2 Nephi 18:19; “And when they shall say unto you: Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and mutter—should not a people seek unto their God for the living to hear from the dead? 20 To the law and to the testimony; and if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
Isaiah 8:19; “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? 20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
Heads up!! Today’s dilemma is a classic reason why we need to pay attention to the way things are written and phrased.
Here we have this fellow Nephi plagiarizing the prophet Isaiah in his warning and comfort to the Israelites. He had just finished telling them that even though Syria would soon overcome them there is hope to be found in the oracles and Law of God.
Isaiah warned the Kingdom of Israel to stay away from those who promised to give them false hope from their dead relatives by pretending to know what they’d say. You’ll notice in Isaiah 8:19 the two sentences are actually questions.
Nephi on the other hand (aka Joseph Smith) has taken these two sentences and combined them making it sound as if God is condoning witchcraft!
You’ll see in Isaiah 18:20 how he reminds them that if others don’t speak to this word…
This “word” is God’s word, not the words and advice of witches or fortune-tellers.
The familiar spirits noted in this passage comes from the Hebrew word “ob” which means a chirping sound. We’ve touched on this in previous posts on how the witches and fortune tellers would fill a wine skin about half full and jiggle it to make a whining or echoing sound. The witch would then “interpret” the noise and give the unsuspecting victim a made up story of a dead relative who had a message to give them from beyond the grave.
Unfortunately, the LDS apostle LeGrand Richards mistakenly taught that the Israelites would write the Book of Mormon and speak to modern LDS people through the plates they had buried in the ground.
Marvelous Work and Wonder, pg 68; “Isaiah not only saw the destruction of this people, that they would be brought down, that they would speak out of the ground, and that their speech would be as one that hath a familiar spirit, whispering out of the dust…” – LeGrand Richards
Everywhere we look in scripture God warns His people to stay away from witchcraft (Lev. 19:21 for example) and if they didn’t heed His warning their idolatry would ruin them. The teaching from this apostle is false. God’s words from His prophets weren’t warnings from the dust of the ground! The Mormons want you to believe a false gospel much like the witches were luring the Israelites away from God all those years ago.
Notice what it says further into Isaiah when God told the Israelites the spirit of Egypt would fail them. If this is true then why are Mormons introducing it to the body of Christ?
It seems to us there are a lot of teachings in the Bible one has to ignore or disregard altogether in order to accept the stories of Joseph Smith.
Isaiah 19:3; “And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards”.
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