its account of Jesus’s appearance at the temple in Bountiful with a statement that recalls his earlier prophetic oath in 3 Nephi 5:23–26. This statement also looks forward on the content of Jesus’s sermons at the temple and his use of Isaiah’s prophecies and language to detail iterative divine action that would result in [Page 6]the gathering of Israel and “Joseph”: “Behold, our father Jacob also testified concerning a remnant of the seed of Joseph. And behold, are not we a remnant of the seed of Joseph? And these things which testify of us, are they not written upon the plates of brass which our father Lehi brought out of Jerusalem?” (3 Nephi 10:17).

After concluding his account of Jesus’s two-day sermon at the temple in Bountiful (3 Nephi 11–25), including the Isaiah-heavy second-day sermon (3 Nephi 19–25), Mormon makes the following declaration: “And these things have I written, which are a lesser part of the things which he taught the people; and I have written them to the intent that they may be brought again [wayyôsîpû] unto this people, from the Gentiles, according to the words which Jesus hath spoken” (3 Nephi 26:8). In making this declaration, Mormon gives a verbal signal of how this account will come forth to a remnant of Joseph: by means of a latter-day “Joseph” and the descendants of the patriarch Joseph among the Gentiles.

“And Then Will I Gather Them In”: The End of Joseph’s (and the Lost Tribes’) Separation

The fifth and final mention of the name Joseph, and the one that Mormon’s previous iterations of the name Joseph anticipate, occurs in an additional statement that Jesus’s makes to his Nephite/Lamanite disciples, as recorded in 3 Nephi 15:12. Jesus’s mention of the name Joseph in this statement confirms that the house of Joseph and the seed of Joseph constitutes a hermeneutical focus for much of the content of the prophecies not only in 3 Nephi 15–16, but especially in 3 Nephi 20–22. He states, “Ye are my disciples; and ye are a light unto this people, who are a remnant of the house of Joseph” (3 Nephi 15:12). Jesus here designates his audience at the Temple in Bountiful, comprised of “the people of Nephi who were spared, and also those who had been called Lamanites, who had been spared” (3 Nephi 10:18) as “the remnant of the house of Joseph.” We recall Mormon’s identifying as Lamanites and Nephites those present at the temple in Bountiful who “had great favors shown unto them, and great blessings poured out upon their heads” and experienced the risen Christ “showing his body unto them, and ministering unto them” (3 Nephi 10:18–19). Mormon does this immediately in the context of his averring: “Behold, our father Jacob also testified concerning a remnant of the seed of Joseph. And behold, are not we a remnant of the seed of [Page 7]Joseph?” (3 Nephi 10:17).⁷ In other words, those “great favors” came to the Lamanites and Nephites expressly because they were the “remnant of the seed of Joseph”:

And it came to pass that in the ending of the thirty and fourth year, behold, I will show unto you that the people of Nephi who were spared, and also those who had been called Lamanites, who had been spared, did have great favors shown unto them, and great blessings poured out upon their heads, insomuch that soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven he did truly manifest himself unto them—showing his body unto them, and ministering unto them; and an account of his ministry shall be given hereafter. Therefore for this time I make an end of my sayings. (3 Nephi 10:18–19)

Mormon may have intended this statement to signal a fulfillment of Amos 5:15: “the Lord God of hosts will be gracious [yeḥĕnan] unto the remnant of Joseph [šĕʾērît yôsēp].” Both Mormon’s and Jesus’s designation of the audience as “Joseph” is crucial for understanding everything else in Mormon’s presentation of what Jesus teaches in 3 Nephi 15–25.

Jesus pointedly declares that these Josephites had been “separated” from the main body of Israelites, “because of their iniquity” past and present: “But, verily, I say unto you that the Father hath commanded me, and I tell it unto you, that ye were separated from among them because of their iniquity; therefore it is because of their iniquity that they know not of you. And verily, I say unto you again that the other tribes hath the Father separated from them; and it is because of their iniquity that they know not of them” (3 Nephi 15:19–20). What Jesus teaches here is consistent with what the prophet Ezekiel articulated in parable about the southern kingdom of Judah being less [Page 8]righteous, at least in some respects, than the northern kingdom (see the parable of Yahweh’s two “wives” in Ezekiel 23; see especially v. 11).

It is noteworthy that, at least in this instance, Jesus does not use the language of scattering (scattered, lost, dispersed, etc.) in describing this Lamanite-Nephite audience as “a remnant of the house of Joseph” who had been “separated” from their Old World “brethren” (3 Nephi 15:12–13, 19–20). In so saying, Jesus may have had reference to two significant and related Pentateuchal texts: Jacob’s blessing upon his sons (Genesis 49) and Moses’s blessing upon the tribes (Deuteronomy 33). When Jacob blessed his sons prior to his death and when Moses blessed the tribes of Israel before his presumed “death,” they both described Joseph as “him that was separate[d] from his brethren” (see table 1).

Table 1. A portion of the tribal blessings of Joseph compared.

The original meaning of the verbal root nzr was something approximating “to withdraw from common practices, to behave differently”⁹ and thus “to dedicate, consecrate, . . . [or] separate, in [a] relig[ious] and ceremonial sense” (emphasis added).¹⁰ The adjective nĕzîr thus meant to “separate” in a sacred sense, thus “devoted, consecrated, [Page 9]devotee.”¹¹ The extended meaning “prince”¹² used in some translations derives from or relates to the nezer, the “crown, diadem, [or] headband made of precious metal and bound on through apertures, as a sign of being consecrated,”¹³ though Genesis 49:26 is sometimes the sole passage cited in support of this meaning. The adjectival form as a substantive noun also denotes a “Nazarite,”¹⁴ a lay-person who participated for a limited time in priestly holiness (see Numbers 6:1–21). Jacob’s blessing implies that Joseph’s “separation” from his brothers in Egypt was a “consecrated” separation. Some modern translations render nĕzîr as “prince” in Genesis 49:26 and Deuteronomy 33:16; the NRSVUE renders it alternatively “set apart” and “the prince.” The idea of Joseph as “separated,” “set apart” or “prince” suggests the firstborn status of “the tribe of Joseph over the others.”¹⁵ Indeed, the basic idea is that Joseph’s being “set apart” or “separated” from his brothers was a consecrated “separation” that elevated his status. It is also intriguing to consider that Lehi may have had reference to Genesis 49:26 and Deuteronomy 33:16, when he declared that the Lord had “consecrated” the lands in the western hemisphere to him and his posterity (as Josephites): “Yea, the Lord hath consecrated this land unto me and to my children forever” (2 Nephi 1:5, Original Text);¹⁶ “Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring” (2 Nephi 1:7); “the Lord hath consecrated this land for the security of thy seed with the seed of my son” (2 Nephi 1:32).¹⁷ The concept of “consecrated” as “separated” works well in these passages, especially in view of how Jesus uses “separated” with reference to Lehi’s descendants (3 Nephi 15:19–20) as the “remnant of the house of Joseph” who have had New World lands given to them by the Father as “the land of [their] inheritance” (3 Nephi 15:12–13).

The Lord’s latter-day prophetic blessing upon Israel as revealed through Joseph Smith and recorded as Doctrine and Covenants 133 seems to have reference to all of the foregoing. That prophecy [Page 10]includes the following promises regarding the efforts of children of Joseph to gather Israel and administer the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all its tribes: “And they shall bring forth their rich treasures unto the children of Ephraim, my servants. And the boundaries of the everlasting hills shall tremble at their presence. And there shall they fall down and be crowned with glory, even in Zion, by the hands of the servants of the Lord, even the children of Ephraim. And they shall be filled with songs of everlasting joy. Behold, this is the blessing of the everlasting God upon the tribes of Israel, and the richer blessing upon the head of Ephraim and his fellows” (Doctrine and Covenants 133:30–34). The descendants of Joseph are given the “richer blessing” only for the broader purpose of the Lord’s gathering and saving the other tribes Israel, even as Joseph “gathered” and saved the family in Egypt.

Harvest imagery was also associated with nĕzîr, which also had reference to “what has been left to grow freely and the ungathered grapes in the sabbath year, the free growing crop.”¹⁸ Leviticus 25:5 and 11 direct that this was initially not to be reaped or gathered, because it was to provide food during the Jubilee year (every fifty years), which was a “sabbath of sabbaths” (i.e., an “absolute sabbath”: “That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land” (Leviticus 25:5); “A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed” (Leviticus 25:11).

The biblical text ties the origin and meaning of the name Joseph to two similar-sounding verbs: ʾāsap (to “take away” or “gather in”) and yāsap (to “add”): “And she conceived, and bare a son; and said, God hath taken away [literally, gathered in, ʾāsap] my reproach: and she called his name Joseph [yôsēp]; and said, The Lord shall add [yōsēp] to me another son” (Genesis 30:23–24). From a “scientific” etymological perspective,¹⁹ the name Joseph actually derives from a jussive form of the verb yāsap: yôsēp means “May he [God] add.”²⁰

[Page 11]Perhaps not coincidently, Isaiah deploys both of these verbs in his prophecy of the latter-day gathering of Israel:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again [yôsîp] the second time time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble [or, gather in, wĕʾāsap] the outcasts of Israel, and gather together [yĕqabbēṣ] the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. (Isaiah 11:11–12; compare Micah 2:12)²¹

Isaiah’s use of the verbs yāsap (“add,” “continue to do” [“proceed to do”]; “increase,” “do [something] again, more”)²² and ʾāsap (“gather in,” “bring in” [> “take away”], “assemble”)²³ recalls the double-etiology for the name Joseph offered in Genesis 30:23–24. Isaiah’s use of both verbs in the context of the gathering of “Israel”—for which “Joseph” or “house of Joseph” was a frequent metonymy—additionally suggests an intentional wordplay on (or echoing of) the name Joseph.

Technically speaking, the name Joseph or yôsēp derives from the same verbal stem as the auxiliary verb yôsîp. Isaiah converts this word into “gathering” terminology with the addition of the infinitive liqnôt (“gain,” “buy,” “acquire,” “create” < qny/qnh).²⁴ In other words, the Lord will “add” to acquire or gather the remnant of his people. Isaiah reiterates this idea with the synonymic use of ʾāsap and qibbēṣ: he will “assemble [wĕʾāsap, gather in] the outcasts of Israel, and gather together [yĕqabbēṣ] the dispersed of Judah from the four quarters of the earth” (Isaiah 11:12), in order to bless all the nations/Gentiles in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Nephi explained this to his family in 1 Nephi 22:6, 8–12, where he also plays on the name Joseph.²⁵ Nephi [Page 12]interpreted Isaiah 48–49 for his family, chapters wherein Isaiah plainly adumbrates the same prophetic idea: “And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, [Ketiv: lōʾ yēʾāsēp; Qere: lô yēʾāsēp that Israel might be gathered to him²⁶], yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation [yĕšûʿātî] unto the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:5–6). In other words, as God gathers Jacob again, they extend salvation to all the nations/Gentiles.²⁷ Collectively, the Lord’s “servant” is his people Israel (see Isaiah 49:3), more narrowly the servant can be understood to be his prophets (including Isaiah or Joseph Smith). In the narrowest sense, the Servant is Jesus Christ himself (compare yēšûaʿ as divine yĕšûʿâ, “salvation”) who, in turn, used Joseph Smith as his servant to commence the process of restoring, gathering, and ultimately saving Israel in the latter days.

The verbs ʾāsap and qābaṣ in Isaiah 11:12 both have strong associations with harvest gathering. The verb qābaṣ means to “gather” or “gather together” and is used in Genesis 41:48 to describe Joseph’s gathering of harvested grain over seven years against the coming seven years of famine: “And he [Joseph] gathered up [wayyiqbōṣ] all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt.” The synonymous verb ʾāsap more precisely means to “gather in” as in the harvest (see especially Leviticus 25:3, 20; Exodus 23:10; Deuteronomy 11:14, see further below). Thus, it may be the latter verb to which Jesus has reference when he promises: “And then will I gather them in from the four quarters of the earth; and then will I fulfil the covenant which the Father hath made unto all the people of the house of Israel” (3 Nephi 16:5).

[Page 13]“Then Shall the Remnants . . . Be Gathered In” (3 Nephi 20:13): The Ingathering Harvest of Latter-day Israel

One of the most significant and interesting aspects of Jesus’s second-day sermon in 3 Nephi 19–25 is his exegetical use of Isaiah and his repetitious use of Isaiah 52 in particular. Jesus’s use of Isaiah 52 begins with his quotation of Isaiah 52:8–10 (3 Nephi 16:17–20). After Jesus quotes this scripture to the Nephites and Lamanites gathered to the temple in Bountiful, he perceives that the members of his audience are “weak”—i.e., “weakened” or overwhelmed by what they had thus far experienced with him—to such a degree they “cannot understand all [his] words” (3 Nephi 17:2).

Accordingly, he breaks off his sermon in order to allow the people to “ponder upon the things which [he] . . . said and ask of the Father, in [his, Jesus’s] name, that ye may understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow” when he would “come . . . again” and finish the sermon (3 Nephi 17:3). Before Jesus departs, however, he “tarries” with them, healing and blessing the people and their children in one of the most beautiful and emotive scenes ever described in scripture (3 Nephi 17:5–25). After doing this, he institutes the sacrament among the Nephites and Lamanites before ascending to the Father (3 Nephi 18).

Upon his return the next day and following a sequence of events that included instruction, temple prayer, his newly-selected disciples undergoing baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost, and Jesus’s own temple prayer (3 Nephi 19:1–20:1),²⁸ Jesus administers the sacrament a second time (3 Nephi 20:3–9). He then states his intention to resume teaching from the prophecies of Isaiah: “Behold now I finish the commandment which the Father hath commanded me concerning this people, who are a remnant of the house of Israel. Ye remember that I spake unto you, and said that when the words of Isaiah should be fulfilled—behold they are written, ye have them before you, therefore search them” (3 Nephi 20:10–11). He avers that “when they [i.e., the words of Isaiah] shall be fulfilled then is the fulfilling of the covenant which the Father hath made unto his people, O house of Israel” [Page 14](3 Nephi 20:12). In other words, the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah will be the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.

In prefacing his resumption of teaching from Isaiah 52, the Lord specifically draws on the terminology and substance of Isaiah 11:12: “And then shall the remnants, which shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth, be gathered in [compare yēʾāsĕpû || yiqqābĕṣû] from the east and from the west, and from the south and from the north; and they shall be brought to the knowledge of the Lord their God, who hath redeemed them” (3 Nephi 20:13). In this verse, Brant Gardner hears echoes of Psalm 107:2–3: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy; and gathered them [qibbĕṣû] out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south.”²⁹ The key term here is the verb qibbēṣ, the key term in parallel with ʾāsap in Isaiah 11:12, which describes the gathering of Israel from “the four corners of the earth.” Gardner adds, “Despite the language of this passage, the verse may not specifically allude to Psalm 107 because references to the four cardinal directions are quite common. Naturally, Israel would be gathered from the whole world, for which the four directions are a metaphor.”³⁰

Unlike Psalm 107:2–3, the promises of Israel’s ingathering are expressed as a passivum divinum (divine passive).³¹ The divine passive implies that the Lord himself will orchestrate this ingathering but leave room for human instrumentality. 3 Nephi 20:13 also echoes the etiological explanation of the name Joseph in terms of ʾāsap (“gather in”). The name Joseph is echoed by Mormon in 3 Nephi 5:23–26. Mormon may have, in part, had this prophecy in mind when he formulated his own prophetic oath (“And as surely as the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth all the remnant of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the earth” 3 Nephi 5:24). In any case, he would have considered it a sure basis for such an oath.

Jesus then quotes Micah 5:8 and 4:12–13 in 3 Nephi 20:16–19. The language of Micah 4:11–12 in 3 Nephi 20:18 brings in harvest imagery: “Now also many nations [gôyim rabbîm] are gathered [neʾespû] against thee . . . for he shall gather them [qibbĕṣām] as the sheaves [Page 15]into the floor [gōrĕnâ, literally, threshing-floor]” (Micah 4:11–12); “And I will gather my people together as a man gathereth his sheaves into the floor” (3 Nephi 20:18). Notably, Jesus makes his covenant people, rather than the nations/Gentiles themselves, the object of gathering, consistent with his covenant people theme.³² Ironically, his people also do the threshing (see 3 Nephi 20:19; compare Micah 4:13). The verb qibbēṣ, a key term in Isaiah 11:12, may have motived Jesus’s inclusion of Micah 4:12 with its harvest imagery.

“I Have Covenanted . . . That I Would Gather Them Together” (3 Nephi 20:29): Remembering and Fulfilling the Abrahamic Covenant

In invoking “gathering” language, Jesus alludes to a specific covenant that the Lord had made with Israel’s ancestors, that he himself would gather Israel:

And I will remember the covenant which I have made with my people; and I have covenanted with them that I would gather them together [compare ʾeʾĕsōp < ʾāsap / ʾăqabbēṣ < qibbēṣ] in mine own due time, that I would give unto them again [compare ʾôsîp] the land of their fathers for their inheritance, which is the land of Jerusalem, which is the promised land unto them forever, saith the Father. (3 Nephi 20:29)

Here again we see the possible presence of the verbs ʾāsap and yāsap from Genesis 30:23-24 and Isaiah 11:11-12. The specific “covenant” Jesus mentions is the Abrahamic covenant, later reiterated with Isaac and Jacob. However, it also appears to allude to promises that the Lord made to the patriarch Joseph in Egypt regarding a “Moses” and in the latter-days, one like unto Moses. One version of the promise is preserved in Genesis 50:34 JST: “And the Lord sware unto Joseph [yôsēp] that he would preserve his seed forever, saying, I will raise up Moses, and a rod shall be in his hand, and he shall gather together my people, and he shall lead them as a flock, and he shall smite the waters of the Red Sea with his rod.”³³ To this promise, the Lord adds: [Page 16]“And it shall be done unto thee in the last days also, even as I have sworn. Therefore, Joseph said unto his brethren, God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land, unto the land which he sware unto Abraham, and unto Isaac, and to Jacob.”

The initial part of the promise was fulfilled when Moses “gathered” Israel, beginning with its elders in Exodus: “Go, and gather the elders of Israel together [wĕʾāsaptā], and say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt” (Exodus 3:16). The Lord’s command is subsequently fulfilled in Exodus 4. Again, the Joseph-connected verb ʾāsap is used: “And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together [wayyaʾaspû] all the elders of the children of Israel: and Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people” (Exodus 4:29). The “Blessing of Moses” (Deuteronomy 33) uses similar language: “Moses commanded us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob. And he was king in Jeshurun [or, there was a king in Jeshurun],³⁴ when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together [bĕhitʾassēp]” (Deuteronomy 33:4–5). Isaiah’s prophecy of the Lord “assembl[ing]” [“gathering in,” wĕʾāsap] the “outcasts of Israel” employs the same verb (Isaiah 11:12).

“Then Will the Father Gather Them Together Again” (3 Nephi 20:30–33): The Latter-day Gathering of Judah to Jerusalem

In 3 Nephi 23:30–33, Jesus returns to Isaiah 52:10, the point at which he broke-off his sermon at the end of his first day at the temple in Bountiful. He uses this text as a departure point for an extended prophecy regarding the restoration and gathering of Israel, in which the language of iterative divine action and harvest ingathering from Isaiah 11:11–12 is prevalent:

And it shall come to pass that the time cometh, when the fulness of my gospel shall be preached unto them; and they shall believe in me, that I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God, [Page 17]and shall pray unto the Father in my name. Then shall their watchmen lift up their voice, and with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye. Then will the Father gather them together again [“will . . . again,” compare yôsip] and give unto them Jerusalem for the land of their inheritance. (3 Nephi 20:30–33)

Jesus begins his citation of Isaiah 52, in 3 Nephi 20:32, predicting the fulfillment of the former. His statement “their watchman [shall] lift up their voice, and with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye,” previously cited in 3 Nephi 16:18, constitutes a quotation of Isaiah 52:8, a text familiar to the Nephites from the plates of brass and from Abinadi’s exchange with the priests of King Noah.³⁵ Jesus aborts his quotation of this text before the end. Instead of completing the thought as in Isaiah (“when the Lord shall bring again [or return to] Zion”) and elsewhere, Jesus ends the quote at “eye to eye.” This perhaps suggests the sentence that follows stands in place of or explains the meaning of the temporal clause “when the Lord shall bring again Zion”: “Then will the Father gather them together again.”

Jesus’s discourse thus momentarily breaks from direct quotations of Isaiah. In stating that “[t]hen will the Father gather them together again,” Jesus’s use of a verb rendered “gather . . . together” strongly hints at the underlying use of the verb ʾāsap or qibbēṣ from Isaiah 11:12 and elsewhere (or their Nephite scribal equivalents), evoking a connection to Isaiah 11:11–12. His use of language rendered “[he] shall . . . again” plausibly represents the Hebrew yāsap + verbal component idiom as found in Isaiah 11:11 and elsewhere. The language of “gathering” and iterative divine action (“he shall . . . again”) recall the etiological associations ascribed to the name Joseph in Genesis 30:23–24: divine taking away—or “gathering in”— and divine adding.

“Awake, Awake Again”/ “There Shall No More Come into Thee . . .” (3 Nephi 20:36): Zion’s Latter-day Resurrection

Jesus next describes the latter-day fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant in terms of the fulfillment of Isaiah 52:10:

Then shall they break forth into joy—Sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; for the Father hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Father hath [Page 18]made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation [yĕšûʿat] of the Father; and the Father and I are one. (3 Nephi 20:34–35)

The mention of yĕšûʿat (< yĕšûʿâ = “salvation”) becomes a kind of onomastic reference to or wordplay on Jesus’s own name—yēšûaʿ (“Jehovah is salvation”). Isaiah 52:9–10 appears to quote or allude to one of the hymns of the Jerusalem temple, Psalm 98:1–3, where forms and cognates of yĕšûʿâ abound:

O sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory [hôšîʿâ-lô]. The Lord hath made known his salvation [yĕšûʿātô]: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen [nations, haggôyim]. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God [yĕšûʿat ʾĕlōhênû]. (Psalm 98:1–3)

The meaning of Jesus’s substitution of the title “Father” for the divine name “Yhwh” and divine title ʾĕlōhênû (“our God”) is adumbrated in the declaration: “the Father and I are one.” The “oneness” of the Father and the Son serves as a model for Israel’s vertical “oneness” with God and Christ, as well as horizontal, communal “oneness.” That at-one-ment can only be achieved through divine “gathering.” The Lamanites and Nephites in the years after Jesus’s post-resurrection theophany and ministry attained to this ideal:

And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God. There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God. (4 Nephi 1:16–17)

Jesus then states that the latter-day fulfillment of Isaiah 52:10 will eventuate in the fulfillment of Isaiah 52:1 (see table 2).

[Page 19]Table 2. Jesus’s quotation of Isaiah 52:1.

Jesus’s statement evidently preserves the use of the lōʾ yôsîp [+ verbal component] + ʿôd from Isaiah’s text, which here in the context of the gathering of the house of Israel (and the remnant of the seed of Joseph) can be taken as a wordplay on the name “Joseph.” However, Jesus’s words, as preserved by Mormon, also make a subtle addition: an expression rendered “again.” These changes firmly link the latter-day fulfillment of Isaiah 52:1 to the iterative divine, restorative action the Lord undertakes in the last days (compare Isaiah 11:11), work in which Zion herself becomes a participant with the Lord and Jerusalem becomes “as sacred as a temple.”³⁶ It is thus fitting that Joseph Smith is the latter-day yôsēp through whom the concepts of temple and temple holiness have been restored as practicable elements of Judeo-Christian religion. Joseph is the one through whom Isaiah’s prophetic use of the idiom lōʾ yôsîp [+ verbal component] + ʿôd (“there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and unclean”) begins to come to final, eschatological fulfillment. Indeed, the time will come when Jesus himself will bring this temple holiness to completion in Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem, finishing the restorative work he commenced through Joseph.

Moroni’s quotation of Isaiah 52:1–2 and 54:2 at the conclusion of the Book of Mormon reveals very lucidly how Isaiah 52:1 can be read as both a resurrection text and as fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant: “And awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of Zion; and strengthen thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee, O house of Israel, may be fulfilled” (Moroni 10:31). Zion’s “resurrection” as an ever-expanding tabernacle-temple in the last days would be no less a miracle than the resurrection of Jesus Christ or [Page 20]any human being. Indeed, Jesus himself quoting Isaiah 52:1 as a resurrected being “in a white robe,” helped those who saw and heard him quote that passage visualize the fulfillment of that prophecy in terms of resurrection and temple imagery.

Zion’s resurrection would also be Zion’s enthronement: “Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem; loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the Lord: Ye have sold yourselves for naught, and ye shall be redeemed without money. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that my people shall know my name; yea, in that day they shall know that I am he [ʾănî hûʾ] that doth speak [hamĕdabbēr]” (3 Nephi 20:37–39). In quoting the expression ʾănî hûʾ, an expression with which Jehovah declares himself as the God of Israel in Deuteronomy 32:39, Isaiah 41:4; 43:10, 13, 25; 46:4; 48:12; 51:12, and climactically in 52:6,³⁷ Jesus definitively identifies himself as Jehovah—the God who spoke that prophecy anciently, the God who was physically present and speaking to them in the present, and the God who would bring (and even speak) that prophecy into eschatological fulfillment.

Rearward I: “The God of Israel Shall Be Your Rearward”: The Protected Latter-Day Gathering of Israel to Zion

In the context of identifying himself as the divine Redeemer of Isaiah 52:5 and the divine Speaker of Isaiah 52:6, Jesus then quotes Isaiah 52:7:

And then shall they say: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings unto them, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings unto them of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion: Thy God reigneth! (3 Nephi 20:40)

Gardner notes that “in this context, this verse becomes a Messianic self-declaration” with “Jesus identify[ing] himself as the messenger who publishes peace and brings these good tidings.”³⁸ This declaration is consistent with Abinadi’s inclusive interpretation of Isaiah 52:7–10, which included prophets and other preachers of the gospel, but also Jesus Christ himself: “And behold, I say unto you, this is not all. For [Page 21]O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that is the founder of peace, yea, even the Lord, who has redeemed his people; yea, him who has granted salvation unto his people” (Mosiah 15:18). Jesus’s arrival at the temple in Bountiful not only fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecies, but the most significant Isaiah-derived prophecies of Nephite prophets.

Jesus then shifts again in his reordered use of Isaiah 52 to quote verses 11–12 (see table 3).

Table 3. Jesus’s quotation of Isaiah 52:11-12.

The middle or durative (Piel) stem of the Hebrew verb ʾāsap had the specialized sense of “to form the rearguard,”³⁹ which as a substantivized noun becomes “rearguard”⁴⁰ or “rearward”⁴¹ (see, e.g., mĕʾassēp in Joshua 6:9, 13). The Piel verb form also occurs with the sense of “gathering” in the context of an agricultural harvest: “The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn [grain] to be meat [food] for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured: But they that have gathered it [mĕʾaspâw⁴²] shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and they that have brought it together [ûmĕqabbĕṣâw⁴³] shall drink it in the courts of my holiness” (Isaiah 62:8–9). Like Isaiah 11:12 (“And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble [wĕʾāsap, gather in] the outcasts of Israel, and gather together [yĕqabbēṣ] the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth”), Isaiah 62:8–9 uses the verbs as poetically matched [Page 22]pair (or in parallel). The harvest context of Isaiah 62:8–9 suggests that Isaiah 11:11–12 carries similar intonations.

The participial form mĕʾassēp is also used in Judges 19:15, 18 in the sense of “take” or “gather” someone into a house. The same later occurs in Jeremiah 9:22 in the sense of “gathering” in harvest: (“Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather [mĕʾassēp] them.” The idea seems to be “one who follows in the rear and gathers up” what lingers behind whether to glean as in the harvest, to protect straggling human beings, or even gather up human bodies. Thus, in 3 Nephi 20:40–41 the ideas of a harvest “gatherer” of his people and a “rearguard” coalesce. Jesus Christ—Jehovah, the God of Israel—is at once Israel’s captain, harvest gatherer, and protector, gleaning the stragglers and those who would otherwise be left behind.

“Then Shall Jerusalem Be Inhabited Again”: The Atoning and Gathering “Servants,” the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon, and Judah’s Return to Jerusalem

Jesus then quotes the servant song of Isaiah 52:13–15, which in the context of the foregoing continues to have messianic overtones: “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently; he shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. As many were astonished at thee—his visage was so marred, more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men—so shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider” (3 Nephi 20:43–45).

Margaret Barker has noted the significance of the verb yazzeh (< nāzâ) in this prophecy: “yazzeh, the apparently untranslatable verb, means ‘sprinkle’ in the atonement ritual (Lev. 16:19).”⁴⁴ This verb, frequently rendered “sprinkle,” describes the performance of the rite of atonement in Exodus 29:21; Leviticus 4:6, 17; 5:9; 8:11, 30; 14:7, 16, 27; 16:14–15, 19; and Numbers 19:4, 18–22. Leviticus 16:14 and 18–19 instruct this atonement rite as a part of the Day of Atonement ritual to be carried out in the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place by the high priest in the tabernacle-temple:

And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle [Page 23][wĕhizzâ] it with his finger upon the mercy seat [hakkappōret, “place of atonement”] eastward; and before the mercy seat [hakkappōret] shall he sprinkle [yazzeh] of the blood with his finger seven times. Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it [wĕhizzâ] upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat. (v. 14–15)

. . .

And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an atonement [wĕkipper] for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about. And he shall sprinkle [wĕhizzâ] of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. (v. 18–19)

The Joseph Smith Translation renders the phrase “so shall he sprinkle many nations” as “so shall he gather many nations,” which captures the function of the Atonement of Jesus Christ: namely, to “draw all” unto him (John 12:32; 3 Nephi 27:14–15).⁴⁵ Recalling that the atoning servant would “be exalted and extolled and be very high,” we can see Jesus using the language of Isaiah to teach the meaning of his Atonement in 3 Nephi 27:14. Jesus does this by emphasizing the “drawing” or “gathering” dimension of his Atonement while playing on multiple senses of “lifted up”: “And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works.”⁴⁶

Whether rendered “so shall he sprinkle [i.e., atone] many nations” or “so shall he gather many nations,” the phrase “many nations” (gôyim rabbîm), echoes the concept of “many nations” (hamôn gôyim; literally, a “multitude of nations”) from Genesis 17, when Abraham received the covenant promise that he would be “a father of many nations” (ʾab [Page 24]hamôn gôyim). This suggests that the “sprinkling” or “gathering” will all be done in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. The messianic context preceding Jesus’s quotation of Isaiah 52:13–15 suggests that he would be the servant who would “sprinkle” or atone. Nevertheless, the subsequent context of Jesus’s words suggests that he also had other “servant(s)” who would “gather” Israel and Judah in fulfillment of divine covenant.

Indeed, all of the foregoing would be in fulfillment of the “covenant of the Father” (3 Nephi 21:4)⁴⁷ that the latter had “covenanted” with Israel and a prelude to Jerusalem again being inhabited on a massive scale⁴⁸ by the tribe of Judah and members of the house of Israel: ”Verily, verily, I say unto you, all these things shall surely come, even as the Father hath commanded me. Then shall this covenant which the Father hath covenanted with his people be fulfilled; and then shall Jerusalem be inhabited again with my people, and it shall be the land of their inheritance” (3 Nephi 20:46).

The expression “then shall . . . be inhabited again” could represent the old Hebrew yāsap + verbal component idiom for iterative action “do [something] again, more.” It is equally possible that Jesus is alluding to Zechariah 12:6, a postexilic text otherwise unfamiliar to the Nephites and Lamanites (“and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again [ʿôd] in her own place, even in Jerusalem”).

3 Nephi 20:46 appears to be one of the texts that Moroni has in mind when he interprets Ether’s prophecy in Ether 13:5–8:

And he spake also concerning the house of Israel, and the Jerusalem from whence Lehi should come—after it should be destroyed it should be built up again [yôsîp], a holy city [Page 25]unto the Lord; wherefore, it could not be a new Jerusalem for it had been in a time of old; but it should be built up again [yôsîp], and become a holy city of the Lord; and it should be built unto the house of Israel. And that a New Jerusalem should be built up upon this land, unto the remnant of the seed of Joseph [yôsēp] for which things there has been a type. For as Joseph brought his father down into the land of Egypt, even so he died there; wherefore, the Lord brought a remnant of the seed of Joseph out of the land of Jerusalem, that he might be merciful unto the seed of Joseph that they should perish not, even as he was merciful unto the father of Joseph that he should perish not. Wherefore, the remnant of the house of Joseph [yôsēp] shall be built upon this land; and it shall be a land of their inheritance; and they shall build up a holy city unto the Lord, like unto the Jerusalem of old; and they shall no more [wĕlōʾ yôsîpû] be confounded, until the end come when the earth shall pass away.

The iterative language of yôsip (“do [something] again”), (“and they shall no more”) echoes the name Joseph as the name of the patriarch, but also hinting at the prophetic agent through whom much of the divine restorative action would be accomplished.⁴⁹ We note here the prominence in Moroni’s prophecy of the divine passive constructions: “it should be built up again” (2x); “should be up built upon”; “shall be built upon,” “they shall no more be confounded.” This divine passive language echoes the passive from 3 Nephi 20:46, “then shall Jerusalem be inhabited again.” The human role in accomplishing divine actions and purposes is nicely captured by Moroni’s statement: “and they shall build up a holy city unto the Lord . . . and they shall no more be confounded.” Both Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem will have temple-level sanctity.

[Page 26]“I Shall Gather In . . . and Shall Establish Again Among Them My Zion” (3 Nephi 21:1)

Jesus again pairs language of “gathering in” (ʾāsap, qibbēṣ) with iterative divine action in describing “a sign” of when the foregoing will transpire: “And verily I say unto you, I give unto you a sign, that ye may know the time when these things shall be about to take place—that I shall gather in, from their long dispersion, my people, O house of Israel, and shall establish again among them my Zion” (3 Nephi 21:1). The Savior’s use of the verbal expressions “I shall gather in” and “and shall . . . again” recall the language of Isaiah 11:11–12 and the use of yôsîp (“do again”) and wĕʾāsap (“assemble,” i.e., gather in) in that prophecy.

Jesus then prophesies that the coming forth of the very words that he was delivering at that time to the Lamanites and Nephites to the Gentiles would itself constitute the “sign” of the gathering of Israel of which Isaiah had formerly spoken and of which Jesus was then speaking:

And behold, this is the thing which I will give unto you for a sign—for verily I say unto you that when these things which I declare unto you, and which I shall declare unto you hereafter of myself, and by the power of the Holy Ghost which shall be given unto you of the Father, shall be made known unto the Gentiles that they may know concerning this people who are a remnant of the house of Jacob, and concerning this my people who shall be scattered by them; Verily, verily, I say unto you, when these things shall be made known unto them of the Father, and shall come forth of the Father, from them unto you . . . (3 Nephi 21:2–4)

“In other words,” writes Gardner, “the Book of Mormon’s coming forth is a necessary prelude to the final gathering.”⁵⁰ The “Gentiles” or “nations” (gôyim) of Isaiah 11:12 and 49:22–23 would learn the relationship of the people they were in the very process of scattering to the house of Israel and the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with whom the Father had covenanted. Those nations/Gentiles and their kings would then have the choice of believing in this sign and assisting the gathering in fulfillment of Isaiah 11:11–12; 49:22–23 or resisting the inevitable. All would be astonished at this sign and work, and some would vainly try to oppose it:

[Page 27]And when these things come to pass that thy seed shall begin to know these things—it shall be a sign unto them, that they may know that the work of the Father hath already commenced unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the people who are of the house of Israel. And when that day shall come, it shall come to pass that kings shall shut their mouths; for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider. For in that day, for my sake shall the Father work a work [pōʿal pōʿēl], which shall be a great and a marvelous work [hapĕlēʾ] among them; and there shall be among them those who will not believe it [compare lōʾ yaʾămînû], although a man shall declare it unto them. But behold, the life of my servant shall be in my hand; therefore they shall not hurt him, although he shall be marred because of them. Yet I will heal him, for I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil. (3 Nephi 21:7–10)

Jesus here blends the two thematically-similar prophecies of Habakkuk 1:5 (“Behold ye among the heathen [Gentiles, baggôyim], and regard, and wonder marvelously [wĕhittammĕhû tĕmāhû] for I will work a work [pōʿal pōʿēl] in your days, which ye will not believe [lōʾ taʾămînû], though it be told you”) and Isaiah 29:14: “Therefore, behold, I will proceed [yôsip⁵¹] to do a marvellous work [lĕhapĕlîʾ] among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder [hapĕlēʾ wāpeleʾ]: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” This is similar, though not identical, to what Nephi does in his interpretive quotation of Isaiah 11:11 and 29:14 in 2 Nephi 25:17; 29:1.⁵² It is also similar to Jacob’s interpretation of Zenos’s allegory of the olive tree, especially Jacob 5:61–64, in terms of Isaiah 11:11 and yosîp (“set [do] . . . again”) in Jacob 6:2.⁵³ Mormon elsewhere points out that the Josephite prophets Zenos and Zenoch⁵⁴ [Zenock] “testified particularly concerning us, who are [Page 28]the remnant of their seed” (3 Nephi 10:16). This would help explain the iterative divine action of the Lord of the Vineyard in the allegory as an extension of the idea of “Joseph” (see the language of “[do] . . . again” in Jacob 5:29, 33, 58–68, 73–75).⁵⁵ It would also help explain why Nephi, Jacob, Mormon, Moroni, and even the Savior himself connected Isaiah 11:11–12 with the idea of “Joseph” (divine doing again/gathering) and why Nephi and the Lord specifically connected Isaiah 29:14 with “Joseph” and the Nephite record as the means of gathering the seed of Joseph in fulfillment of covenant promises to Joseph in Egypt (see, e.g., 2 Nephi 25:21).

It should also be noted that the Hebrew texts of Habakkuk 1:5 and Isaiah 29:14 make similar use of polyptoton, the rhetorical repetition of cognate terms, usually for emphasis: wĕhittammĕhû tĕmāhû, pōʿal pōʿēl, lĕhaplîʾ/haplēʾ wāpeleʾ. In Habbakuk 1:5 and Isaiah 29:14, polyptoton emphasizes the miraculous, wondrous, and the divine origin and nature of Yahweh’s work. Here that work is clearly stated to be the gathering of Israel (3 Nephi 21:1) in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant (3 Nephi 21:7). The use of polyptoton also carries over into Jesus’s quotation of Habakkuk 1:5 and is echoed in his allusion to Isaiah 29:14.

Jesus makes clear that this divine gathering will be achieved through the instrumentality of his “servant.” As noted above, Jesus first quoted the “servant song” of Isaiah 52:13–15 messianically in 3 Nephi 20:43–46 and he returns to it in 3 Nephi 21:8 and 10 to further explain its latter-day fulfillment. Clearly, we can read Isaiah 52:13–15 christologically with the “marred” servant being Jesus, as Jesus himself does. Given the emphasis and movement of Jesus’s sermon toward the latter-day gathering of Israel, we can also understand the “marred” servant of 3 Nephi 20:43–46 and the “marred” and “healed” servant of 3 Nephi 21:10 as Joseph Smith, which becomes an even more [Page 29]poignant reading when we consider Jesus’s allusion to Isaiah 29:14 (with its use of yôsip/yôsīp).

What’s more, as Gaye Strathearn and Jacob Moody have demonstrated, this “servant” who has been “marred” then “healed” can also be understood as Mormon’s record—the Book of Mormon—itself.⁵⁶ The Isaiah 29:14 sealed-book context of 3 Nephi 21:9 suggests this as does the strong intertextual connection between 3 Nephi 21:10 and Doctrine and Covenants 10:43, suggested in footnote b to 3 Nephi 21:10 in the 1980 and 2013 Latter-day Saint English editions of the Book . Like Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon was humanly “marred” and divinely “healed.” It was “marred” with Martin Harris’s loss of the manuscript pages and providentially “healed” with Nephi’s creation, his successors’ keeping, and Mormon’s incorporation of the small plates of Nephi.

“That They May Be Gathered In . . . unto the New Jerusalem”: The Latter-day Ingathering

Consistent with the prophecy of Isaiah 49:22–23, the Lord declares that the Gentiles will be instrumental in “gathering in” his people “in unto the New Jerusalem”: “And then shall they assist my people that they may be gathered in, who are scattered upon all the face of the land, in unto the New Jerusalem. And then shall the power[s] of heaven come down among them; and I also will be in the midst” (3 Nephi 21:24–25). This declaration resumes thoughts expressed in his discourse: “And behold, this people will I establish in this land, unto the fulfilling of the covenant which I made with your father Jacob; and it shall be a New Jerusalem. And the powers of heaven shall be in the midst of this people; yea, even I will be in the midst of you” (3 Nephi [Page 30]20:22). 3 Nephi 20:22 again makes clear that all this will be done in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant as reiterated to Jacob. Regarding the Gentiles that will assist in Israel’s gathering, Gardner notes, “These converted Gentiles will help gather Israel to the New Jerusalem. No doubt for many it will be a physical gathering. However, no single city can hold the assembled faithful even today; how much less likely in the future! Much of the gathering will be spiritual with the New Jerusalem as the new headquarters of God’s government on earth.”⁵⁷

The underlying verb here translated “that they may be gathered in” is plausibly the Hebrew verb ʾāsap, which is closely associated with the harvest ingathering. Whenever the collocation “gather in”/“gathered in” occurs in the KJV, the underlying verb is ʾāsap.⁵⁸

The Hebrew lexeme ʾāsap and the harvest ingathering prominently figure into the cultic legislation governing the autumn festival complex. Exodus 23:16 stipulates the commemoration of “the feast of ingathering [wĕḥag hāʾāsip], which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in [bĕʾospĕkā] thy labours out of the field.” The “feast of ingathering” (ḥag hāʾāsip) was the last of three pilgrimage festivals that required Israelite males to “appear before the Lord” at the central sanctuary (i.e., the tabernacle or, later, the temple): “The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep”; “And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end” (Exodus 34:18, 22; compare 3 Nephi 10:18, “in the ending of the thirty and fourth year”). The feast of ingathering constituted a part of the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot (“Booths”):

Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in [bĕʾospĕkem] the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. Ye shall dwell in booths [bassukōt] seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths [bassukōt]: that your [Page 31]generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths [bassukōt], when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 23:39–43)

Deuteronomy also attests an iteration of this directive: “Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles [ḥag sukkōt] seven days, after that thou hast gathered [bĕʾospĕkā] in thy corn and thy wine” (Deuteronomy 16:13). The Feast of Ingathering (Feast of Tabernacles) in the “seventh month” corresponds to the old Canaanite month(s) of ʾsp, as attested in the tenth century BCE Gezer Calendar (see figure 1): “his (two) months of gathering” (yrḥw ʾsp).

Figure 1. The Gezer Calendar (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gezer_calendar#/media/File:Gezer_calendar_close_up.jpg).

[Page 32]Recalling that the Feast of Ingathering or Sukkot, was to be celebrated “when thou hast gathered in [bĕʾospĕkā] thy labours out of the field,” we can more fully appreciate Jesus’s use of the harvest labor as a metaphor for preaching the gospel, missionary work, or “gathering” Israel.⁵⁹ We can also better appreciate Ammon’s harvest metaphor as describing missionary work among the Lamanites as a “gathering” of a “remnant of Joseph”:

Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labor; and behold the number of your sheaves! And they shall be gathered [compare wĕʾāsĕpû] into the garners, that they are not wasted. Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together [yiqqābĕṣû⁶⁰] in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them; yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them. But behold, they are in the hands of the Lord of the harvest, and they are his; and he will raise them up at the last day. (Alma 26:5–7).

Ammon’s prophetic metaphor echoes the story of the patriarch Joseph:

And Joseph [yôsēp] dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more [wayyôsipû ʿôd]. And he said unto them . . . For, behold, we were binding sheaves [mĕʾallĕmîm ʾălummîm] in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. (Genesis 37:5–7)

The result was that “they hated him yet the more [wayyôsipû ʿôd] for his dreams, and for his words” (Genesis 37:8). Yet it was Joseph, the brother who was hated and sold, that “gathered up [wayyiqbōṣ] all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:48), a harvest (as in his dream) that saved the family (“house”) of Israel. Just as Joseph becomes the means of “gathering” into Egypt [Page 33](“And he put them all together [wayyeʾĕsōp] into ward three days,” Genesis 42:17) and saving the very brothers who hated him, Ammon and his brothers become the means of saving the very brothers who had so long hated them (i.e., the Lamanites): “For if we had not come up out of the land of Zarahemla, these our dearly beloved brethren, who have so dearly beloved us, would still have been racked with hatred against us, yea, and they would also have been strangers to God” (Alma 26:9); “But behold, my beloved brethren, we came into the wilderness not with the intent to destroy our brethren, but with the intent that perhaps we might save some few of their souls” (Alma 26:26). Ammon’s ancestor, Nephi, had also compared his life to that of Joseph and the “added” fraternal hatred that Joseph endured,⁶¹ especially when the latter implored his own soul, “Do not anger again [cf. ʾal-tôsîp, do not add to be angry] because of mine enemies” (2 Nephi 4:29). Nevertheless, he later lamented that his brothers’ “anger did increase [cf. yāsap or hôsîp] against me, insomuch that they did seek to take away my life” (2 Nephi 5:1–2).⁶² Ammon, however, rather than experiencing an increase of what had become generational fraternal hatred, witnessed what he seems to have recognized as another fulfillment of Joseph’s dream. Ammon, his brothers, and their missionary associates became a means of gathering, reuniting, and reconciling estranged descendants of Lehi and thus sundered branches of the house of Joseph (compare Mosiah 28:2), just as Joseph had done for the family of Israel, his father.

Rearward II: “Gathered Home” Under Divine Protection—Closing the Isaiah Frame

The final echoes of the name Joseph in terms of “gathering” verbs in Jesus’s discourse surface in 3 Nephi 21:26–29:

And then shall the work of the Father commence at that day, even when this gospel shall be preached among [Page 34]the remnant of this people. Verily I say unto you, at that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people, yea, even the tribes which have been lost, which the Father hath led away out of Jerusalem. Yea, the work shall commence among all the dispersed of my people, with the Father to prepare the way whereby they may come unto me, that they may call on the Father in my name. Yea, and then shall the work commence, with the Father among all nations in preparing the way whereby his people may be gathered home to the land of their inheritance. And they shall go out from all nations; and they shall not go out in haste, nor go by flight, for I will go before them, saith the Father, and I will be their rearward [*ûmĕʾassiphem or ûmĕʾassipām].

The scripture block concludes with Jesus again quoting Isaiah 52:12 and the phrase “I will be their rearward”—i.e., their mĕʾassip, the one “gathering in” the stragglers. Isaiah 58:8 offers the prophetic promise, “the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward” [yaʾaspekā]); that is, “the glory of the Lord shall gather you in.” Gardner writes, “Jesus concludes this section about the future—about how the gathering begins after the Book of Mormon’s coming forth—by again quoting Isaiah 52:12 (v.29).”⁶³ Thus, the reiteration of mĕʾassip—“rearward” or literally, “gatherer” is particularly poignant. Jesus could have chosen no better text or term to punctuate this prophecy than Isaiah 52:12 and mĕʾassip, especially when we consider its etiological association with the name Joseph.

The promise that the Lord will be the “rearward” of his covenant people is one that he has reiterated in modern revelation: “Behold, I will go before you and be your rearward; and I will be in your midst, and you shall not be confounded” (Doctrine and Covenants 49:27). Jesus Christ will ever be the mĕʾassip to the repentant remnant of the seed of Joseph and to all the house of Israel. Indeed, the Savior himself has been the one gathering Israel all along. The seed of Joseph among the Gentiles have been the instrument in his hand used for that purpose.

Variations on the statement “then shall the work of the Father commence,” apparently allude to the prophecy of Joseph in Egypt, as preserved in 2 Nephi 3:13: “And out of weakness he shall be made strong, [Page 35]in that day when my work shall commence among all my people, unto the restoring thee, O house of Israel, saith the Lord.” Nephi quotes or alludes to this prophecy at least twice: “then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel” (1 Nephi 14:17); “And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall commence his work among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, to bring about the restoration of his people upon the earth” (2 Nephi 30:8).

“That They May Come Again to the Remnant of This People”: Epilogue

In 3 Nephi 26, Mormon explains his limited inclusion of the quotations and interpretations of Isaiah, Micah, and Malachi that he chose to include. He designates them “the lesser part” of what Jesus taught: “And these things have I written, which are a lesser part of the things which he taught the people; and I have written them to the intent that they may be brought again [compare wayyôsîpû] unto this people, from the Gentiles, according to the words which Jesus hath spoken” (3 Nephi 26:8). As an echo of the name Joseph, Mormon’s statement recalls Jesus’s identification of his Lamanite-Nephite audience: “Ye are my disciples; and ye are a light unto this people, who are a remnant of the house of Joseph [yôsēp]” (3 Nephi 15:12).

Mormon’s statement also reveals how the Lord intended to do what he previously declared the Lord would do: “Yea, and surely shall he again [compare yôsîp] bring a remnant of the seed of Joseph [yôsēp] to the knowledge of the Lord their God” (3 Nephi 5:21–23). The words of Jesus, written in his record, would “be brought again” unto the Lamanite-Nephite “remnant of the seed of Joseph,” thus “again bring[ing] a remnant of the seed of Joseph to the knowledge of the Lord their God.”

Conclusion

Jesus declared to the Lamanites and Nephites at the temple in Bountiful: “ye are a light unto this people, who are a remnant of the house of Joseph” (3 Nephi 15:12). On this basis, Mormon contextualized and framed much of the content of 3 Nephi, beginning at 3 Nephi 5:21, 23–26 in terms of the name Joseph and the Joseph-related concepts of iterative, restorative divine action and gathering. Mormon included [Page 36]the Isaiah-based prophecies of Jesus that particularly hewed to these themes, with their echoes of harvest ingathering. Thus, Mormon used the name Joseph and its associated meanings to remind the latter-day remnant of Joseph, who would read his record, of their history and their special role in the Lord’s “set[ting] his hand again” to “gather” Israel. Mormon was saying in effect, “Remember who you are and what you are supposed to do! Just as Joseph of old ‘gathered’ Israel into Egypt and thus saved the family of Israel from death, you are to gather and save the family of Israel through Christ in the last days.” Moroni’s interpretation of Ether’s prophecy and typological interpretation of the Joseph story articulates a similar point (see Ether 13:2–12).

Mormon appears to have understood Jesus’s quotations, adaptations, and interpretations of Isaiah 52 given in his sermon at the temple in Bountiful, in terms of the fulfillment of Isaiah 11:11–12 and the additive restoration and gathering implied in the name Joseph. The two key Joseph-verbs yāsap (“do again”) and ʾāsap (“gather in”; see also qibbēṣ) from Isaiah 11:11–12 influenced his own prophecy in 3 Nephi 5:23–26, the latter being derived from the former. These prophecies with their promises of iterative divine restoration and gathering constitute an important key in understanding the message of 3 Nephi, especially 3 Nephi 11–26, and the Book of Mormon as a whole.

[Author’s Note: I would like to thank Suzy Bowen, Godfrey Ellis, Jeff Lindsay, Allen Wyatt, Victor Worth, Tanya Spackman, and Alan Sikes.]