2 Nephi 24 - Winding up Isaiah

It’s hard to believe that I’m through the Isaiah chapters in Nephi. Well, almost, there’s just one more after this one, Isaiah 29 but after that we won’t see him until Abinadi quotes him at length in his sermon to king Noah. After that, we won’t read of him until the Savior quotes him.

But on with this chapter. In it, Isaiah speaks of the final rewards of how we live in this life. He resumes using the pattern of alternating consequences for the righteous and the evil right at the end of the chapter.

People marvel at how small and insignificant Satan is when they see him bereft of his power. Their epitaph will be, “Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?” They won’t believe what they see at that day.

The whole chapter is a recitation on the destruction of the evil in this world. The centerpiece of it being the end of Satan’s power and the revelation of his true appearance without it. Kinda makes you wonder, who’s side do you want to be on doesn’t it.

He has so much now because we give it to him. God’s power is within Him. From it flows His love for us. Satan on the other hand has only what he can deceive us into giving him. It’s quite the contrast.

The chapter ends with a couple of Hebrew parallelisms portraying the fate of the righteous: the firstborn of the poor will feed and the needy will lie down in safety while the nation of the wicked is dissolved with none to deliver them. As we’ll read later on, God is with us through the end of all things. Satan can’t. Additionally, he abandons us when he has no further use for us.