After discussing events of the final days, Jesus quoted Isaiah 52:12 (3 Ne. 21:29), repeating the verse he had already quoted (3 Ne. 21:42). The Savior uses his (by now) accustomed technique of quoting a scripture to conclude an instructional passage. In this case, he quotes the entire chapter of Isaiah 54. Because it deals with that final time, he intends it as the summation of the entire discourse. This quotation highlights the major themes of Jesus’s discourse and, contextually, provides crowning evidence of God’s goodness.
This discourse explained the gathering of Israel, a topic of great interest to the Nephites who knew that they were among scattered Israel. The Savior explains the sequence. First, the gospel will go to the Gentiles; while they have it and are righteous, they will prosper and scatter Israel. They will then become unrighteous, and the gospel will be taken from them. During this time of general unrighteousness, believing Gentiles will be adopted into Israel’s covenant, and the literal and spiritual gathering of Israel will begin. At the end of time, the Triumphant Messiah will return and destroy the wicked. The house of Israel (lineal and adopted) will be his victorious army. Isaiah 54 fits this basic outline perfectly as a climactic reference to those events.
The address to the childless woman commands, “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear.” Childlessness was considered a reproach to an Israelite woman; but in this context, “barren” is a metaphor for Israel or, more specifically for this context, the Nephites. Separated from the house of Israel, they symbolically lack “children.” Despite this apparently sad condition, the Lord commands her to rejoice.
The reason for rejoicing is that she, “the desolate,” will have more children than “the married wife,” representing Israel in the Old World. Jesus’s quotation from Isaiah 54 promises greater blessings to Nephite descendants than to those of the Jews.
Comparison: Isaiah 54 appears in 3 Nephi just as it is in the King James Version of the Bible except for the introductory “And then shall that which is written come to pass.” The chapter break separates this long quotation from Jesus’s explanatory discourse, which ends in 3 Nephi 21. This arrangement allows the modern reader to compare the two texts easily, as the versification is identical; however, it somewhat masks the effect of this quotation as the summation of Jesus’s discourse. Since it is unusual for modern writers to use scriptures in this way, the function of the chapter in the context of the Savior’s visitation can be easily lost.