The Book of Mormon

Jacob 6:1

Back to chapter
~544–420 BC

1830 Edition

And now, behold, my brethren, as I said unto you that I would prophesy, behold, this is my prophesy: That the things which this prophet Zenos spake, concerning the House of Israel, in the which he likened them unto a tame olive tree, must surely come to pass.

Influences

John 10:26 (KJV)
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

Changes

And now, behold, my brethren, as I said unto you that I would prophesy, behold, this is my prophescy: T—that the things which this prophet Zenos spake, concerning the Hhouse of Israel, in the which he likened them unto a tame olive tree, must surely come to pass.

Simple English

Brothers and sisters, I told you I would speak God’s message. This is my message: Everything the prophet Zenos said about Israel will happen. He compared them to an olive tree that someone takes care of.

Paraphrase

Now, brothers and sisters, I told you I would prophesy. Here it is: everything the prophet Zenos said about Israel—when he compared them to a cultivated olive tree—will absolutely come true.

Notes

6:1-13

In Jacob chapter 5 and 6, an allegory of the tame and wild olive trees is attributed to an ancient prophet named Zenos, who supposedly lived before Lehi’s journey to the New World. The allegory, however, closely mirrors material from multiple biblical sources: Apostle Paul’s discussion of olive trees in Romans 11:17–24, Jesus’ parable of the unfruitful fig tree in Luke 13:6–9, and imagery from Isaiah 5:1–7 concerning a vineyard. In the Book of Mormon, these sources are expanded into an allegory spanning over six pages. As Jerald and Sandra Tanner note, “It is probably the most repetitious part of the Book of Mormon. It gives the impression that the author is deliberately trying to use up as much space as possible. It is very hard to resist the idea that it is merely filler material." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 165.

Similarly, Wesley P. Walters observes, “For a grand finale of his work, however, he returned to this olive tree illustration [given by Apostle Paul] and worked it into a mind-boggling allegory, combining it with Jesus' parable about the unfruitful fig tree (Lk. 13:6–8) and working in the words from Isaiah 5:1–5 about God's disappointment with his grape vineyard. The result is a staggering conglomeration that would perplex a horticulturalist and bewilder an exegete” -Wesley P. Walters, "The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon," (Master's thesis, St. Louis: Covenant Theological Seminary, April 1981), pp. 152-153.