The Land Forsaken

In 2 Nephi 17:16-24, Isaiah prophesied about the destruction of Ephraim and Syria. After the dual prophecy about a son being born, the Lord prophesied to Judah, “For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings” (v16). This “land” was Syria and Ephraim to the north of Jerusalem and they opposed Ahaz the kind of Judah. The student manual suggests, “The two kings in the north at that time were put to death by the Assyrians. The two nations of Ephraim and Syria would be destroyed by Assyria. Syria’s destruction came in 732 B.C. and Ephraim’s followed in 722 B.C.” According to Elder Holland, “the historic child of Isaiah’s time would be about 12 or 13 years old, the age set by Judaic law for moral responsibility.” This then would fulfill the prophecy concerning the son not knowing evil or good. I believe in the next verse the Lord shifted from talking to Judah/Ahaz and instead spoke to the northern kingdom: “The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, the king of Assyria.” This language is a little awkward and the NIV makes it clearer: “The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.” This is a prophecy of the impending destruction that Assyria would bring to Ephraim. The unprecedented days for Ephraim were not ones to be looked forward to.

                The subsequent verses then in this chapter describe that destruction that Isaiah was foretelling would come upon the northern kingdom. He continued, “And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.” I think the idea here is that he would bring destructive insects upon the land as part of the take over of Ephraim. Brigham Young used this verse in that sense: “If the Lord were to let loose our enemies upon us! Let Him hiss for the fly (Isa. 7:18) and whisper for the locust (Ps. 105:34) and they would come here by myriads and eat up every green thing there is in these mountains; and when they were destroyed, if the Lord so willed it, they could commence on the people and the cattle and devour every living creature on the land.” It may be as well that the fly and bee are simply symbolic of the soldiers he would bring from Assyria and Egypt to bring Ephraim into captivity. Isaiah also described how “in the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria” (v20). This was a sign of the captivity coming upon Israel. The manual comments, “Shaving the head and beard was customarily done to mourn a death in the family. The forcible shearing of a captive, however, insulted and identified the one in subjection.” Verse 22 seems out of place because it seems to connote having good things to eat: “And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk they shall give he shall eat butter; for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.” The abundance, though, appears to have been because so many people had been taken—there would be many “left in the land” so the honey and butter would be in abundance. The manual says this: “Butter and honey may seem like luxury items, but the land was laid waste by the Assyrians (see 2 Nephi 17:23). Consequently, the survivors had to live off the land like nomadic Bedouins with no crops to eat. Butter and honey likely referred to the curdled yogurt that would come from goats or sheep and any wild honey that could be found.” The prophecy was not a positive one, for “every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, which shall be for briers and thorns.” Where there were lots of vines and money (silverlings were small silver coins), there would only remain “briers and thorns.” The land would be taken over by soldiers and animals, no more a home to Israel: “With arrows and with bows shall men come thither, because all the land shall become briers and thorns. And all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns; but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and the treading of lesser cattle” (v24-25). Israel, who had fallen into wickedness and rejected the Lord their God, would lose what the Lord had given them on condition of their righteousness: the land. Their story is a warning to us that we will not have the protection and blessing of the Lord if we forsake Him and fail to live up to our covenants as His people.