For I know their deeds and purposes. The time
has come to gather all the nations and tongues; they shall come and behold My
glory. I will set a sign among them, and send from them survivors to the nations:
to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud -- that draw the bow -- to Tubal, Javan, and the
distant coasts, that have never heard My fame nor beheld My glory. They shall
declare My glory among these nations. And out of all the nations, said the
LORD, they shall bring all your brothers on horses, in chariots and drays, on
mules and dromedaries, to Jerusalem My holy mountain as an offering to the LORD
-- just as the Israelites bring an offering in a pure vessel to the House of
the LORD. And from them likewise I will take some to be levitical priests, said
the LORD. For as the new heaven and the new earth Which I will make Shall
endure by My will -- declares the LORD -- So shall your seed and your name
endure. (Isa 66:18-22 1985 JPS Tanakh)
καὶ ἄξουσιν τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς ὑμῶν ἐκ πάντων τῶν ἐθνῶν
δῶρον κυρίῳ μεθ᾽ ἵππων καὶ ἁρμάτων ἐν λαμπήναις ἡμιόνων μετὰ σκιαδίων εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν
πόλιν Ιερουσαλημ εἶπεν κύριος ὡς ἂν ἐνέγκαισαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ισραηλ ἐμοὶ τὰς
θυσίας αὐτῶν μετὰ ψαλμῶν εἰς τὸν οἶκον κυρίου (Isa 66:20)
They shall bring your kindred from all the
nations as a gift to the Lord, with horses and chariots, in mule-drawn litters
with sunshades, into the holy city Ierousalem, said the Lord, so that
the sons of Israel may bring to me their sacrifices with music into the house
of the Lord. (Isa 66:20 NETS)
As
I note about Isa 66:18-22 on p. 32 of After the Order of the Son of God,
Isaiah, speaking of the last days, has God’s
people engaged in priestly, temple ministry, consistent with Latter-day Saint
claims, not just about an ordained priesthood, but also temple worship in the
New Covenant. Furthermore, God promises to “take of them” “Levites” (the Hebrew
כֹּהֲנִ֥ים לַלְוִיִּ֖ם which means "Levitical Priests"), without
regard of their genealogy. Some critics claim that the LDS have an unbiblical
view of the Aaronic Priesthood as we don’t ordain people to this priesthood
based on their genealogy. However, with the death of Christ, such requirements
were annulled, and we see the biblical evidence of this practice in Isaiah’s
prophecy quoted above.
That
this is a prophecy of something that will take place in the then-future (from
the perspective of Isaiah, and later, the LXX translators of Isaiah) can be
seen in the syntax of v. 20.
Commenting
on the Greek construction ως
αν followed
by a subjunctive or optative verb, and how this construction in Isa 66:20 (LXX)
shows that the LXX translator understood the verse to be a prophecy of
something that would occur in the future, David A. Baer wrote:
When ως
αν is followed by a syntactically related subjunctive
or optative verb in the LXX (LXX Isa 66.20 represents the only LXX occurrence of
ως αν
+ optative. The other 36 examples have ως αν
+ subjunctive), all but two represent temporal clauses; that is, they
refer to an action in the future whose precise moment of fulfilment is not
known (Ezra 10.3 is ambiguous: καὶ νῦν διαθώμεθα διαθήκην τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν ἐκβαλεῖν
πάσας τὰς γυναῖκας καὶ τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ αὐτῶν ὡς ἂν βούλῃ . . . ; 1 Macc. 3.60
uses the expression to define a reality of which the details are inaccessible
to the speaker: ως δ’αν θελημα
εν ουρανω
ουτως ποιησει).
Of these, the majority represent a single expected
action in the future. For example, Lev. 14.34 is representative of what becomes
a stock LXX reference to the imminent conquest of Canaan: ως αν
ειςελθητε εις
την γην
των Χαναναιων ην εγω
διδωμι υμιν
εν κτησει
. . . (These ‘single-event’ references are Gen. 12.12, Exod. 9.29, 13.11, Lev.
14.34, Deut. 27.3, 27.4, 28.1, Josh. 2.14, 3.8, 3.13, 6.5, 8.5, 8.6, Judg.
21.21, 1 Kgdms 9.13, 10.2, 10.5, 2 Kgdms 13.28, 3 Kgdms 1.21, 4 Kgdms 5.6,
6.32, Judith 11.15, 1 Macc. 15.9). A minority of these seem to indicate
repeated action in the future. Once again, the details of its realization do
not fall within the horizon of the speaker. It is to be assumed that the action
will take place more than once, even if this iterative phenomenon is expressed
by a representative singular (cf. Gen. 30.38, Exod. 28.43, Lev. 22.27, Deut.
30.1, 3 Kgdms 8.38, 2 Paralip 6.30, Prov. 1.27, 6.22, 18.17, Isa. 8.21).
For the purposes of understanding the ως αν
in the LXX Isa. 66.20, it is important to recall that it stands slightly apart
from these references in terms of verbal mood. It alone has ως αν
+ a verb in the optative mood. One suspects that this late point in the language,
this feature should not be overworked. The overwhelming use of ως αν
+ subjunctive as a temporal clause favours the view that the example at
Isa. 66.20 is temporal also.
If the above analysis is correct, it can be
concluded that the most common function of the above Greek construction—which is
identical to that found at LXX Isa. 66.20 except that the verb is in the
subjunctive mood—is to denote an action that is understood to relate to some
undefined point in the future (the New Testament evidence supports this
conclusion. All three New Testament occurrences of ως + αν
a subjunctive verb mean
‘when . . . ‘ [Rom. 15.34; 1 Cor. 11.34; Phil. 2.23]. This construction does
not appear in the New Testament with an optative verb). It is striking that nowhere
does it render a comparison with a realised event. (David A. Baer, When
We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56-66 [Journal for
the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 318; The Hebrew Bible and its
Versions 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001], 260-61, emphasis in bold added italics in
original)
Only Latter-day Saint theology allows one to accept Isa 66:18-22 as a true prophecy that has been fulfilled, and continues to be fulfilled. Those who reject an ordained, ministerial priesthood and the existence of the Aaronic priesthood, functionally, end up making Isaiah into a false prophet.
