Nephi paraphrased Isaiah 29:4 to show that even though his people shall be destroyed, “those who shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of the ground, and their speech shall be low out of the dust, and their voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit” (2 Nephi 26:16). The original meaning of “familiar spirit” is a noun, meaning a spirit who prompts an individual or the spirit of a dead person. While this meaning may sound odd to us today, in the past it commonly conveyed the sense that departed ones can have influence beyond the grave into this life. In that sense, the voice of Nephi’s people “who have slumbered in the dust” (2 Nephi 27:9) for centuries are now whispering “out of the dust” through the pages of the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith literally took “out of the ground” (Isaiah 29:4; see Joseph Smith—History 1:51–52).