Thy Walls Are Continually Before Me

Isaiah wrote this famous words from the Lord: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee” (Isaiah 49:15). The Book of Mormon’s version adds “O house of Israel” at the end of the sentence, clarifying that He is talking about His covenant people. This is helpful in understanding the next verse: “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” Here he was talking about all of His people, and I have often wondered what He meant by “walls” here. If we take the passage to be His words to each individual, then their walls could represent barriers that hold them back, suggesting that He constantly sees our challenges and trials. But a look at Bible Hub with other translations of this verse suggest that He was referring to the walls around Jerusalem. For example, the New Living Translation of this verse reads, “See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands. Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.” The Amplified Bible reads, “Indeed, I have inscribed [a picture of] you on the palms of My hands; Your city walls [Zion] are continually before Me.” These suggest that He was talking about the city of Jerusalem, and nearly every one of the translations actually uses the word walls, indicating that the original indeed used the word for physical walls. So how might that apply to us today to know that He has the walls of Jerusalem always before His eyes?

               Perhaps one interpretation of this verse is that the Lord sees the big picture all at once and knows in our lives the end from the beginning. The walls are what surround the city, and so if you can picture all the walls of a city at once then you can see the whole thing. For us that would mean looking down on it from above at a level zoomed out enough to include the entirety of the city. If He sees our walls—they are continually before Him—then perhaps that means He sees everything about us all at once, including our past and future. As the Lord declared in one revelation, “[I am] The same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes; I am the same which spake, and the world was made, and all things came by me” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:2-3). Everything past, present, and future is before His eyes. Alma put it this way: “All is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men” (Alma 40:8). He sees far more than we can and because of that we can put our trust in Him.

            Another verse about the walls of Jerusalem says this: “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence” (Isaiah 62:6). So perhaps another interpretation of the promise of the Lord that our walls are continually before Him is that the protection He provides—particularly through prophets who are like watchmen upon the walls—is always present. He will always provide us with walls to keep us safe, and He has placed messengers who can see afar off upon those walls to help us to stay safe within them. This fits with the meaning of this verse: “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks” (Isaiah 26:1). The Lord will give us a figurative strong city—surrounded by walls and bulwarks—to help us to obtain salvation through the Savior. And that path back to Him is indeed always before His eyes and should be before ours as well.