Insights from 2 Nephi 20-30 and Lehi’s Dream

• Second Nephi 28:30, “line upon line, precept upon precept”—it was thinking about t his verse that first opened my mind to Lehi’s Dream being fundamentally about continuing revelation. It’s a Seminary scripture mastery this year. One of my children was working on it soon after I felt directed to connect Lehi’s Dream to the rest of the Book of Mormon. https://www.jrganymede.com/2024/02/27/why-are-the-waters-in-lehis-dream-represent-filthiness-but-also-the-love-of-god/

• Given Nephi’s discussion of the Law and the Jews in these chapters, its pretty clear that however else we understand Lehi’s Dream, we should understand it as a vision of what is going to happen to Lehi and his posterity. Laman and Lemuel were not just sinners. They were proto-Pharisees. More generally, there is a class of people who are brought to Christ by the Law (the Tree by the Rod) but who “cling” to the Law and are therefore unable to fully accept the gospel. More generally, could we say that a desire for rule and order and system inevitably points to Christ, but you have to be willing to accept that Christ transcends the rule and order and system that brought you to Him?

• Isaiah talks about a man being more scarce than a wedge of gold from Ophir. The obvious meaning is that he is talking about the aftermath of hideous destruction when almost no one is left alive. You could also construe it as saying that manhood is in short supply. But now that population levels are crashing everywhere, it takes on a new meaning. Elsewhere in these Isaiah chapters Isaiah talks about the hordes and hordes of people everywhere. It’s interesting to me that we do in fact live in a time where there are simultaneously massive human populations but also where there is a scarcity of people. The hordes of people are implied to be Saints. One hopes that it represents the Saints repenting and returning to having children.

• The end-times chapters here are about desolation followed by light. That is also the structure of Lehi’s Dream. We usually skip to the end, forgetting that it begins with wandering in a desolate waste for a long time, then the light of the tree.

• It is as the dream of a night vision. Wow.

• And they that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught.

–thus 2 Nephi 27:32.  Also 2 Nephi 28:16.  There are distinct modern day parallels. Perhaps this is a type—perhaps every failing civilization falls into this pattern—or perhaps a prophecy.

• 2 Nephi 27:33-35

Therefore, thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale.

But when he seeth his children, the work of my hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.

They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.

Hard to parse. My vivid impression reading it this time was of the redemption of our ancestors and loved ones when they see and are moved to repentance by our happy, healthy holy posterity.