The Articles of Faith / A Series of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

by James E. Talmage

7. When the journey following the exodus was nearing its close, as the Israelites were preparing to cross the Jordan and to take possession of the land of promise; when Moses, patriarch, law-giver, and prophet, was about to ascend Nebo, from which he was to look over the goodly land and then die there; he repeated the story of contrasted blessings and cursings which formed the condition of God's covenant with the people. "The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies"[921] was declared unto them; and again:—"The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee."[922] And yet further:—"The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favor to the young:[923] ... And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone."[924]

8. As the sacred record progresses, the fact is made plain that Israel had chosen the evil alternative, forfeiting the blessings and reaping the curses. When the son of sinful Jeroboam lay sick almost unto death, the troubled king sent his wife in disguise to Ahijah, the blind prophet of Israel, to inquire concerning the fate of the child. The prophet, seeing beyond the physical blindness of his old age, predicted the child's death and the overthrow of the house of Jeroboam; and declared further:—"For the Lord shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the Lord to anger."[925]

9. Through Isaiah the Lord justifies His judgment upon the people, likening them to an unprofitable vineyard,[926] which, in spite of protecting hedge and fullest care, had yielded out wild grapes, and which was fit only for spoliation; "therefore," He continues, "my people have gone into captivity."[927] And yet other tribulations were to follow, against which the people were warned lest they alienate themselves entirely from the God of their fathers:—"And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help?"[928] The prophet directs the attention of his erring people to the fact that their tribulations are from the Lord:—"Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers? did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he has poured upon them the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle."[929]

10. After the captivity of Ephraim, or the kingdom of Israel, specifically so called, the people of Judah needed yet other admonishings and threatenings. Through Jeremiah the fate of their brethren was brought to their remembrance;[930] then, as a result of their continued and increasing wickedness, the Lord said:—"And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim."[931] Their land was to be despoiled; all the cities of Judah were to be consigned to desolation,[932] and the people were to be scattered among the kingdoms of the earth.[933] Other prophets[934] revealed the Lord's words of anger and dire warning; and the Divine decree is recorded:—"I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve;"[935] and again: "I will sow them among the people, and they shall remember me in far countries."[936]

11. Book of Mormon Predictions.—The record made by that division of the house of Israel which took its departure from Jerusalem and made its way to the western hemisphere about 600 B. C., contains many references to the dispersions that had already taken place, and to the continuation of the scattering which was to the writers of the Book of Mormon yet future. In the course of the journey to the coast, the prophet Lehi, while encamped with his family and other followers in the valley of Lemuel on the borders of the Red Sea, declared what he had learned by revelation of the future "dwindling of the Jews in unbelief," of their crucifying the Messiah, and of their scattering "upon all the face of the earth."[937] He compared Israel to an olive tree,[938] the branches of which were to be broken off and distributed; and he recognized the exodus of his colony, and their journeying afar as an incident in the general plan of dispersion.[939] Nephi, the son of Lehi, also beheld in vision the scattering of the covenant people of God, and on this point added his testimony to that of his prophet-father.[940] He saw also that the seed of his brethren, subsequently known as the Lamanites, were to be chastened for their unbelief, and that they were destined to become subject to the Gentiles, and to be scattered before them.[941] Down the prophetic vista of years, he saw also the bringing forth of sacred records, other than those then known, "unto the convincing of the Gentiles, and the remnant of the seed of my brethren,[942] and also the Jews who were scattered upon all the face of the earth."[943]

12. After their arrival on the promised land, the colony led by Lehi received further information regarding the dispersion of Israel. The prophet Zenos,[944] quoted by Nephi, had predicted the unbelief of the house of Israel, in consequence of which these covenant ones of God were to "wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and a by-word, and be hated among all nations."[945] The brothers of Nephi, skeptical in regard to these teachings, asked whether the things of which he spake were to come to pass in a spiritual sense, or more literally; and were informed that "the house of Israel, sooner or later, will be scattered upon all the face of the earth, and also among all nations"; and further, in reference to dispersions then already accomplished, that "the more part of all the tribes have been led away; and they are scattered to and fro upon the isles of the sea";[946] and then, by way of prediction concerning further division and separation, Nephi adds that the Gentiles shall be given power over the people of Israel, "and by them shall our seed be scattered."[947] Though an ocean lay between the country of their nativity and the land to which they had been miraculously led, the children of Lehi learned through revelation by the mouth of Jacob, Nephi's brother, of the captivity of the Jews whom they had left at Jerusalem.[948] By Nephi they were further told of troubles then impending over the city of their birth,[949] and of a further dispersion of their kindred, the Jews.[950]

13. The Lamanites, a division of Lehi's colony, were also to be disrupted and scattered, as witness the words of Samuel, a prophet of that benighted people.[951] Nephi, the third prophet of that name, grandson of Helaman, emphasizes the dispersion of his people by declaring that their "dwellings shall become desolate."[952] Jesus Himself, after His resurrection, while ministering to the division of His flock on the western hemisphere, refers solemnly to the remnant of the chosen seed who are to be "scattered forth upon the face of the earth because of their unbelief."[953]

14. From these references it is plain that the followers of Lehi, including his own family, and Zoram,[954] together with Ishmael and his family,[955] from whom sprang the mighty peoples the Nephites, who suffered extermination because of their unfaithfulness, and the Lamanites, who, now known as the American Indians, have continued in troubled existence until the present day, were informed by revelation of the dispersion of their former compatriots in the land of Palestine, and of their own certain doom as a result of their disobedience to the laws of God. We have said that the transfer of Lehi and his followers from the eastern to the western hemisphere was itself a part of the general dispersion. It should be remembered that another colony of Jews came to the western hemisphere, the start dating about eleven years after the time of Lehi's departure. This second company was led by Mulek, a son of Zedekiah the last king of Judah; they left Jerusalem immediately after the capture of the city by Nebuchadnezzar, about 588 B. C.[956]

15. The Fulfillment of these Prophecies.—The sacred scriptures, as well as other writings for which the claim of direct inspiration is not asserted, record the literal fulfillment of prophecy in the desolation of the house of Israel. The dividing of the nation into the separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel led to the downfall of both. As the people grew in their disregard for the laws of their fathers, their enemies were permitted to triumph over them. After many minor losses in war, the kingdom of Israel met an overwhelming defeat at the hands of the Assyrians, in or about the year 721 B. C. We read that Shalmanezer IV, king of Assyria, besieged Samaria, the third and last capital of the kingdom,[957] and that after three years the city was taken by Sargon, Shalmanezer's successor. The people of Israel were carried captive into Assyria, and distributed among the cities of the Medes.[958] Thus was the dread prediction of Ahijah to the wife of Jeroboam fulfilled. Israel was "scattered beyond the river,"[959] probably the Euphrates, and from the time of this event the ten tribes are entirely lost to history.

16. The sad fate of the kingdom of Israel had some effect in partially awakening among the people of Judah a sense of their own impending doom. Hezekiah reigned as king for nine and twenty years, and proved himself a bright exception to a line of wicked rulers who had preceded him. Of him we are told that "he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord."[960] During his reign, the Assyrians under Sennacherib invaded the land; but the Lord's favor was in part restored to the people, and Hezekiah roused them to a reliance upon their God, bidding them take courage and fear not the Assyrian king nor his hosts, "for" said this righteous prince, "there be more with us than with him; With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles."[961] The Assyrian army was miraculously destroyed.[962] But Hezekiah died, and Manasseh ruled in his stead; this king did evil in the sight of the Lord,[963] and the wickedness of the people continued for half a century or more, broken only by the good works of one righteous king, Josiah.[964]