The Know

In a lengthy sermon found in Jacob 4–6, Jacob quoted an allegory from the writings of the prophet Zenos, which compared the house of Israel to “a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard” (Jacob 5:3). Throughout this allegory, Zenos laid out God’s “great plan of redemption,” showing how all the house of Israel would be gathered again (Jacob 6:8). Central to this message is the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

According to biblical scholar Matthew L. Bowen, this allegory portrays these two themes—the future gathering of Israel and Christ’s Atonement—through the lens of the ancient Israelite temple and its ordinances. After all, “the temple is the place for the gradual, full extension of the blessings of the ‘perfect atonement’ that the Savior ‘wrought out … through the shedding of his own blood.’”1 Furthermore, David Rolph Seely and John W. Welch have observed that “Jacob probably delivered the sermon reported in Jacob 4–6 from the temple in the city of Nephi (just as he spoke from that temple when he delivered his prophetic chastisements in Jacob 2–4; see Jacob 2:2).”2

Seeing the allegory in that temple context, it is possible to find within Jacob 5 “the story of the holy temple, including the work being done in latter‑day temples.” Bowen notes, “Zenos’s allegory evidences many temple words, themes, and concepts” that teach about the Lord’s work and plan of salvation, rooting everything in the Lord’s ultimate desire to restore His people to His loving presence.3 The accompanying table illustrates this, showing the temple themes and scriptural allusions in Jacob 5.

Themes related to the temple can be seen from the start, including in Jacob’s introduction of the allegory. After discussing how a rejected foundation would become the chief cornerstone, Jacob then asked (drawing his remarks from Psalm 118:22) how those who rejected this cornerstone “can ever build upon it, that it may become the head of their corner? Behold, my beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you” (Jacob 4:17–18).4

Notice how Jacob framed the allegory as the unfolding of a mystery. As Bowen notes, the English word mystery “derives from the Greek mysterion. … This term was intimately connected with various rites [or ordinances] of initiation throughout the ancient Mediterranean—what Latter-day Saints might call a kind of ‘endowment.’”5 Furthermore, this word overlaps with the Hebrew sod, which refers to a divine council in heaven that enacts God’s plan—called “the great plan of redemption” in Jacob 6:8.6

Furthermore, Zenos introduced his allegory by saying, “I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree,” and David Rolph Seely has noted that the underlying word for “liken” was probably the Hebrew mashal, which could refer to an allegory, parable, proverb, or other comparative descriptor. Indeed, this chapter “has characteristics of a parable in that it is introduced as having a single message that transcends the details of the story.”7 As used in Psalm 78:2 (or perhaps even Matthew 13:35), this word could also be used to convey “dark [i.e., enigmatic] sayings of old” or “things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.”8 As clarified in modern revelation, such things are to be revealed specifically in the holy temple (see Doctrine and Covenants 124:33, 41).

Another temple theme is found in Creation imagery found throughout the text. In ancient Israel, the temple was understood to be like the Garden of Eden; when Solomon constructed his temple, he decorated the inside with trees to designate it as a garden setting (see 1 Kings 23, 29, 31). The garden setting of the vineyard is obvious, but additional hints in the text suggest this vineyard is comparable to the Garden of Eden itself.

For example, the beloved tree in this allegory is said to be in a central, elevated location, just as the Tree of Life is implied to be in the Garden of Eden (see Ezekiel 28:13–16). As such, the Lord takes branches from the tree and plants them in “the nethermost parts of the vineyard,” or the lowermost parts of His vineyard, in a type of exile.9 Indeed, the fallen nature of the vineyard becomes evident as it continues to put forth bad fruit and requires the Lord of the vineyard’s constant attention and care in order to again produce good fruit that can be stored up in the Lord’s presence.

Additional Creation imagery further connects this allegory to the temple. As Paul Hoskisson has noted, seven distinct time periods are referred to in this allegory that relate to various points in the history of the house of Israel, culminating with the Second Coming and Millennium.10 This followed what could only be described as the Great Apostasy, or “great day of Satan’s power—or at least the height of his power,” as no tree could provide good fruit anywhere in the vineyard and drastic actions had to be taken to ensure the trees were not lost forever.11

Furthermore, language employed between the Lord of the vineyard and his servants mirrors the plural cohortative language used in the Creation account as God spoke to His Divine Council and His Son Jesus Christ. God said, “Let us make man,” in Genesis 1:26 and in the books of Moses and Abraham, and the Lord of the vineyard repeatedly evokes this same language when speaking to his servants: “Let us go down into the vineyard” (Jacob 5:15).12

Finally, at the end of the allegory, the Lord of the vineyard “called up his servants, and said unto them: … blessed art thou; for because ye have been diligent in laboring with me in my vineyard, … ye shall have joy with me because of the fruit of my vineyard” (Jacob 5:75). Ultimately, these servants are to share in the same joy and blessings that the Lord of the vineyard has because of the work they had all performed in bringing the fruit into the storehouses. These servants, in short, “have become what the temple and its ordinances prepare a person to become”—that is, exalted in the Lord’s presence.13

The Why

In both modern and ancient times, the temple was ultimately the place where Israel could symbolically enter the presence of God and be united joyously with Him. It is the place where the blessings of Christ’s Atonement can be fully enjoyed as people make and keep sacred covenants with their Heavenly Father, preparing them to live with Him once more. Ultimately, as Matthew Bowen observes, the same is true in this allegory, as “Jacob … explicitly casts the allegory in the context of the mystery or plan of how Judah and Israel will be restored to the temple and how the vineyard (earth) will become a temple.”14 Indeed, the whole purpose of gathering scattered Israel as taught in ancient and modern scriptures is to build Zion, a temple community where God may dwell with His covenant people.

This gathering to the temple, patiently performed by the servants, involves both missionary work and the sacred ordinances and teachings offered in holy temples. This has especially been taught by President Russell M. Nelson in recent years, who emphasized, “Anytime you do anything that helps anyone—on either side of the veil—take a step toward making covenants with God and receiving their essential baptismal and temple ordinances, you are helping to gather Israel. It is as simple as that.”15 Indeed, as Bowen also concluded, “the temple is ever the goal of latter-day missionary work” as the Lord’s orchard is carefully pruned, tended, grafted, cleansed, fertilized, and protected.16

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the temple is of utmost importance in gathering Israel—on this side of the veil and the next—as it is there that family generations can be bound together forever. Thus, as we continue to keep our temple covenants and perform these ordinances for our ancestors, we are also performing the great work that the servants in this allegory symbolically performed, for which we, too, will one day be blessed with joy and rejoicing with the Lord.

• 1. Matthew L. Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will’: Reading Jacob 5 as a Temple Text,” in The Temple: Ancient & Restored; Proceedings of the Second Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Conference, “The Temple on Mount Zion,” 25 October 2014, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and Donald W. Parry (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City, UT: Eborn Books, 2016), 235, quoting Doctrine and Covenants 76:69.
• 2. David Rolph Seely and John W. Welch, “Zenos and the Texts of the Old Testament,” in The Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and John W. Welch (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies [FARMS]; Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1994), 326. Seely and Welch also argue that without precise referents to the temple in Jerusalem, it is possible that the main elements of this parable reach back in time before the construction of that temple by Solomon in the tenth century BC.
• 3. Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 235. Significantly, Scroll 4Q500 from the Dead Sea Scrolls shows us that Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard recorded in Isaiah 5 and Isaiah 27 was specifically interpreted during the Second Temple period as having reference to the temple. Thus, Zenos’s allegory would not be the only parable about a vineyard specifically relating to the ancient temple.
• 4. For more on this, see Book of Mormon Central, “Why Does Jacob Quote So Much from the Psalms? (Jacob 1:7; cf. Psalm 95:8),” KnoWhy 62 (March 25, 2016).
• 5. Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 238–239.
• 6. Lehi’s vision recorded in 1 Nephi 1 is also reflective of the sod, or divine council. See, for example, John W. Welch, “Lehi’s Council Vision and the Mysteries of God” in Reexploring the Book of Mormon, ed. John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS; Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1992), 24–25.
• 7. David Rolph Seely, “The Allegory of the Olive Tree and the Use of Related Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament,” in Allegory of the Olive Tree, 292.
• 8. See Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 240–241, for a further discussion on the possible underlying Hebrew in this verse. See also Margaret Barker, The Lost Prophet: The Book of Enoch and Its Influence on Christianity (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2005), 65–76, for a discussion on how the word mashal could be understood in a temple context as revealing hidden knowledge from heaven.
• 9. It should also be noted that in Hebrew, one always goes up to the temple, just as one would have to go up to the tree from the lower parts of the vineyard.
• 10. See Paul Y. Hoskisson, “The Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob,” in Allegory of the Olive Tree, 70–104. The time designations have been charted in Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 248–249.
• 11. Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 249. The verses in question are found in Jacob 5:29–49.
• 12. For a discussion on this language, see Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 244–246.
• 13. Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 257.
• 14. Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 259.
• 15. Russell M. Nelson, “Hope of Israel” (worldwide youth devotional, June 3, 2018).
• 16. Bowen, “‘I Have Done According to My Will,’” 259.