Four Prophets of Jerusalem

It is interesting to consider the four main prophets whose writings we have who were alive at the time Lehi left Jerusalem shortly before the Babylonian Captivity. From the Book of Mormon we have Lehi, and from the Bible we have Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. What strikes me as instructive is how different their lives turned out. Each situation was very unique. Lehi and Nephi faced terrible trials as they crossed the Arabian desert and traveled to the promised land, but they did escape the destruction of Jerusalem and make it out alive. Lehi was able to rejoice with these words, “Behold, I have obtained a land of promise, in the which things I do rejoice; yea, and I know that the Lord will deliver my sons out of the hands of Laban, and bring them down again unto us in the wilderness” (1 Nephi 5:5). Jeremiah was rejected, imprisoned, and grieved greatly for the wickedness and the destruction of his people. We even have a word named after him in English, jeremiad, which means “a long, mournful complaint, or a literary work or speech that bitterly laments the moral state of society and often warns of impending doom or destruction.” In his book of Lamentations, Jeremiah wrote this describing his own sadness, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger” (Lamentations 1:12). He was ultimately forced into Egypt against his will and some traditions suggest that he was stoned to death there. His life certainly turned out very differently from that of Lehi’s, despite the fact that they were both prophets of the Lord from the same place and likely even knew each other. Nephi commented at one point, “For behold, the Spirit of the Lord ceaseth soon to strive with them; for behold, they have rejected the prophets, and Jeremiah have they cast into prison. And they have sought to take away the life of my father, insomuch that they have driven him out of the land” (1 Nephi 7:14). This suggests a familiarity with Jeremiah and perhaps even a connection between him and Lehi.

            Ezekiel and Daniel faced very different fates than that of Lehi and Jeremiah, for both of them were taken captive into Babylon. Ezekiel wrote his book from Babylon as an exiled priest, describing himself as being “among the captives by the river of Chebar” (Ezekiel 1:1). He faced very difficult situations and much suffering in his life. The Lord commanded him to lie on his left side for 398 days and on his right side for 40 days as a symbol of the iniquity and destruction of the people, including this instruction: “And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege” (Ezekiel 4:4-8). That could not have been very comfortable! At the same time he was rationed as to what foods he could eat as a sign of the famine the Lord would send upon the people (Ezekiel 5:16). His wife was also taken from him: “Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men” (Ezekiel 24:16-17). He could not even publicly mourn for her. Surely his life was full of sorrow, and he died in captivity before the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem. Daniel was also sent to Babylon, though his position seems to have been much better than that of Ezekiel’s. He gained favor with King Nebuchadnezzar, he was saved from the lion’s den under King Darius, and he seems to have held a very high status in Babylon. The Lord clearly blessed him there and he prospered despite the opposition he faced from others.

            My thought as I consider these four prophets from Jerusalem around 600 BC is that each had a very unique life. I do not know why they each turned out so differently, but clearly the Lord had a unique plan for each of these righteous servants. If he had known about Lehi’s departure, Jeremiah might have wondered why he couldn’t have been sent to a promised land. And Ezekiel may have questioned why he couldn’t have had the experiences of Daniel instead of suffering in the way that he did. And yet, clearly Daniel and Lehi had their own sufferings as well—each was very different. Their lives highlight the fact that our individual experiences are each unique, and we must trust in the Lord that He knows where He wants us personally to be. What matters most is that we each stay faithful to Him, as these four prophets, did no matter what trials come upon us.