Tag: Jacob

The priming and digging when the servants with the Lord of the vineyard are able to eventually rid the vineyard of the wild fruit is the beginning of the millennium where over time all the evil will be pruned according to the strength of the good fruit until there shall be no more wild fruit.

I have always thought of the olive tree as the people of the covenant but it occurs to me that the same allegory could apply to doctrines which become corrupt and spread among different people but which will eventually be bright back together while and pure after much work.

It is interesting that those which were planted in adverse locations thrived the best. Just like all the others they eventually became corrupted and had to be meticulously reclaimed but unlike the branch planted in the good spot of ground they initially bore entirely good fruit.

How did the Jews receive the message if Zenos when he compared them to an olive to which was withering away but who had a master willing to try extreme measures grafting in and plucking off branches in an effort to preserve the beloved tree?

The Jews rejected words of plainness and thus were given things they could not understand. This was regarding things of a doctrinal nature for the Jews but I wonder if it applies to things of a scientific and/or social nature today. Have we rejected simple things that could be understood and insisted on complex truths…

Jacob could say clearly that eventually the Lamanites would passes the land due to Nephite wickedness because he had seen in custody that it would happen. He probably knew as he spoke to the people that the end he was warning against was both inevitable and far in the future.

I think there are the groups that can be identified in those two phrases who didn’t particularly need the message Jacob was compelled to share. The pure in heart are those who are investigating. The broken heart has two references: those who have chosen to subject themselves to the Lord; those who have been spritually…

It seems clear from Jacob’s words that Nephi selected his heir not necessarily from among his own posterity. If that is a true understanding it would have set the people up to expect the king to decide his heir based in meeting rather than lineage.