A popular real-estate aphorism states that three things matter in property: location, location, location.[1] The same can be said for the worship of Jehovah in ancient Israel and Judah—the location of worship was just as important as the rituals and ordinances performed. Ezekiel and Jacob represent a privileged place for comparison on the religious ideas facing Israel in the period just after the Judahite monarchy because they are roughly contemporaneous individuals reacting to similar cultural and religious impetuses. What is intriguing for us in our modern study of the scriptures is that they respond to those impetuses in different ways. By comparing and contrasting Ezekiel and Jacob’s approach to worshipping the God of Israel while not living in the land of Israel, we see two distinctive responses to the trauma of exile from two disparate prophetic voices. In this paper, I will first briefly discuss the background of Jacob and Ezekiel. I will then analyze 2 Nephi 6–10, with an emphasis on 2 Nephi 10, and Ezekiel’s temple vision in Ezekiel 44–48. Ezekiel’s vision is one of eschatological return, while Jacob’s response is one of adaptation to a new land.

Ezekiel and Jacob

As we begin this comparison, it will be helpful to explore why Ezekiel and Jacob serve as a useful point of comparison.

According to the book that bears his name, Ezekiel was a priest who lived among the Judahite exiles in Babylon on the banks of the river Chebar (Ezekiel 1:1–3).[2] Along with Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel is one of the major literary prophets.[3] Ezekiel’s prophecy is framed as a series of visions.[4] Ezekiel 1:1 states, “As I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.” Ezekiel has a vision of Jehovah supported by his cherubim throne (incidentally providing us with one of the fullest descriptions of ancient cherubim)[5] in Ezekiel 1, a vision of the glory of God leaving the temple in Ezekiel 10, and a vision of a rebuilt temple in Ezekiel 44–48. This is interspersed with the usual calls to repentance and covenant loyalty that are characteristic of prophetic literature.

Locative Religion

The theological difficulties that Ezekiel and Jacob seem to be facing are based in a religious concept that religion and deities were rooted in specific places. The redoubtable Jonathan Z. Smith characterized this kind of religious notion as “locative.”[6] This concept had very strong connections within the ancient world. Smith specifically highlights the ancient Mediterranean as one place where a locative perspective was the norm (despite some of the claims from earlier scholarship, which argued it was a universal notion).[7] A great example of this perspective from the Bible comes in the story of Naaman the Aramean, who is healed from his leprosy by Elisha (see 2 Kings 5:8–19). After being healed the non-Israelite, Naaman asks Elisha, “Shall there not then, I pray thee, be given to thy servant two mules’ burden of earth? for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord” (v. 17). Naaman feels the need to bring back dirt from the land of Israel, because he does not believe it is otherwise possible to worship Jehovah in another place.

The concept of locative religion ties strongly to ancient notions of the temple. In ancient Near Eastern temple ideology, the temple served as the house of its god.[8] Connected to this idea is the idea that the ancient Near East gods were seen as the protectors of the nation and city in which their temple was situated.[9] We have numerous texts from the ancient Mediterranean where a victory of one nation or city over another was framed as a contest between gods, where the victorious army was the result of one god’s victory over another. For example, the inscription of the Moabite king Mesha states, “And Kemosh[10] said to me: ‘Go, take Nebo from Israel!’ . . . and I fought against it from the break of dawn until noon. . . . And from there, I took th[e ves]sels of YHWH, and I hauled them before the face of Kemosh.”[11] By placing the vessels of Jehovah in the presence of Kemosh, Mesha is giving Jehovah’s spoils to the god Kemosh.

In the Hebrew Bible, a similar principle is seen in an exchange between the Neo-Assyrian official Rab-Shakeh[12] and the city of Jerusalem. As recorded in 2 Kings 18:27–37, the city of Jerusalem is under siege, and Rab-Shakeh is delivering a speech designed to demoralize the people of Jerusalem and push for the surrender of the city.[13] He states, “Hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?” (vv. 32–33). Rab-Shakeh then lists a number of nations that were unable to be defended by their gods. Particularly compelling in this argument from the ancient Judahite perspective is Rab-Shakeh’s final question: “Have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand?” (v. 34). Samaria was the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, whose national God was Jehovah, the same as the national God of Jerusalem. Rab-Shakeh’s point is not just that none of the other gods were able to rescue their people, but specifically that Jehovah was unable to rescue the kingdom of Israel.

Jehovah does save Judah and destroys the besieging Neo-Assyrian empire (see 2 Kings 19:35–37). However, this victory is not repeated a generation later, when Jerusalem is sacked by the Neo-Babylonians (2 Kings 8–17).[14] Because of the ancient Near Eastern ideology that framed this military loss as a failure of Jehovah’s protection, the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem could have precipitated a theological crisis centered on the notion of “How?”[15] This question—How could Jerusalem have been destroyed?—undergirds many Old Testament writings, especially in working out the solution to this singularly traumatic event.

Destruction of the Temple in the Book of Mormon

The destruction of the Jerusalem temple looms large in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon begins in the “first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah” (1 Nephi 1:4). Zedekiah was the last king to reign over the kingdom of Judah before the sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. He begins his reign in 597 BC, and the temple is destroyed in 586 BC.[16] The Book of Mormon begins in this time period, in the milieu of Neo-Babylonian hegemony over Judah, and this disruption undergirds the religious experience of the Lehites. In Lehi’s initial preaching in 1 Nephi 1:13, he prophesies of the destruction of Jerusalem.[17] One of the complaints Laman and Lemuel have against their father is that they do not “believe that Jerusalem, that great city, could be destroyed according to the words of the prophets” (1 Nephi 2:13).[18] Lehi receives visionary confirmation of the destruction of Jerusalem in 2 Nephi 1:4, validating his choice to leave Jerusalem but also illustrating how large the destruction of Jerusalem loomed in the life of the early Lehites. The destruction of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem temple validated their position and Lehi’s visionary experiences.

The destruction of Jerusalem especially fed into the experiences of Jacob. He ends his record “by saying that the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore, we did mourn out our days” (Jacob 7:26). On some level, this summary seems to be Jacob talking primarily about himself, rather than about his people as a whole. Although Lehi and his family did not go into exile along with others living in Judah and Jerusalem, it is clear from Jacob’s words that he views the Lehite experience in terms of exile. They are “wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem,” leaving them a “lonesome and a solemn people.” Indeed, it is particularly compelling that although Jacob has never known Jerusalem, he identifies as being “cast out from Jerusalem.” Although the Nephites do not focus much on the cultural memory of the destruction of Jerusalem, it looms large in the theological and doctrinal thought-world of Jacob and thus informs his teaching.

Place and Location in Jacob’s Teachings

Nephi tasks Jacob with reading and commenting on a few chapters from what is now Isaiah 49:22 through Isaiah 52:2.[19] This section of Isaiah imparts messages of hope to a scattered Israel.[20] It also seems to speak specifically to those who are far from their homes in the land of Israel. This is a connection that Jacob makes explicitly. He begins by quoting Isaiah 49:22–23: “Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.” Jacob then tells his listeners, “the Lord has shown me that those who were at Jerusalem, from whence we came, have been slain and carried away captive” (2 Nephi 6:8). Thus Jacob begins his discussion on these verses with a specific acknowledgement of the Babylonian exile. Perhaps even more tellingly, he was granted a specific vision by the Lord about the exile, showing that it is something the Nephites need to be aware of in their promised land. In some ways this sets up a contrast between the Judahites in the Babylonian exile, who will be able to return to the Holy Land, and Jacob’s own people, who will not.

In fact, immediately after noting that the Lord showed him that those living at Jerusalem will be carried away into captivity in Babylon, Jacob says, “Nevertheless, the Lord has shown unto me that they should return again” (2 Nephi 6:9). So the revelation about the exile is immediately followed with a prophecy about the return from exile. Although the Judahites have been displaced, Jacob sees them returning to their original place. Jacob is aware, of course, that this will not be the fate of the Nephites,[21] as they have been brought into what essentially counts as a new “promised land.”[22] The awareness that the Nephites will not “return again” to Jerusalem informs much of the rest of Jacob’s doctrinal position in his writings. The Nephites will need to find meaning in the land to which the Lord has brought them.

Jacob then quotes the lengthy passage from Isaiah, noted above. In 2 Nephi 8 // Isaiah 51, the prophet Isaiah states:

For the Lord shall comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation; for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light for the people. My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arm shall judge the people. The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust. (2 Nephi 8:3–5)

The prophet here promises redemption to those who are away from the land, promising a return to an Edenic state and to a proper living of God’s law. Of particular interest to Jacob is the idea that the “isles” will trust in Jehovah’s arm.

In 2 Nephi 9–10, Jacob discusses and explains the Isaiah passages to his people. In 2 Nephi 9, he connects salvation through Jesus Christ with “the covenants of the Lord that he has covenanted with all the house of Israel” (2 Nephi 9:1). The word all indicates that Jacob has in view not just the Lehites but also Israelites all over the world. Jacob’s notion has a somewhat broader “location” in mind for this locative religion. He references the prophecies given to the “Jews” (a term that, in Jacob’s ancient context, refers primarily to the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah), who will “be gathered home to the lands of their inheritance, and shall be established in all their lands of promise” (v. 2). Here Jacob again notes that, unlike the Nephites, those who remained in Judah and Jerusalem will be returned back to their ancestral lands in the Holy Land.

After this note, Jacob shifts his focus to give his famous sermon on redemption and resurrection through Jesus. In many ways, however, he ends this sermon on a similar note to his beginning, noting that the Lord has promised the Nephites that their “seed shall not be utterly destroyed, . . . but that he would preserve them; and in future generations they shall become a righteous branch unto the house of Israel” (2 Nephi 9:53). For Jacob this introduces a new topic, one that is important enough for him to hold off on the complete discussion until the following day: what it means for the Nephites to be a “righteous branch.”

The Righteous Branch and the Isles of the Sea

Although 2 Nephi 9 is one of the most doctrinally rich chapters for Latter-day Saints reading the Book of Mormon as “Another Testament of Jesus Christ,” 2 Nephi 10 is really where Jacob picks up the threads about the preservation of the Nephites and especially their relationship to the land. Jacob begins 2 Nephi 10 (which does have a chapter break in the first edition of the Book of Mormon) by stating, “And now I, Jacob, speak unto you again, my beloved brethren, concerning this righteous branch of which I have spoken” (v. 1). Jacob is concerned about what it means to be a branch, and he notes that the prophecies are “promises unto us according to the flesh” (v. 2), suggesting that these prophecies are not focused on an unspecified spiritual fulfillment but rather on a direct and specific fulfillment relating to the people he is addressing.

Jacob first addresses the part of Israel left in the Holy Land—the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah who were carried away into captivity during the period after his family left Jerusalem, who he calls “Jews.”[23] Jacob states Jehovah’s promise that they will “be restored in the flesh, upon the earth, unto the lands of their inheritance” (2 Nephi 10:7). He notes that this gathering will come from “the isles of the sea,” being carried by the Gentiles, a dual reference to Isaiah 49:23 and 51:5 (both of which are part of Jacob’s earlier lengthy quotation from Isaiah).

At this point, Jacob uses God’s words: “But behold, this land . . . shall be a land of thine inheritance” (2 Nephi 10:10). God explicitly connects the land that the Nephites are now living in as a “land of inheritance.” This idea seems to have its roots in concepts of land and inheritance that derive from the Abrahamic Covenant and the promises made to the matriarchs and patriarchs in Genesis,[24] and it also connects to the fundamentally locative perspective discussed earlier in this paper. For the Nephites, the focus of the location is being shifted from Jerusalem and the ancient lands of promise to the new land they now live in. Jacob continues to speak in the voice of God, saying, “Wherefore, I will consecrate this land unto thy seed, and them who shall be numbered among thy seed, forever, for the land of their inheritance; for it is a choice land” (v. 19). This promise of a new land causes Jacob to observe to his audience, “We are not cast off; nevertheless, we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea” (v. 20). Jacob explicitly states that the Nephites were driven from their previous land, but being brought to a new land means that they are not “cast off.”[25]

At the end of verse 20, Jacob notes that the Nephites are on “an isle of the sea,” again alluding to Isaiah 51:5.[26] The idea of the isles of the sea is central to Jacob’s discussion here—the Lehites have travelled over the sea to their “better land,” making their new home an “isle of the sea.” Jacob’s words act as an ingenious response to the predicament created by a locative religion. Much of the thrust of the scriptures in the brass plates focuses on the return of Israel to the land of Israel (something that Jacob himself also addresses, and something that will be the primary theme in Ezekiel, as we shall see). Jacob uses Isaiah to shift the focus to those people who are “on the isles of the sea” (that is, those of God’s covenant people who are no longer in the traditional land of inheritance). It is clear that Jacob has in view not just his own people. He notes, “Great are the promises of the Lord unto them that who are upon the isles of the sea; wherefore as it says isles, there must needs be more than this, and they are inhabited also by our brethren” (2 Nephi 10:21). Jacob here interprets Isaiah’s plural to mean that the Nephites are not alone, and that there are numerous Israelites whom God “has led away from time to time” (v. 22). For Jacob, this is a cause for cheer, because it means that the Nephites are not unique in their predicament nor in their solution. Because it is the Lord who has led them out of their land, and who remembers them, being removed from the land does not remove them from God’s notice. Jacob stresses that this is true for the Nephites as well as for other Israelites that Jehovah took away from the original land promised to their ancestors.[27]

Ezekiel and God’s Presence

From Jacob’s assurance that all of God’s people are remembered, no matter where they end up, we turn to Ezekiel, who addresses the difficulties arising from the shattering of the locative focus of ancient Israelite religion in distinctive ways. The first passage in Ezekiel that bears examination here is Ezekiel 10. This chapter presents a locative but movable view of Jehovah’s relationship to his house, which provides a distinctive solution to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.[28] The image in Ezekiel is based around the presence of cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. According to the biblical account, the ark was a gilded box with a special covering placed upon it—called the “mercy seat” in the King James Version of the Bible, although the Hebrew uses the word kapporet, which means something like “cover.”[29] The Old Testament records the command to make this covering in the following manner:

And thou shalt make a mercy seat [kapporet] of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat [kapporet]. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat [kapporet] shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat [kapporet] with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. (Exodus 25:17–20)

The presence of the cherubim on the mercy seat explains the liturgical name of the Ark according to 1 Samuel, which is the “Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah of the [Heavenly] Armies, who sits [or dwells] between the cherubim” (1 Samuel 4:4; translation mine). The cherubim here supported Jehovah’s throne, such that Jehovah is often described in the Old Testament as sitting between the cherubim on the mercy seat.[30] Biblical scholar Tryggve Mettinger observes, “the most important function [of the cherubim] is that of bearers of Yahweh’s throne.”[31] The vision recorded in Ezekiel 10 is based on this idea of the cherubim supporting the throne of God.

The other ancient idea that is necessary to understand in connection with this chapter in Ezekiel is the Old Testament notion of the glory of God. This idea appears all over scripture and refers to Jehovah’s visible presence, often characterized in scripture as a cloud or smoke.[32] In the beginning of his vision, Ezekiel sees the glory of Jehovah, which fills the entire temple like a cloud (see Ezekiel 10:4; compare Isaiah 6:1–4). God’s presence in the temple is marked by the presence of his glory, which is between the cherubim in Ezekiel 10:4–7.

It is at this point that the book of Ezekiel makes its boldest visionary claim. Ezekiel relates:

The cherubs ascended; those were the creatures that I had seen by Chebar Canal . . . Then the Presence [KJV: glory] of the Lord left the platform of the house and stopped above the cherubs. And I saw the cherubs lift their wings and rise from the earth . . . and they stood at the entrance of the eastern gate of the House of the Lord, with the presence of the God of Israel above them. They were the same creatures that I had seen below the God of Israel at the Chebar Canal; so now I knew that they were cherubs. (Ezekiel 10:16, 18–20, NJPS translation)

In Ezekiel’s vision, Jehovah’s glory (that is, his visible presence) mounts on his cherub chariot throne and leaves the temple of Jerusalem. Both the glory and the cherubim were already seen by Ezekiel on the banks of Chebar, as described in Ezekiel 1. Ezekiel’s explanation for why he can see a vision of Jehovah, his glory, and his chariot throne is remarkable from the ancient perspective of the locative nature of religion. Ezekiel explains that the reason he could see this vision of Jehovah from his standpoint in exile is that Jehovah has left his house in Jerusalem. This powerful statement shows Ezekiel’s view of the corrupt nature of the Jerusalem temple (which he describes in detail in Ezekiel 8).[33] The temple in Jerusalem is no longer an appropriate place for Jehovah to dwell, so he leaves it behind to destruction and settles his presence among the exiles living in Babylon.

This is Ezekiel’s response to the question of how the Neo-Babylonians could destroy the temple. Jehovah had rejected his holy house and abandoned it, leaving it ripe for destruction. The divine presence then traveled to the Jews who were living in the Babylonian exile. Ezekiel’s vision is still fundamentally locative, but it shows that the location is movable. This means that location only matters insofar that Jehovah himself makes the location. This perspective was presaged in the idea that Jehovah is the God of the entire earth (see Exodus 19:5). The whole earth belongs to Jehovah, so he is able to choose what places are holy and what places are not.

Ezekiel and His Temple Vision

Ezekiel’s vision of Jehovah leaving his temple is not his only visionary experience with the Lord and his temple. In Ezekiel 40–48, Ezekiel is shown a vision of a restored and rebuilt temple in the “land of Israel” (Ezekiel 40:2).[34] Ezekiel also sees the city surrounding this temple, but never identifies this city as Jerusalem; in fact, Ezekiel relates the name of the city as “The Lord is there” (Ezekiel 48:35). Jerusalem would likely be assumed by all of Ezekiel’s hearers, but by not mentioning that city specifically, Ezekiel broadens the message of this vision.[35] As noted, Ezekiel 40:2 places this temple and its city in the land of Israel, which means that it is still connected with ancient Israelite notions of place and locative religion.

In Ezekiel’s vision, the purpose of the city is to support the temple, and the temple is the central aspect of the vision. Although the description of the temple in the last chapters of Ezekiel is extremely detailed, the description does not match either the first temple built by Solomon or the second temple built by Zerubbabel after the return from the Babylonian exile. The fact that the vision of the temple reflects something besides the historical reality suggests that the vision is primarily meant to teach Israel something about the temple and Jehovah’s relationship to it and to his people. This vision represents a powerful statement about Jehovah’s return to the land of Israel and therefore to the land of the covenant.

In Ezekiel 43, Ezekiel is shown once again in vision the presence of Jehovah. The divine glory had led left the temple in chapter 10, but in chapter 43 it returns to the temple, signifying that this temple is once again an acceptable place for Jehovah’s presence to dwell. In Ezekiel 43:3, the prophet explicitly connects this vision to his previous vision. Ezekiel sees Jehovah’s glory moving into the temple, from the east towards the most holy place.[36] There, Ezekiel hears the voice of God from the most holy place: “O mortal, this is the place of My throne and the place for the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel forever” (Ezekiel 43:7, NJPS translation). Note that Jehovah states that he has once again made the temple the place of his throne and that he will be in midst of his people forever. Verses 7–10 contain a warning against Israel, and especially Israel’s kings, returning to the ways that caused the Lord to leave the temple in the first place, but the message is one of return. The fact that the city is (re)named “The Lord is there” emphasizes the presence of Jehovah in the city and temple and shows that his return is wholly transformative of the location, including its name.

Jacob and Ezekiel: In Conversation

At this point we are able to put Jacob and Ezekiel into conversation with one another. Both Jacob and Ezekiel are responding, in their own ways, to the questions of how it is possible to be “Israel” when Israel as a place and polity are no longer extant. In this context, the scriptural theme of the scattering and more especially the gathering of Israel come to the forefront. When Israel and Judah were kingdoms with kings, prophets, priests, and temples all established in the land that Jehovah had promised to their ancestors, there was no need to worry about a “return” of Israel to their land and covenant, because they had not left their land and covenant. The conversation around exile and return only arise in circumstances where exile has happened. Both Jacob and Ezekiel preach and prophesy in this kind of environment, rising to the occasion and providing the word of the Lord to an Israel that is experiencing a grand break with the past.

Their responses show both similarities and differences. Both Ezekiel and Jacob agree that the temple remains at the core of the Israelite experience. It is Jehovah’s house on the earth, and interactions with Jehovah are mediated through his house. Yet in another matter regarding the temple, the difference between prophets is stark. In Ezekiel, the Lord leaves his house, forsaking it and leaving it for destruction. It had been defiled through Israel’s abominations, and without his protecting presence it was able to be destroyed. By the same token, when the temple is rebuilt in the land of Israel, the glory of the Lord returns to the house, marking his acceptance of the house and the renewal of the ancient covenant in the original land of promise. In Ezekiel’s perspective, Jehovah’s exit and return still take place in and around Jerusalem.

This can be contrasted with Jacob’s perspective, where the Nephites have built a new temple and settled a new “promised land.” Jacob’s position is based on his distinctive reading of the Isaianic notion of the “isles of the sea,” which are specifically blessed by the Lord. The land of Jacob’s people is still, however, a new promised land. The place where the Nephites live is given its own divine approval as a place where Jehovah can put his name and lead his people. Jacob does not interpret the Nephites’ new land of promise as the only place where God can visit Israel—by connecting their land to Isaiah’s articulation of the “isles of the sea,” it creates space for not just a single location, but multiple locations, where God’s presence and power can be felt.

Intriguingly, both Jacob and Ezekiel’s reactions to the trauma of being removed from their homeland retain the locative character of Israelite religion. In other places and other periods, we see a distinct movement away from the importance of place.[37] That is not the case here—both Jacob and Ezekiel believe that location is paramount to Jehovah’s relationship with their respective peoples. How they work through that understanding differs based on the specific needs of the Nephites or Jews in exile. Although both Ezekiel and Jacob are working through the same general difficulties and even using the same broad theological and doctrinal framework, the solutions they receive in vision and revelation show how the Lord tailors his responses to his people according to their various needs.

Notes

[1] This phrase is commonly attributed to Lord Harold Samuel, a British real estate tycoon in the mid-20th century, but further investigation reveals that the phrase was already familiar in Chicago when Lord Samuel was only a teenager; see William Safire, “On Language: Location, Location, Location,” New York Times Magazine, June 26, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/magazine/28FOB-onlanguage-t.html.

[2] This puts Ezekiel into the group of prophets who were also priestly, such as Jeremiah and Malachi.

[3] The terms major prophet and minor prophet refer to size of the biblical book, not to importance.

[4] Like all of the books in the Bible, there is a wealth of information written on Ezekiel and the book of Ezekiel. See Reinhard G. Kratz, The Prophets of Israel, Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible 2(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 61–64; Tova Ganzel and Shalom E. Holtz, “Ezekiel’s Temple in Babylonian Context,” Vetus Testamentum 64, no. 2 (2014): 211–26; Marvin A. Sweeney, Reading Ezekiel: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2013); Adriane Leveen, “Returning the Body to Its Place: Ezekiel’s Tour of the Temple,” Harvard Theological Review 105, no. 4 (2012): 385–401; Henry McKeating, Ezekiel, Old Testament Guides 14 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993); and Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 355–72.

[5] For a discussion of cherubim generally, see T. N. D. Mettinger, “Cherubim,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W van der Hoorst, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1999),189–92.

[6] Jonathan Z. Smith, Map is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 134. There is a useful discussion of Smith’s work in the context of Mircea Eliade and as a push against evolutionary notions of religion in Michael J. Puett, “Social Order or Social Chaos,” in The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, ed. Robert A. Orsi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 109–29, discussion of Smith on 120–22. Smith continues to explore the idea of place in religion and religious thought (and continues his conversation with the work of Eliade) in Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). In particular, Smith’s To Take Place addresses Ezekiel’s vision of the temple, discussed later in the present chapter.

[7] Smith, Map is Not Territory, 132. For a treatment of the location and orientation of excavated shrines devoted to Jehovah in the land of Israel in the biblical period, see George A. Pierce and Kyle H. Keimer, “The Archaeology of Israelite Cult: Yahwisms across Space and Time,” in The Ancient Israelite World, ed. Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce (London: Routledge, 2023), 464–79.

[8] John M. Lundquist, “What is a Temple? A Preliminary Typology,” in Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism, ed. Donald W. Parry (Provo, UT: FARMS; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), 83–117, discussion on 84–86. See also Tammi J. Schneider, An Introduction to Mesopotamian Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 66–69; and Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, trans. John McHugh (New York: McGraw Hill, 1961), 282–91.

[9] For a discussion of Jehovah as a divine warrior, and its implications for Latter-day Saints, see Kerry Muhlestein, “A Savior With a Sword: The Power of a Fuller Picture of Jesus Christ,” The Religious Educator 20, no. 3 (2019): 114–31.

[10] The national god of Moab. His name is spelled Chemosh in the King James translation of the Bible.

[11] “The Inscription of King Mesha,” trans. K. A. D. Smelik, in The Context of Scripture: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr., vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 2.23:138.

[12] An Akkadian title that apparently means “chief of the cupbearers.” See Hayim Tadmor, “Rabsaris and Rab-shakeh in 2 Kings 18,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. C. L. Meyers and M. O’Connor (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 279–86.

[13] Rab-Shakeh delivers his speech in Hebrew, called Yehudit in 2 Kings. His knowledge of Hebrew has caused some scholars to suggest that he was an exiled Judahite or Aramean who was part of the Assyrian service and was chosen specifically for his knowledge of the language. See Yigal Levin, “How Did Rabshakeh Know the Language of Judah?,” in Marbeh Ḥokmah: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East in Loving Memory of Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, ed. S. Yona, E. L. Greenstein, M. I. Gruber, P. Machinist, and S. M. Paul (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 323–38. See particularly the discussion on pp. 330–35.

[14] This rescue seems to have developed into a theological belief in the impregnability of the city of Jerusalem as Jehovah’s city—often called “Zion theology” in modern scholarship. See David Rolph Seely and Fred E. Woods, “How Could Jerusalem, ‘That Great City,’ Be Destroyed?” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, ed. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 595–610.

[15] This notion is expressed particularly well in the first word of the biblical book of Lamentations, itself a meditation on the destruction of Jerusalem. It begins with the Hebrew word eikah, which means “how?” As with many ancient books, the first word of Lamentations is its title in Hebrew, which means that the entire book is framed around the question “how?” See also Jeremiah 19:8, where the passersby hold Judah in contempt because their God has abandoned them.

[16] David Rolph Seely and Robert D. Hunt, “Dramatis Personae: The World of Lehi (ca. 700–562 B.C.),” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, 41–64, esp. 49, where Zedekiah is discussed. There have been numerous studies on the chronology of the Book of Mormon and the date when Lehi’s family leaves Jerusalem, mostly centered on the apparent discrepancy between the scholarly reconstruction of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah as 597 BC and the prophecy that Jesus would be born six-hundred years from when Lehi and his family left Jerusalem (see 1 Nephi 10:4). See Randall P. Spackman, “The Jewish/Nephite Lunar Calendar,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7, no. 1 (1998): 48–59; S. Kent Brown and David Rolph Seely, “Jeremiah’s Imprisonment and the Date of Lehi’s Departure,” Religious Educator 2, no. 1 (2001): 15–32; and Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Dating the Departure of Lehi from Jerusalem,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 2 (2018): 6–51. From the perspective of the present author, there is no real discrepancy between the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign in 597 BC and Lehi’s prophecy of Jesus’s birth, because I do not interpret the Lehi prophecy to be as exact in its dating as some other scholars have.

[17] Lehi shares this prophetic perspective with Jeremiah and other unnamed prophets; see 1 Nephi 1:4 and Jeremiah 26:20.

[18] See Seely and Woods, “How Could Jerusalem,” 595.

[19] There are chapter divisions in the first edition of the Book of Mormon, but they are different from the divisions in our current Book of Mormon. In the places where Nephi or Jacob quote from Isaiah, they divide the quotations into larger chunks than our current chapter divisions, and in the case of this citation in Jacob, the citation begins and ends at different places than in our current book of Isaiah. In the lengthy quotation of Isaiah in 2 Nephi as presented in the first edition of the Book of Mormon, Nephi divides Isaiah into three chapters. These correspond to Isaiah 2–5, 6–12, and 13–14. Whether these are Nephi’s groupings or groupings that existed on the brass plates is impossible for us to ascertain. Chapter divisions are not original to the biblical text, with our modern chapter divisions based on the system devised by medieval archbishop Stephen Langton.

[20] It is also part of what scholars identify as Deutero-Isaiah, which scholars suggest comprises additions to Isaiah’s prophecies added after the Babylonian Exile. The presence of these chapters in the Book of Mormon means that they needed to have existed in some form before the start of the Book of Mormon in 597 BC, even if we are to see other authors in the Isaiah text. For a discussion of the various ways in which Latter-day Saint students of the scriptures have dealt with this issue, see Joshua M. Sears, “Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon: Latter-day Saint Approaches,” in They Shall Grow Together: The Bible in the Book of Mormon, ed. Charles Swift and Nicholas J. Frederick (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2022), 365–92.

[21] This is the entire thrust of Nephi and Lehi’s teaching on their land of promise. We do not know how much of Nephi’s writings and vision were public teachings at this point; however, because these ideas are such a central part of Nephi’s understanding of God’s mission for them, they clearly inform Jacob’s teachings. He certainly alludes to them in his own teaching in 2 Nephi 10.

[22] For the importance of the concept of land in the Nephite worldview, see Roger R. Keller, “Land and Lands,” in Book of Mormon Authors: Their Words and Messages (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1996), 103–50. This book gives great insight on vocabulary distribution in the Book of Mormon.

[23] The Book of Mormon consistently refers to these people as “Jews,” but that word does a lot of duty in the English language. It is worth noting that the English words Jew, Judahite, and Judean all translate the same Hebrew word (Yehudi). It is important, therefore, to not ascribe to Jacob the meaning of the word Jew as it is used in modern English.

[24] Daniel L. Belnap, “‘We Are Not Cut Off’: Separation and Reconciliation through Sacred Covenants,” in Living the Book of Mormon: Abiding by Its Precepts, ed. Gaye Strathearn and Charles Swift (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2007), 113–24, discussion on pages 113–15.

[25] Belnap, “Separation and Reconciliation,” 118–19.

[26] And perhaps to Isaiah 49:1, which Nephi quotes in 1 Nephi 21 and immediately follows with an exploration of the idea of the isles of the sea. It is possible that Jacob is picking up a theological thread already established by his brother.

[27] Similar themes are visible in Zenos’s allegory of the olive tree, quoted by Jacob in his own book. See Noel B. Reynolds, “Nephite Uses and Interpretations of Zenos,” in The Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), 21–49, discussion of Jacob on pages 39–43.

[28] Scholars have raised a number of questions about the unity of Ezekiel’s work, as they have with most scriptural books. For the purposes of the present work, Ezekiel is examined canonically, without making any statements about the complexities of the book’s compilation and composition. It should be noted that there is not a strong consensus on the unity or disunity of Ezekiel, unlike some other biblical books. For a recent discussion of the current state of Ezekiel scholarship, see Karl-Friedrich Pohlmann, “Ezekiel: New Directions and Current Debates,” in Ezekiel: Current Debates and Future Directions, ed. William A. Tooman and Penelope Barter, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 112 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 3–17.

[29] Kapporet shares a root with kipper, which means “to make amends” or “to atone.” This meaning is what translational terms such as “mercy seat” are trying to indicate. Most translations in English attempt to reflect this. Note, however, the New Jewish Publication Society or the recently released updated version of the New Revised Standard Version, both of which simply translate kapporet as “cover” in places like Exodus 25:17. See Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, “כפר,” in The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (hereafter HALOT), Student Edition (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 493–94; and Koehler and Baumgartner, “כַּפֹּרֶת,” in HALOT, 495.

[30] For further discussion of the role of the cherubim in Israelite religion (especially the temple), see Avram R. Shannon, “‘Come Near Unto Me’: Guarded Space and Its Mediators in the Jerusalem Temple,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament, ed. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, Matthew J. Grey, and David Rolph Seely (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013), 66–84.

[31] Mettinger, “Cherubim,” 190.

[32] For a discussion of glory in Latter-day Saint scripture, see Belnap, “‘Where is Thy Glory?’: Moses 1, the Nature of Truth, and the Plan of Salvation,” Religious Educator 10, no. 2 (2009): 163–79. Although Belnap correctly notes that the Hebrew term Shekinah is used to describe God’s glory, it is not a scriptural term. It first appears in rabbinic literature. It is uncommon to the point of invisibility in Mishnah (it appears in m. Sanhedrin 6:5, but not in the best manuscripts, and only otherwise in the relatively late traditions in m. Abot).

[33] See Susan Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992), 37–100.

[34] Jacob Rennaker, “Approaching Holiness: Sacred Space in Ezekiel,” in Approaching Holiness: Exploring the History and Teachings of the Old Testament, ed. Krystal V. L. Pierce and David Rolph Seely (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 315–32.

[35] For example, Ezekiel’s temple vision seems to be the basis for John’s vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21–22.

[36] Entrance into the ancient temple was a movement from east to west, mirroring the movement of the sun. Compare Malachi 4:2.

[37] For example, in John 4:21, Jesus seems to suggest that the locative traditions of both the Samaritans and the Jews would eventually be changed to something different (although he further suggests in 4:22 that the Jewish locative tradition was more accurate).