“Hearken unto Me, O Jacob”:
Nephi’s Rhetorical Use of Isaiah 48-49
When Nephi states regarding the general human
tendency toward hard-heartedness that “they set [the Holy One of Israel] at
naught, and hearken not to the voice of his counsels”
(1 Nephi 19:7), it is difficult not to hear at least a partial allusion to his
brothers and the sons of Ishmael. Nephi goes on in the subsequent verses to
describe (yet again) the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise that he would be “a
teacher and a ruler” over them (1 Nephi 2:22) when he states:
“I, Nephi, did teach my brethren these things” (1 Nephi 19:22). He taught them
from the scriptures, making particular use of the words of Isaiah: “that I
might more fully persuade them to believe in
the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the
prophet Isaiah” (1 Nephi 19:23).
In invoking Isaiah at length for the first time (at
least insofar as he informs us), Nephi introduces Isaiah’s prophecies with the
emphatic proclamation formula “hear”/“hearken”:
Wherefore I spake unto them
[i.e., my brethren], saying: Hear ye the
words of the prophet, ye who are a remnant of the house of Israel, a branch who
have been broken off; hear ye the words of the prophet, which were
written unto all the house of Israel, and liken them unto yourselves, that ye
may have hope as well as your brethren from whom ye have been broken off; for
after this manner has the prophet written. Hearken and
hear [MT: šimʿû, “hear”] this, O house of Jacob, who are called by
the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah … who swear
by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear
not in truth nor in righteousness. (1 Nephi 19:24–20:1)
Israel and Judah, each in turn, had been conquered
and exiled by foreign superpowers because they would not “hear” the messages of
repentance the Lord had sent them through prophets. Likewise, Nephi’s
introduction and citation of Isaiah here emphasize what Laman, Lemuel, and the
sons of Ishmael have consistently failed to do: to “hear.”
Even to “hear” or “see” events transpire within the
physical realm does not necessarily mean that one will “hear” or “see” the
meaning, especially the spiritual meaning, in those events. We recall that
Laman and Lemuel had experienced great things — miracles, even! In the course
of the Lord’s saving them from the impending destruction of Jerusalem and
preserving their lives en route to a new land of promise they saw an angel and
“heard” the voice of the Lord speak to them (see 1 Nephi 3:29–31;
7:10; 16:39; 17:45). Thus, it is interesting to consider the potential
application (or “likening”) of what follows in Nephi’s quotation of Isaiah 48
to the family’s circumstances, including those of Laman and Lemuel and
Ishmael’s family:
Thou hast seen and heard [šāmaʿtā] all this; [or, You have heard; now see all this (NRSV)] and will
ye not declare them? And that I have showed [or hišmaʿtîkā, “caused thee to hear”] thee new things from this
time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. They are created now,
and not from the beginning, even before the day when thou heardest them [lōʾ šĕmaʿtām] not they were declared unto thee, lest thou
shouldst say — Behold I knew them. Yea, and thou heardest not [lōʾ šāmaʿtā]; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time thine ear was not opened; for I
knew that thou wouldst deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor
from the womb (1 Nephi 20:6–8).
Nephi’s citation of this particular Isaiah text
becomes particularly apropos in the context of the events that led up to
Nephi’s statement in 1 Nephi 17:45: “Ye have seen an angel, and he
spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his
voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice,
but ye were past feeling, that ye
could not feel his words; wherefore, he has spoken unto you
like unto the voice of thunder … ” Thus, Nephi uses Isaiah to summon his
brothers, including the sons of Ishmael to “hearken”:
Hearken unto me [šĕmaʿ ʾēlay], O Jacob, and Israel my called, for I am he; I am
the first, and I am also the last. Mine hand hath also laid the foundation of
the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens. I call unto them and
they stand up together. All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear [ûšmû]; who among them hath declared these things unto
them? The Lord hath loved him; yea, and he will fulfil his word which he hath
declared by them; and he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall
come upon the Chaldeans. (1 Nephi 20:12–14)
O that thou hadst hearkened [attended, hiqšabtā] to my commandments — then had thy peace
been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. (1 Nephi 20:18)
Whether he has taken it from the brass plates version
of Isaiah or has interjected it himself, Nephi introduces his recitation of
Isaiah 49 in similar fashion to his introduction of Isaiah 48, using the
prophetic proclamation formula “hearken”:
And again: Hearken, O ye house of Israel, all ye that are
broken off and are driven out because of the wickedness of the pastors of my
people; yea, all ye that are broken off, that are scattered abroad, who are of my people, O house of Israel. Listen [šimʿû], O isles, unto me [ʾēlay], and hearken [or, attend] ye people from far; the Lord hath
called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of
my name. (1 Nephi 21:1)
Nephi’s reading in the voice of Isaiah helps him to
find and establish his own prophetic voice. He thus speaks to his brothers and
brothers in-law (and their families) with authority of the Lord’s
“servant” (1 Nephi 21:3 citing Isaiah 49:3), as well as that of their
“teacher and [their] ruler” as noted above. Although the broader themes of the
scattering and gathering of Israel furnish the superstructure of Nephi’s
message in 1 Nephi 20–21, his more immediate message to his brothers and their
descendants remains a simple one: hear/hearken/listen [šāmaʿ] and hearken/attend hiqšib].
The phonetic components of the name Ishmael would
have been particularly heard in the twofold use of the formula šĕmaʿ ʾēlay / šimʿû … ʾēlay (“hearken unto me” or “listen [ye] unto me”)
and also in Nephi’s adaptation of the prophecy of Deuteronomy 18:15-19 (1 Nephi
22:20). All of this sets the stage for Lehi’s Deuteronomy-based final
admonitions to his children and the children of Ishmael, on obedience to which
his final blessings will be predicated. (Matthew L. Bowen, “’If Ye Will Hearken’:
Rhetorical Wordplay On Ishmael,” in Ancient Names in the Book of Mormon:
Toward a Deeper Understanding of a Witness of Christ [Salt Lake City: Eborn
Books; Orem, Utah: Interpreter Foundation, 2023], 58-61)
Commenting
on “Hearken and hear” in 1 Nephi 20:1, Bowen has the following footnote:
Samuel Zinner, personal communication,
February 21, 2023, proposes that “hearken and hear in Hebrew
could be expressed with a single verb, so that if we have a translation from
Hebrew here, it could be a free translation that uses two English verbs to
express a single Hebrew verb. That would make sense if the translator wanted to
express two valences of the Hebrew verb. Of course, hearken could [also]
reflect a separate verb” (emphasis added). (Ibid., 59 n. 45)
