They Shall Not Hurt Nor Destroy

I have written before about the importance of Isaiah 11 in the scriptures and how one of the evidences of that is the fact that Nephi quoted the chapter in full in 2 Nephi 21 and five of verses a second time (Isaiah 11:5-9) in 2 Nephi 30:11-15.  Those verses he quoted twice describe the kind of earth that will exist during the Millennium: “And then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb; and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling, together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den.”  Certainly we look forward to the fact that now dangerous animals will not be a threat to humans anymore—wolves and leopards and lions and snakes and bears will not kill anymore.  But surely that in and of itself cannot be why Nephi felt these verses were so important; Isaiah must have meant something deeper. 

The real message of these verses about animals in the Millennium is, I believe, is about humans: there will be no more human violence upon the earth.  Nephi prefaced the verses by saying that the Lord “will spare his people, yea, even if it so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire” (2 Nephi 30:10).  The wicked will be taken from the earth, and so there will be no more violence and hatred and dangerous human predators who cause so much suffering and heartache among men.  That this a day of peace is in our future is such a joyful message that it is no wonder that Nephi would write it twice.  He had experienced personal violence throughout his days as his brothers sought to kill him upon multiple occasions, causing him likely to always be a little worried about his own safety though he was amongst his family.  And then when their groups split, Nephi recorded that the violence eventually escalated: within forty years he recorded “we had already had wars and contentions with our brethren” (2 Nephi 5:34).  It is not surprising that he would cling to prophecies about how someday the violence would end and there would be peace and safety for the righteous on earth.  We too, amidst so much brutality among men in our day, await with eagerness that day when the Lord’s promise of peace on earth will be fulfilled: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.”

              And yet, we shouldn’t have to wait until the Millennium for this to be at least partially fulfilled in our own lives, for we can make our homes a safe haven amidst the dangerous world we live in.  We can seek to guide and direct our families so that our children will feel this about their homes: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in my home.”  Certainly that should be the case as it relates to violence and physical danger, but it should also be true in terms of an emotional and spiritual safe haven.  With all of the negative feedback and verbal abuse that the world gives us, our homes should be a place where that hurt ends.  Confidence and self-esteem may be attacked in the world, especially for children, but those should never be destroyed in our homes.  We can have the hope of the Millennium in our homes today as we seek to make them “full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”