4-6 I considered that mine afflictions were great above all…for I had beheld their fall, all previous dispensations, while yet having the gospel and trying to spread it, ended in apostasy (see Moro 9:6). We take for granted that we are the only dispensation that will not dwindle in unbelief, but continue to grow as the stone cut out of the mountain until it fills the whole earth (Dan 2:45) and usher in the Savior’s millennial reign. What would it have been like trying to live with faith and hope when you knew that your dispensation would end in apostasy, and your posterity dwindle into war and destruction?
There would have been only one way to hope, and that would have been to see the LAST DAYS, when your descendants would be restored. Thus Nephi’s vision didn’t end with apostasy, but continued to the restoration and the millennial reign (though he was cut off from telling us about it). The prophet Joseph Smith wrote,
“The building up of Zion is a cause that has interested the people of God in every age; it is a theme upon which prophets, priests and kings have dwelt with peculiar delight; they have looked forward with joyful anticipation to the day in which we live; and fired with heavenly and joyful anticipations they have sung and written and prophesied of this our day; but they died without the sight; we are the favored people that God has made choice of to bring about the Latter-day glory; it is left for us to see, participate in and help to roll forward the Latter-day glory, ‘the dispensation of the fullness of times, when God will gather together all things that are in heaven, and all things that are upon the earth, even in one,’ when the Saints of God will be gathered in one from every nation, and kindred, and people, and tongue, when the Jews will be gathered together into one…[it is] a work that God and angels have contemplated with delight for generations past; that fired the souls of the ancient patriarchs and prophets; a work that is destined to bring about the destruction of the powers of darkness, the renovation of the earth, the glory of God, and the salvation of the human family.” (HC 4:609–10)
3, 8, 11 hard to be understood, save a man should inquire of the Lord…have ye inquired of the Lord? . . . ask me in faith, believe that ye shall receive, surely these things shall be made known unto you, Nephi knows this by experience (1 Ne 10:17 – 11:1). Most likely God purposefully teaches in a way that requires effort on our part to understand the teaching, just as Jesus taught in parables both to conceal truths and to reveal them, and at differing levels dependent on the listeners’ own preparation (Matt 13:10-17). So what prevented Laman and Lamuel, and prevents you and me for that matter, to inquire? Is it simply that we lack faith, not “believing that you’ll receive” (v11; Mark 11:24; James 1:5)?
3,4,11 hardness of their hearts, used 3x in these verses. What makes a heart hard? When have you been hard-hearted? Why does being hard of heart prevent us from receiving answers to our prayers?
12-20 the house of Israel was compared unto an olive-tree, we’ll address this in Jacob 5. The basic idea is that when olive trees stop producing good fruit, one way to revive the plant is to cut off branches and plant them elsewhere, as well as graft in other branches to the mother tree. This process can restore the good fruit. So the plant is a perfect symbol for Israel, who, when gone bad, would be scattered and then later grafted back in, all with the hope that the children of Israel rise up in goodness and strength. In the metaphor, the “grafting in” happens in the latter days, or the “fulness of the Gentiles” (v12), when, through the Restoration, many “shall come to a knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved” (v14).
18, wherefore, our father hath not spoken of our seed alone, but also of all the house of Israel, while Lehi prophecies of his seed and their restoration to the true knowledge of the gospel of the Messiah, he is also speaking of all of Israel. Through the Restoration, the gospel will be brought to all, even all the world. And this is according to the covenant to Abraham.
21-25 What meaneth this thing which our father saw in a dream?, I won’t write more about the tree and the rod as we’ve covered that earlier in chapters 8 & 11. These are beautiful explanations Nephi gives, however, and worth reading slowly and contemplatively.
26-36 What meaneth the river of water which our father saw?, filthiness, justice, hell. What is striking here is that Laman and Lemuel can’t get off this topic. This is what they focus on. Contrarily, Lehi was so focused on the Tree that he didn’t even realize the river was filthy (v27). Where is our focus?
35 the final state of the souls of men is to dwell in the kingdom of God, or to be cast out, scripture sets up dichotomies to make a point, though one idea laced throughout the Restoration is that there are many heavens, and many states of light and darkness, “as one star differs from another star in glory” (D&C 76:98).
Holy Envy 