Kings and Queens

In Isaiah we have this prophecy referring to the last days: “Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.  And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers” (Isaiah 49:22-23).  I’ve thought a lot about this idea of kings being nursing fathers and queens being nursing mothers to the House of Israel wondering what it is that Isaiah was referring to.  Apparently this was a pretty important scripture for Nephi and Jacob as well for they quoted it several times.  Nephi spoke of it in the context of the House of Israel as a whole, whereas Jacob spoke about the Jews in particular.  

Nephi read all of Isaiah 49 to his brothers in 1 Nephi 21, and then he alluded to this idea saying that the House of Israel “shall be nursed by the Gentiles, and the Lord has lifted up his hand upon the Gentiles and set them up for a standard, and their children have been carried in their arms, and their daughters have been carried upon their shoulders” (1 Nephi 22:6).  Nephi seemed to be speaking about all of the House of Israel in this chapter and how they would be “scattered upon all the face of the earth, and also among all nations” (1 Nephi 22:3).  He spoke of the “mighty nation among the Gentiles” that would be raised up and scatter the Nephite seed and then “proceed to do a marvelous work among the Gentiles, which shall be of great worth unto our seed” (1 Nephi 22:8).  Here is then how I understand this prophecy: the kings and queens of the Gentiles are the missionaries that go forth from this Gentile nation to gather the lost sheep of the House of Israel and in particular the seed of the Nephites scattered across the Americas.  These missionaries that we send out today are Gentiles in the sense of being from a Gentile nation, not that they necessarily don’t have the blood of Israel in them.  That they are kings and queens is in the spiritual sense in the way that John wrote of Christ making “us kings and priests unto God” (and women queens and priestesses).  In other words, these are kings and queens in the temple sense, in the way that Elder Featherstone told the youth, “you… are also born to be kings and queens, priests and priestesses” (see here).  Every year thousands of these youth are given this promise of becoming kings and queens to God and sent forth to gather the House of Israel, metaphorically caring their converts on their shoulders as they give their whole souls to bringing the lost sheep of Israel to the covenant of baptism.     

Jacob quoted just those two verses from Isaiah 49 in his words that are found in 2 Nephi 6:6-7, but he commented on it in the context of the Jews specifically: “The nations of the Gentiles shall be great in the eyes of me, saith God, in carrying them forth to the lands of their inheritance.  Yea, the kings of the Gentiles shall be nursing fathers unto them, and their queens shall become nursing mothers” (2 Nephi 10:8-9).  To me the only way that makes sense to understand this based on how Jacob describes it is the literal gathering of the Jews to Israel.  It seems to me at least a possibility that these kings and queens of the Gentiles represented the rulers of the nations after World War II who were so instrumental in providing the way for the return of the Jews to the land of Palestine.  They figuratively carried the Jews on their shoulders as they tried to provide them a home after such an incomprehensible level of suffering among the Jews during World War II.

There are perhaps other ways yet still to understand these words of Isaiah, but these two ideas for interpreting the prophecy seems to make sense to me.  If there is a lesson in them for us, then I think it is that we need to strive be those nursing fathers and mothers who reach out to gather in the lost tribes of Israel.  It is our duty as members of the Church to seek to gather Israel through missionary work and the temple.