Wonderful in Counsel

When Isaiah wrote these chapters, Babylon was not yet the empire it would become; Assyria ruled his world. Yet he foresaw Babylon’s glory and its fall (13:19), which came when the Medes and Persians took the city in 539 BC. In chapter 14 the taunt against Babylon’s king widens into something older. Lucifer, “son of the morning” (14:12), says “I will” five times in two verses, ending with “I will be like the most High” (14:14). Latter-day revelation confirms that this describes Satan’s premortal rebellion (Moses 4:1–4; Doctrine and Covenants 76:25–27). Set that beside the Savior’s answer in the same council: “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine” (Moses 4:2). The whole plan of salvation turns on that difference. One path climbs by grasping; the other is lifted up by yielding.

🔗 Cross-references

• Moses 4:1–4 ↗The premortal council, where Satan demanded God’s honor and the Beloved Son offered the glory to the Father.
• Doctrine and Covenants 76:25–27 ↗Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon see Lucifer’s fall in vision, and the heavens weep over him.
• Luke 22:42 ↗In Gethsemane the Savior lives out the same submission He offered in the premortal council.

Chapter 22 finds Jerusalem under threat. The people check their armory, secure their water and tear down houses to patch the wall (22:8–11), but Isaiah says they “have not looked unto the maker thereof.” Others simply party: “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die” (22:13). Then the Lord removes Shebna, a steward busy carving his own grand tomb (22:15–16), and calls Eliakim. He lays “the key of the house of David” on Eliakim’s shoulder and fastens him “as a nail in a sure place” (22:22–23). John later applies the key of David to the risen Christ (Revelation 3:7). Chapter 24 widens the lens: the earth will “reel to and fro like a drunkard” because people have “broken the everlasting covenant” (24:5, 20). When everything shakes, what matters is what we are fastened to.

🔗 Cross-references

• Revelation 3:7 ↗The risen Lord is the one who holds “the key of David”: what He opens, no one can shut.
• 2 Kings 18:18 ↗Eliakim appears again, now over the king’s household, when Assyria’s army stands outside Jerusalem.
• Doctrine and Covenants 1:15 ↗In the preface to the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord describes our day in Isaiah’s words: people “have broken mine everlasting covenant.”

After the shaking of chapter 24, Isaiah breaks into praise. The Lord is “a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat” (25:4). On His mountain He will spread a feast for all people, lift the veil “spread over all nations,” “swallow up death in victory,” and “wipe away tears from off all faces” (25:6–8). Paul quotes it in his teaching on the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:54), and John echoes it in his vision of the end (Revelation 21:4). Chapter 26 adds a gift for right now: “perfect peace” for the one “whose mind is stayed on thee” (26:3). Then this: “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise” (26:19). Read beside Matthew 27:52–53, it points to the risen Christ, whose Resurrection opens every grave.

🔗 Cross-references

• 1 Corinthians 15:54–55 ↗Paul quotes Isaiah 25:8 as the triumphant close to his great chapter on the Resurrection.
• Matthew 27:52–53 ↗After Christ rose, graves were opened and Saints appeared to many: an early glimpse of Isaiah 26:19 coming true.
• John 14:27 ↗The Savior promises a peace “not as the world giveth,” the same peace Isaiah 26:3 describes.

Chapter 27 returns to the vineyard of Isaiah 5, but now the Lord says, “I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day” (27:3), and promises to gather Israel “one by one” (27:12). Chapter 28 rebukes Ephraim’s proud, drunken leaders, who scoff at Isaiah’s plain, repetitive teaching as fit for weaned children (28:9–10). Yet “line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” is how God teaches, and Nephi turns the phrase into a promise (2 Nephi 28:30). The chapter ends with a parable (28:23–29). A farmer does not plow forever or roll a cart wheel over tender cummin; he fits the work to each crop, because “his God doth instruct him.” The Lord is “wonderful in counsel.” He knows what each of us can bear.

🔗 Cross-references

• 2 Nephi 28:30 ↗Nephi makes “line upon line” a promise: those who receive what the Lord gives will be given more.
• Helaman 5:12 ↗Helaman teaches his sons to build on “the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ,” the sure foundation of Isaiah 28:16.
• 1 Peter 2:6 ↗Peter quotes Isaiah 28:16 and identifies the precious corner stone as Jesus Christ.

Isaiah saw a fallen people whose voice would come “out of the ground,” their speech “low out of the dust” (29:4), and a sealed book handed first to a learned man who says, “I cannot; for it is sealed,” and then to one who admits, “I am not learned” (29:11–12). On September 22, 1827, 199 years ago this week, Joseph Smith received the gold plates (Joseph Smith—History 1:59). In February 1828 Martin Harris carried characters copied from them to scholars in New York City, including Professor Charles Anthon, whose response, by Martin’s account, matched Isaiah’s words (Joseph Smith—History 1:63–65). Nephi records a fuller version in 2 Nephi 27. The point is not that learning is bad. It is that the Lord’s work rests on His power, not ours: “the wisdom of their wise men shall perish” (29:14).

🔗 Cross-references

• Joseph Smith—History 1:63–65 ↗Martin Harris’s account of taking the characters to New York and hearing a scholar say he could not read a sealed book.
• 2 Nephi 27:15–20 ↗Nephi’s fuller version of the sealed book, where the Lord declares that He is able to do His own work.
• 2 Nephi 26:16 ↗Nephi applies Isaiah’s voice “out of the dust” to his own people, destroyed yet still speaking through their record.

Chapter 30 shows Judah’s leaders sending ambassadors to Egypt for protection, taking counsel “but not of me” and never asking “at my mouth” (30:1–2). They even tell the prophets, “speak unto us smooth things” (30:10). The Lord’s answer is quiet: “In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not” (30:15). Still He waits “that he may be gracious unto you” (30:18) and promises a word behind you saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it” (30:21). Chapter 35 ends the week in bloom: the desert blossoms, weak hands are strengthened, blind eyes open, and a highway is called “The way of holiness.” When John the Baptist asked if Jesus was the One, the Savior answered in the language of this chapter (Matthew 11:4–5).

🔗 Cross-references

• Matthew 11:4–5 ↗Jesus answers John’s disciples with Isaiah’s signs: the blind see, the lame walk and the deaf hear.
• Doctrine and Covenants 81:5 ↗The Lord echoes Isaiah 35:3, charging His servants to lift weary hands and strengthen feeble knees.

Today, return to the key passage and read it as a promise about you. The marvelous work of verse 14 is the Lord’s answer to worship that has drifted to the lips while the heart is far away (29:13). The Savior applied that verse to the religious leaders of His day (Matthew 15:7–9) and used nearly the same words in the First Vision (Joseph Smith—History 1:19). Then notice what the work does: the deaf “hear the words of the book,” the blind see “out of obscurity,” the meek “increase their joy in the Lord,” and those who “erred in spirit shall come to understanding” (29:18–19, 24). That is a picture of conversion, and it still happens one reader at a time. As you take the sacrament today, bring your heart, not only your lips.

🔗 Cross-references

• Matthew 15:7–9 ↗Jesus names Isaiah and applies Isaiah 29:13 to people who honored God with their lips alone.
• Joseph Smith—History 1:19 ↗In the First Vision, the Lord describes the religious world of 1820 in words close to Isaiah 29:13.
• Doctrine and Covenants 4:1 ↗An early revelation, given to Joseph Smith Sr., announces that the marvelous work is about to come forth.