GATHERING
OF THE JEWS
The Book of Mormon contains a prophecy
by Christ which gives the time when the Jews should gather to Jerusalem. The
times was to be very soon after the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.
Then shall the covenant which the Father
hath covenanted with his people, be fulfilled; and then shall Jerusalem be
inhabited again with my people, and it shall be the land of their inheritance.
And verily, I say
unto you, I give unto you a sign that ye may know the time when these things shall
be about to take place, that I
shall gather in from their long dispersion, my people, O house of Israel. . . .
And behold, this
is the thing which I will give unto you for a sign, . . . these things which I
declare unto you . . . shall be made known unto the Gentiles [coming forth of the Book of Mormon].—III Nephi
9:85-87 [LDS: 3 Nephi 21:1-2].
The Book of Mormon was published with
a prophecy that its coming forth would soon be followed by the fulfillment of
Old Testament prophecies (restoration of Israel) which had stood with no sign
of fulfillment for 2,000 years.
In an article published in the National
Tribune in 1889 (June 15), Mr. F. G. Carpenter says:
At present the Jews are coming here by
the hundreds . . . a half century ago [1839] there were only 32 Jewish families
in all Jerusalem, and the number in Palestine was only 3,000. Now [1889] there
are nearly 50,000 in the Holy Land.
In 1830, there was only a handful of
Jews in all Palestine. In 1889, there were 50,000. In 1935, 61,541 Jews
returned to Palestine. Today “Israel” is an independent nation with a population
of close to two million. (Roy Weldon, Other Sheep: Book of Mormon Evidences [Independence,
Miss.: Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Herald
Publishing House, 1958], 79-80)
Further
Reading: