Tag Archives: Manasseh

Gentile Kings and Queens

22 Friday Mar 2024

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Today’s entry is just a quick blurb and not at all exhaustive. I share much more in my ongoing YouTube playlist titled “Book of Mormon Spotlights.” In my studies, I noticed a hierarchy of Gentiles mentioned in various places in the Book of Mormon, but mostly within the first two books of Nephi. They are:

1. Mother Gentiles
2. Gentiles
3. Gentiles who repent
4. Gentile Kings and Queens

Consider the following and feel free to make any corrections. Nephi wrote about the Mother Gentiles (1 Nephi 13:17) who would wage war against those Gentiles (1 Nephi 13:12-16) who wanted a better life and were brought to America by the power of the Lord. In the Old Testament, the northern kingdom of Israel, also known as Ephraim was destroyed by Assyria and the people were dispersed. They assimilated into gentile nations, but dispersed Ephraim was predicted to emerge in the last days to serve as “nursing fathers” and “nursing mothers” (2 Nephi 10:9) to the remnant of the House of Israel that is restored in the end-time. These “kings” and “queens” who are also referred to as these nursing fathers and nursing mothers by Nephi and also referred to as “foster fathers” and “nursing mothers” by Isaiah will be among those Gentles who repent and become covenant people of the Lord (2 Nephi 30:2) because as many of the Gentiles as repent are the covenant people of the Lord;

Now lets fast forward to Joseph Smith’s day. Joseph Smith knew that he and the converted saints were those Gentiles (D&C 109:60) that Nephi prophesied about – and that the Book of Mormon would come by “way of the Gentile” (Title Page) – should become the Gentile Kings and Queens because of Ephraim’s birthright. This refers to spiritual kings and queens and not political kings and queens. There are NO kings and queens on the Earth who care about Zion. They – meaning world leaders and leaders of nations – love Babylon and all her riches and power and don’t care at all about Zion.

In order to understand this concept better, we need to go back to Genesis chapter 48 where Jacob blesses his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh. Remember that Ephraim was the younger brother who was given the birthright blessing of the first-born, which traditionally would have been Manasseh’s birthright. Ephraim was blessed to become a greater nation than Manasseh and that the descendants of Ephraim would become a “multitude of nations.”

Latter-day Ephraim has the birthright duty to bring the fullness of the gospel to his brother, Latter-day Manasseh, and also his other brethren of the House of Israel (D&C 103:1). Those of us who have been through the temple know that we have been anointed to become kings and queens but that we will not see this realized except through our faithfulness. How do we know what serving as kings and queens involves unless we learn how the scriptures define those roles and then begin emulating those who had those roles? How can we expect to be exalted as those kings and queens IF we never serve or know how to serve, using the role models provided in the scriptures of what those kings and queens actually did? One example would be Ammon, son of King Mosiah who selflessly declined becoming the next political king and instead became a spiritual king to serve his heathen brothers and sisters, the Lamanites in the form of a lowly servant to the vassal king Lamoni.

You get the idea. Then Jesus Christ gives a sequence of events in 3 Nephi chapter 21, which are already underway. But there are still a number of great events which I consider will be the great and marvelous work (although it began with Joseph Smith). But pay attention to how many times Jesus Christ declared, “…and then shall…” and it will become clear just how much is yet to happen. But these events will be sequential. 3 Nephi chapter 21 is a great chapter to study deeply.

Genealogy

07 Friday Sep 2012

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1 Nephi 15:16 And thus my father, Lehi, did discover the genealogy of his fathers. And Laban also was a descendant of Joseph, wherefore he and his fathers had kept the records.

I have begun taking a serious interest in my lineage and will be taking over where my mother left off. She has done a considerable amount of work in tracing our lineage back a number of generations. One thing that I do know is that I was “born to a goodly lineage, even that of Ephraim, the son of Joseph who was sold into Egypt.” What’s more fascinating is that my father stems from Manasseh and my mother, from Ephraim, both sons of Joseph. My family is split with three siblings stemming from Manasseh and myself from Ephraim. My father was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas and my mother in Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas.

Alma 10:3 And Aminadi was a descendant of Nephi, who was the son of Lehi, who came out of the land of Jerusalem, who was a descendant of Manasseh, who was the son of Joseph who was sold into Egypt by the hands of his brethren.

I look forward to connecting all those who came before me and the stories that they have to tell. It has been a challenge for my family to dig up records from Mexico. I only hope that I can make some leaps from the great steps that they have taken.


The New Covenant, Part 1

27 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by in Gospel Doctrine

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D&C 84:57 …and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon…

Without a solid understanding of the Old Testament, it is difficult for most Christians to understand the significance of the Book of Mormon. Like the New Testament, the Book of Mormon is another testament or another covenant, even the new covenant, which is essentially the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ.

We cannot begin to understand who the Nephites and the Lamanites were without first understanding where they came from. Indeed their patriarch, Lehi, did not know until he had obtained a record found on brass plates from the treasury of a military leader named Laban. The Book of Mormon begins with the exodus of a small family led by Lehi from Jerusalem into the wilderness to escape the coming destruction and conquest of Babylon. In 1 Nephi 5:14 Lehi discovers that he is a descendant of Joseph who was sold into Egypt. This was the same Joseph, son of Jacob, father of twelve sons who became nations.

Like their predecessors in the old world, these people had a tradition of memorizing their lineage and later in the Book of Mormon, in Alma 10:3 we learn that Lehi descended from Joseph through his son Manasseh. Joseph, son of Jacob who was renamed Israel by an angel, had eleven brothers. These twelve brothers became the heads of twelve nations or tribes as they are called in the Bible. The Bible as we have it today is a record of the tribe of Judah, or in other words, the Jews.

Before Jacob died, he gathered up his family to bless them and to prophecy what should befall them in the last days. In Genesis 49, he addresses his sons, one by one, including Joseph, who in verse twenty-two declares that he is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall. Jacob continues by saying, “The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.”

We read about Israel pleading with the Lord for deliverance in Psalms 80:

“O Shepherd of Israel, thou what leadest Joseph like a flock…Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it…She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river…”

After Jacob and his family settled into the land of Egypt, more specifically, Goshen, after having been rescued by Joseph from a great famine, this family grew into a people so great that Egypt began to fear them. Thus these Isrealites became enslaved. After many generations, the Lord saw fit to honor his covenant with Abraham and give the land of Canaan to his posterity, the Israelites, for an inheritance. And so Moses brought them out and they traveled for forty long years until they reached their promised land. And because of their wickedness they became scattered over time.

Isaiah is a great prophet who wrote many great things that would soon come to pass. He prophecies many things concerning Israel and the trials they would face because of their wickedness. In chapter sixteen, verse eight, we read, “…they wandered through the wilderness: her branches are stretched out, they are gone over the sea.”

We begin to paint a clear picture regarding the scattering of the twelve tribes of Israel, but more specifically, the tribe of Joseph. It is clear that Joseph is the bough, or in other words a main branch of Israel. And his nation becomes separated from his eleven brethren by the sea. When Lehi departed from Jerusalem, the Lord told him that he was to be given a new land of inheritance. This land of inheritance became Lehi’s promised land–a land across the great sea in the new world.