He Will Bring Them out of Captivity

George Reynolds, Janne M. Sjodahl

The covenant people will again be brought out of captivity and be gathered in the lands of their inheritance. According to the law of God, the lands once allotted to his people can never be held, legally, by aliens. They are to revert, every fifth year, to the original heirs.

All this, according to Nephi, is predicted in the preceding chapters of the Prophet Isaiah.

America, and especially the United States of America, is God's great "melting pot." Here, the nations have met around the Constitution and under the aegis of the Starry Banner. Here the Lord, by his own processes of melting and alloying has demonstrated the possibility of producing a super-nation, as a pattern and a standard-bearer to all the world. Here, during the last one hundred years, more than thirty-seven millions of God's children have met. They have come as immigrants from all parts of the world. And now, the United States is the grandest possible monument in human history to the creative and regenerative power, to the honor and glory of the Redeemer of Man, the Mighty One of Israel.

The central thought of this part of the discourse of Nephi is the second coming of our Lord. He enumerates some of the events that are to precede his advent and the Millennium. (1) Certain nations connected with the "abominable church" are to be cursed with "war among themselves," until they are "drunken with their own blood." (v. 13) (2) Nations will war against the house of Israel, or against Zion, shall be turned one against another and be destroyed. (vv. 14, and 19) (3) Satan shall have no power over the hearts of men. (v. 15) (4) The fulness of wrath is to be poured out upon the wicked. (vv. 16 and 18) (5) Then, a prophet, like Moses, viz., the Holy One of Israel, will be raised up. (vv. 20-23) (6) The Lord will reign. (vv. 24-28) All this is to be understood "according to the flesh," that is to say, literally. (v. 27)

Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 1

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