When offering the various definitions of “Zion” in Latter-day Saint thought:
4. To the location of the “mountain
of the house of the Lord,” Micah gave the name of Zion, as he predicted its establishment
in the “top of the mountains” in the latter days as a place distinct from
Jerusalem. There had formerly been a Zion and a Jerusalem in the land of
Palestine, but “the prophet Micah, ‘full of power by the spirit of the Lord,
and of judgment, and of might’ predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and its
associated Zion, the former to ‘become heaps,’ and the latter to be ‘plowed as
a field’; and then announced a new condition that is to exist in the last days,
when another ‘mountain of the house of the Lord’ is to be established, and this
is called Zion.” In many Latter-day Saint sermons in the belief has been
expressed that this prophecy is in process of fulfillment at the present day by
the activities of the Church in the mountainous regions of the West. This
definition is in close alliance at present with that given under the former
heading, differing only by stipulating a definite location of the Church at a
given time. (Hyrum Leslie Andrus, “World Government as Envisioned
in the Latter Day Saint ‘City of Zion’” [MA Thesis; Brigham Young University,
1952], 8-9)
According to Mormon
interpretation, Micah, the ancient Israelite prophet, spoke of the latter-day
Zion as being synonymous with “the house of the Lord . . . in the top of the
mountains” (i.e., while Zion is located in Western America). Following its
erection a subsequent era of peace wherein men would “beat their swords into
plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks” was to follow. Paralleling these
peaceful conditions, Micah states, “the law shall go forth of Zion, and the
word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Joseph Smith spoke of these two points government
by noting: “Now there are two cities . . . a New Jerusalem to be established on
this continent, and also Jerusalem shall be rebuilt on the eastern contingent.”
(Hyrum Leslie Andrus, “World
Government as Envisioned in the Latter Day Saint ‘City of Zion’” [MA
Thesis; Brigham Young University, 1952], 95)
