General Comments on 2 Nephi 11-24

     In these chapters Nephi quotes Isaiah 2-14, providing a
brief explanation of why he is quoting them in ch. 11.  
     In selecting these chapters, why does Nephi omit these
chapters and exclude others?   Nephi would have stopped at ch. 14
and not included subsequent chapters because Isa. 15-23 are a
series of curses hurled at Gentile nations neighboring Israel. 
As such, the material there is less relevant to the Lehites in
the New World.  
     Nephi probably omits Isa. 1 as it is a summary of the entire
book of Isaiah.  Nephi's present intent is to focus specifically
on the interaction between Israel and her Gentile nations by
likening it to his descendants and their future interaction with
Gentiles.  He also draws on messianic texts in those chapters to
emphasize their belief in Christ as the Redeemer.  Isaiah 1
doesn't discuss either of these topics, suggesting this the
reason Nephi omits it.
     Nephi's omission of Isa. 1 has caused some LDS authors to
speculate the text was either a later addition or was placed
elsewhere, perhaps last, and subsequently moved to the front of
the book later by someone other than Isaiah.  I don't see any
internal evidence to support these ideas.  The fact that Isa. 1
summarizes the rest of the book suggests it was deliberately
intended as an introduction.


Comments on 2 Nephi 11

v1  Nephi lets the reader know that the preceding sermon was just
a sample of Jacob's preaching.

v2-8  After including a couple of chapters of Isaiah in Jacob's
sermon (cf. ch. 7-8) Nephi decides to add some more Isaiah
because his "soul delighteth in his words" (v. 2).  Why does his
soul delight in these words?  Because he can liken them to his
people and because Isaiah also has seen Christ the Redeemer (v.
3), as has Nephi and Jacob (v. 4).  He wants his descendants to
know these two things (v. 2).
     Nephi then elaborates on these two points in an A-B-B-A
fashion:

     4  Behold, my soul delighteth in proving unto my people
     the truth of the coming of Christ; for, for this end
     hath the law of Moses been given; and all things which
     have been given of God from the beginning of the world,
     unto man, are the typifying of him.

          5  And also my soul delighteth in the
          covenants of the Lord which he hath made to
          our fathers; yea, 

          my soul delighteth in his grace, and in his
          justice, and power, and mercy in the great
          and eternal plan of deliverance from death.

     6  And my soul delighteth in proving unto my people
     that save Christ should come all men must perish. 7 
     For if there be no Christ there be no God; and if there
     be no God we are not, for there could have been no
     creation.  But there is a God, and he is Christ, and he
     cometh in the fulness of his own time.

Nephi starts each refrain with "my soul delighteth in..." as a
clear rhetorical marker.  Given these two points of interest we
should be looking for material related to them in the subsequent
chapters of Isaiah quoted by Nephi.
     Nephi closes the introduction by stating those of his
descendants who read this should lift up their heads and rejoice,
as should all men, because all people can liken them to
themselves (v. 8).  The reader of these chapters of Isaiah should
rejoice over the same two points that delight Nephi, that Christ
is the Redeemer and they are covenant Israel.

v7  This verse is something of a restate of Lehi's argument in
2:11-13, but its primary intention is to parallel the v. 4 Law of
Moses references to "all things...from the beginning of the
world".  Also, the Creation and divine Creatorship of the Lord is
a pivotal subject of Isa. 40-47.



Copyright © 2001 by S. Kurt Neumiller <kurtn@cybcon.com>.  All rights 
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