(Isa. 54:3)
Sometimes by choice and sometimes by circumstance, Israel has been a barren, childless woman who had not borne fruit or lived up to her promises, potential, and covenants. Nevertheless, desolate Israel can—and will—be fruitful, even in the times and places of her scattering and dispersion.
The large movement of Israel’s conversion, gathering, and return to the lands of her inheritance will require strong, enlarged stakes in Zion. Growth will be “on the right hand and on the left,” with Gentile cities (probably left desolate by the wrath “poured out without mixture upon the whole earth” (D&C 115:6) inhabited by the children of the covenant. It is from this imagery of Israel’s wilderness tent/tabernacle with its cords, curtains, borders, and stakes that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints draws its use of the word stake for the name of its basic ecclesiastical unit.
(Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1997], 289–90.)
In the day of their final gathering, the Saints will break forth on the right hand and on the left. The Israelites will not only occupy the mountains, valleys, desert, and plains, but they will invade the “desolate” and abandoned cities of the Gentiles. This would suggest that a certain amount of domestic warfare will have cleansed the land of Gentile wickedness. After each of the world wars ended, it was amazing how the people were able to clean up the rubble and erect magnificent modern cities in a relatively short time. The gathering Saints will do the same in America. They will take over the desolate cities of the Gentiles and cause them to be inhabited.
(W. Cleon Skousen, Isaiah Speaks to Modern Times [Salt Lake City: Ensign Publishing Co., 1984], 670.)
While the Church was in its infancy, the Lord pointed to a time when those earlier gathering places would not have room for all who would be gathered for reasons for which he declared that his church should be united.
(Harold B. Lee, Ensign, May 1973, 3.)