“And He Will Lift Up an Ensign to the Nations from Far”

D. Kelly Ogden, Andrew C. Skinner

Hope is pronounced (“in that day,” the last days).

Ensign means “standard” or “banner,” something to rally around. The gospel and the Book of Mormon are to hiss forth (2 Nephi 29:2). “They [the missionaries] shall come with speed swiftly.” Does sleeping without removing one’s clothes suggest travel by jet aircraft?

For hissing forth through missionary work, see Doctrine and Covenants 115:5–6. Zion will be a refuge from the storm (compare Isaiah 4:5–6).

Elder LeGrand Richards interpreted these verses to mean the following: “Since there were no such things as trains and airplanes in that day, Isaiah could hardly have mentioned them by name, but he seems to have described them in unmistakable words. How better could ‘their horses’ hoofs be counted like flint, and their wheel like a whirlwind’ than in the modern train? How better could ‘Their roaring … be like a lion’ than in the roar of the airplane? Trains and airplanes do not stop for night. Therefore, was not Isaiah justified in saying ‘none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken’? With this manner of transportation the Lord can really ‘hiss unto them from the end of the earth,’ that ‘they shall come with speed swiftly.’” 42

Verse by Verse: The Book of Mormon: Vol. 1

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