Ride Upon the High Places

Isaiah gave us an interesting promise about the blessings of keeping the Sabbath today.  He wrote, “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight… Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father” (Isaiah 58:13-14).  I’ve always wondered what he meant when he said that we would “ride upon the high places,” and my sense is that the promise is similar to being able to “prosper in the land” as the Book of Mormon frequently states.  Isaiah used the same phrase in another scripture which speaks of the blessings of the gospel: “That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places” (Isaiah 49:9).  This seems to suggest the imagery of flocks being able to get the best food in the highest places which seems to support the idea that the Sabbath Day promise is one related to material blessings.  The promises of the Lord in the Doctrine and Covenants related to the Sabbath Day also focus on temporal blessings that will come for those who honor the Sabbath: “Verily I say, that inasmuch as ye do this, the fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the trees and walketh upon the earth” (D&C 59:16).  As a friend once pointed out, it sounds like the Lord is promising us monkeys for honoring the Sabbath, but at any rate clearly there are physical blessings for keeping the Sabbath Day holy. 

               Perhaps we can understand the “high places” mentioned by Isaiah in his promise in another light as well, though.  As the student manual suggests, “the high places of the earth, have long been the site of revelation and communion with God,” and so perhaps Isaiah was also trying to portray a sense of spiritual closeness with God that will come keeping the Sabbath Day.  We know of many examples in the scriptures of great revelation coming in high mountains.  Moses was in “an exceedingly high mountain” when he “saw God face to face” and communed with Him (Moses 1:1).  Nephi was taken by the Spirit of the Lord “into an exceedingly high mountain” when he had his great vision of the history and future of the world (1 Nephi 11:1).  The Brother of Jared was in “the mount Shelem” which was named “because of its exceeding height” when he had his incredible vision of the Savior (Ether 3:1).  Elijah escaped from those who wanted to kill him in Israel and went “unto Horeb the mount of God.”  It was there that he communed with God and was told, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord” and heard the Lord in a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:8, 11-12).  Clearly the mountain in ancient times was a place of revelation for the prophets, and so perhaps part of what Isaiah was promising us was to have more revelation from the Lord (i.e. symbolically be in the “high places” more often).  Surely that is one of the blessings of keeping the Sabbat day holy, and we obtain both spiritual and temporal blessing a we turn away our foot from doing our own pleasure on His day.