The Mountain of the Lord's House

One of the most famous prophecies from Isaiah is this description of the last days: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaiah 2:2).  Nephi repeated this prophecy when he quoted Isaiah in 2 Nephi 12:2, and Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, gave a similar prophecy: “But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it” (Micah 4:1). President Nelson said, “The Restoration fulfills many biblical prophecies. For example, Isaiah prophesied that the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains.”  So in what ways has this prophecy been fulfilled?    

               Many latter-day saints have understood the Salt Lake Temple specifically to be the fulfillment of that prophecy.  This is what Brigham Young alluded to when the work was begun on it.  On April 6, 1853, the First Presidency laid the southeast cornerstone of the Salt Lake Temple, and Brigham Young declared, “We dedicate this, the Southeast Corner Stone of this Temple, to the Most High God. May it remain in peace till it has done its work, and until He who has inspired our hearts to fulfil the prophecies of His holy Prophets, that the House of the Lord should be reared in the ‘Tops of the Mountains,’ shall be satisfied.”  In 1975 Elder Legrand Richards said, after quoting this passage from Isaiah, “This temple on this temple block is that house of the God of Jacob that our pioneer fathers started to build when they were a thousand miles from transportation, and it took them forty years to build it.”  Elder Hales referred to what the viewers of the 2002 Winter Olympics saw in this language: “‘The mountain of the house of the Lord,’ with its brightly lit spires, has been witnessed by 3.5 billion people around the world.” President Hinckley also quoted this passage from Isaiah and commented, “Ever since the Salt Lake Temple was dedicated, we have interpreted that scripture from Isaiah… as applying to this sacred house of the Lord.”  The Salt Lake Temple is indeed a house of the Lord that has been built over 4000 feet above sea level in the midst of majestic mountains. 

               President Hinckley also saw the conference center, across the street from the temple and finished in 2000, as a fulfillment of the scripture.  He said of the prophecy while speaking from the conference center, “I believe that prophecy applies to the historic and wonderful Salt Lake Temple. But I believe also that it is related to this magnificent hall. For it is from this pulpit that the law of God shall go forth, together with the word and testimony of the Lord.”  He alluded to this again when he said in 2003, “And of this place, since the day of its dedication, an ever-increasing number from across the world have said in effect, ‘Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He might teach us of His ways, that we might walk in His paths.’”  To me the exact Isaiah phrase actually makes more sense when interpreted as the conference center: the Salt Lake Temple is the “house of the Lord” and the conference center is its “mountain” that sits next to it.  And it is certainly a place where, as hundreds of thousands of latter-day saints have come to conference, “all nations” have flowed unto it.    

               Surely these are both valid fulfillments of this multi-dimensional prophecy, and we can no doubt think of it more generally as well.  As temples all over the world are built, they all become houses of the Lord where people can go to learn of His ways and walk in His paths.  How blessed we are to know where we can go to hear the word of the Lord in the last days!