Yahweh asks for judgment on his efforts. His question is a loaded one, directed at Judah and Jerusalem. They must acknowledge Yahweh’s proper care, thus condemning themselves. Yahweh’s care (his fulfillment of his part of the covenant) is never in question. It is we, like Israel, who fail in our part of the promise.
Text: Yahweh laments the failure of his vineyard in terms virtually identical to Zenos’s allegory: “And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard wept, and said unto the servant: What could I have done more for my vineyard?” (Jacob 5:41). The similarity of language might reinforce an argument for some linkage between them. The meaning of the master’s distress and his question are so predictable in the context of the allegory that we need not suppose any direct influence between the two texts. The specific terms used, however, can be explained sufficiently by Joseph Smith’s general use of King James English throughout his translation of the Book of Mormon.
Comparison: The King James Isaiah text ends with a question mark, while the 2 Nephi passage terminates with a period. While it makes no difference in the text’s meaning, the Book of Mormon reading reflects the modern English understanding of “wherefore” as a synonym for “therefore.” It functions as an adverb expressing causation, with what follows being a result of what preceded it. In the Early Modern English of the King James Version, however, “wherefore” is a synonym for “why?” or, more colloquially, “how come?” In Juliet’s lament from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, she exclaims, “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” She was asking why he was named Romeo and, by extension, why he should be a member of the family with which her family was feuding. The punctuation difference is not significant, since the punctuation was the typesetter’s decision, not Joseph’s or Oliver’s.