John Bytheway:               00:00:07             Hello, our dear followHIM friends. We are back again with another episode of Thoughts to Keep in Mind. We have Dr. Ross Baron with us again. This topic today, Reading Poetry in the Old Testament. Now, years ago, I would have thought there’s no poetry in the Old Testament because when I think of poetry, I wrote one for today. Would you like to hear it? Forests are green, deserts are barren. followHIM’s blessed to have Dr. Ross Baron. ‘Cause that’s what I think a poem is. It’s got rhyme, it’s got meter.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:43             I don’t think Baron rhymes with barren.

John Bytheway:               00:00:46             It’s a different spelling.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:47             Ah…

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:00:48             B-A-R-R-E-N and B-A-R-O-N. I appreciate that.

John Bytheway:               00:00:52             It’s got that meter and rhyme. And when I think of poetry, that’s what I think of. We’re talking about something different when we’re talking about poetry in the Old Testament. Is that right?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:01:02             That is correct. I’m honored by that poem though, John. Thank you.

John Bytheway:               00:01:07             Thank you. The deserts, they will blossom as a rose when you are here.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:11             John, I gotta teach you how to use AI to write poetry. You don’t have to do it yourself anymore.

John Bytheway:               00:01:17             Hey, Chat, write me a poem about Ross Baron.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:01:19             I did do an AI poem for my wife, and I don’t think I disclosed it. And she was like, “I’m so touched. This is so…” She’s crying.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:29             Oh man.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:01:29             I was like, “Oh, no.” Anyway, then I, of course, came clean and she wasn’t super happy. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:36             You probably start with that. Well, we love Kathleen.

John Bytheway:               00:01:42             Absolutely. Well, I would like to read the opening paragraphs in the Thoughts to Keep in Mind in the manual. Then we’ll let Ross take off here. “In the Old Testament books of Genesis through Esther, we find mostly stories–narrative accounts that describe historical events from a spiritual perspective. Noah built an ark, Moses delivered Israel, Hannah prayed to have a son, and so on. Beginning with Job, we find a different writing style. In these books, Old Testament writers turned to poetic language to express deep feelings or monumental prophecies in a memorable way. We have already seen a few examples of poetry sprinkled throughout the historical books of the Old Testament. From the Book of Job forward, we will see a lot more of it. The books of Job, Psalms, and Proverbs are almost entirely poetry, as are parts of prophetic books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos.

                                           00:02:36             Because reading poetry is different from reading a story, understanding it often requires a different approach.” Ross, give us some thoughts to help us find meaning in Old Testament poetry. They don’t have to rhyme like my intro poem.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:02:51             Yeah, I was gonna do the entire podcast in rhyme and meter, but I decided not to. The books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are typically kind of considered the poetic books. Then they even break it down and, and the intro breaks it down as well. The Book of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are considered more what’s called wisdom literature, contemplating deep philosophical and theological questions and trying to address those. Whereas Psalms, they brought up Isaiah and Amos, as the prophetic books. Maybe Isaiah’s the quintessential prophetic prophet in terms of the Old Testament. I wanted to read this from the August 2026 Liahona. This is Elder Dale G. Renlund. This just came out. Quote, “…the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament served as the ancient hymn book for God’s covenant people.” The Book of Psalms, the ancient hymn book, “revealing how they felt about Jehovah and their relationship with Him.” Continuing.

                                           00:04:02             “At its core, the Book of Psalms is more centered on Jesus Christ–and more frequently quoted in the New Testament–than any other Old Testament book. The attributes of Jesus Christ, specifically His mercy and grace, are repeatedly emphasized. ” Unquote. The Book of Psalms is probably the most poetic and Isaiah. Proverbs classically are what we call aphorisms, like wise sayings. Ecclesiastes is poetic dealing with rich images and asking some very hard questions. The Book of Job has a narrative section. The first couple of chapters and the last chapter are narrative, but the whole middle part is like one long Hebrew poetic thing going back and forth between Job and these three, I’ll put it in quotes, friends. In the Latter-day Saint Citation Index, which you know I love, which is scriptures.byu.edu, it links scriptures to general conference talks, journal of discourses, the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith.

                                           00:05:07             It also can tell you at a glance, what are the most quoted books of any book? I thought, okay, I’m gonna look for Old Testament. By general authorities in general conference talks, Journal of Discourses, The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The number one most quoted from the Old Testament, the Book of Isaiah. Which I guess wouldn’t surprise most. Then the next one is the Book of Genesis. And the third one, the Book of Psalms. That actually surprised me. Isaiah’s number one, then the Book of Genesis, then Psalms. We know that Nephi in 2 Nephi 11 will say that Jesus was seen by Nephi, Jacob, and Isaiah, three eyewitnesses. That’s one of the reasons Nephi wants to quote Isaiah so significantly and so extensively is because he’s a witness of Jesus Christ. I think Isaiah, how appropriate that would be the number one quoted. Genesis, which lays the foundation for the Abrahamic Covenant, which all points to Jesus Christ, which also has Joseph who is sold into Egypt as a type of Christ, is the second quoted.

                                           00:06:18             At its core, the Book of Psalms is more centered on Jesus Christ than any other Old Testament book. What a powerful thing that prophets and apostles are quoting from Isaiah, Genesis, and Psalms, which all point to Jesus Christ. I thought that’s pretty fun, pretty interesting.

John Bytheway:               00:06:36             Four years ago, when we went through this, for me, one of the aha moments was to look at some of the key moments of the Savior going through the events of his atoning sacrifice and to look at Psalms 22 and Isaiah 53 and go, “Wow, wow, wow, wow, look at all these connections.” When you said that those were the most quoted from the Old Testament, or Isaiah number one, Psalms number three, I though, yeah, that’s the central event, the atoning sacrifice. I don’t know. And just read those psalms that starts, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” You’re like, whoa, here’s Jesus quoting the hymn book from Gethsemane and from the cross.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:07:17             No, that’s beautiful. The other interesting thing that I wanna bring up, the Psalms 113 through 118 are, they believe, the songs they would’ve sung at the Passover. Psalm 113 through 118, the Halal is considered what they would’ve sung. And they would’ve sung Psalms 113 and 114 before the major part of the meal. And then 115 through 118 after the meal, and then they sang a hymn before they went to Gethsemane, according to Matthew. In all likelihood, that was Psalms 115, 16, 17, 18, or some portion thereof. The other interesting thing that we should be aware of is that two of the quotes that Jesus and the gospel writers bring up are from those passages in 118. One is, the stone that the builders have rejected has become the chief cornerstone. That’s Psalm 118. And the triumphal entry. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

                                           00:08:21             That’s Psalm 118. That gets repeated not only at the triumphal entry, but also when Jesus is talking to them saying, we’re not drinking wine until you say blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. He’s tapping into these ancient covenant hymns that resonates with them, maybe like it doesn’t resonate with us because we’re not as familiar with the Book of Psalms. When you were talking about Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, I also think we should remember Psalms 113 through 118. All the Jews at the time would’ve known those intimately because it was done at every Passover.

John Bytheway:               00:08:58             I thought of another one too. Isn’t it true that during the Feast of Tabernacles, when they would bring water from the pool of Siloam up to the temple, that they sang the Psalm that says, draw water from the wells of salvation or something? And they would sing these songs about water. And that set up Jesus perfectly to say, actually, if you come to me, this is where you’ll find living water.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:09:23             That’s excellent. I wanted to start with what can we do? Somebody’s listening and they’re not resonating with this. I like what you said, Hank. You can get some really nice bumper sticker-like great quotes. Like, boom, a soundbite here, a soundbite there. I think this is a suggestion for our church scripture study in general. Number one, read more slowly. Sometimes we feel this obligation. Have you ever walked into a gospel doctrine class? Today, we’re gonna study Jeremiah one through 45.

John Bytheway:               00:09:59             We’re not studying it. We are water skiing over the top.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:10:03             We’re not doing anything close to that. One of the things that I’ve done in my family as a dad for a lot of years is I’ve slowed down. It’s okay that we don’t get through the chapter. If we’re having a great discussion, it’s okay. When you’re reading the Psalms or the Book of Job or Ecclesiastes or Proverbs or Isaiah, it’s okay if we read more slowly. That is something we could all do. I’m gonna try to model some of that here today as we study this. Number two, it’s very interesting to read things out loud. Now, I know we’re taking Hebrew and translating it into English, but even the Hebrew, the English, you can get some rhythm and you get a sound. You get to hear the repetition. Reading it out loud can be kinda fun and actually is a fun family exercise to do.

                                           00:11:01             Especially if you’ve pre-looked at the chapter and you’re like, oh, there’s some really cool things that are gonna jump out. Let’s read it a little slow. Let’s read it out loud. It’s really powerful to do with young children, children, teenagers, and adults. Third one, with the new app we have, I think most people realize you can literally tap on a word and then say define. I always say look up unfamiliar words and references. It’s gonna say some funky thing and people are gonna be like, “I don’t know what that means.” It’s okay. You can just press on the word now and hit define, and it’s gonna pull up a definition. It’s a very, very insightful way to give you some latitude to now be able to talk about those words and not have to be, we don’t know what that word means, and I don’t wanna go look at a dictionary.

                                           00:11:50             It’s just right there. We’re gonna read slow. We can read out loud sometimes. I’m not sure we wanna do that all the time. We’re gonna look up unfamiliar words and references. I wanna identify images and symbols. Sometimes we’ve gotta flat out say this is a symbol. One of the things I wanted to do today, which I love to do in class, when I teach First Nephi 8, which you guys have all done so many times, a lot of times the students we have, especially at the university level, they’ve already done the exercise where here’s the symbol and what does it stand for? So, mists of darkness is the temptations of the devil. They’ve done that multiple times. But I like to say, why do you think the symbol mists of darkness is used for temptations for the devil? Why that symbol? How does that help us understand temptation?

                                           00:12:42             In what ways are we given insight so that we can overcome temptation once we know it’s that? The beautiful thing about that is you can have a great conversation with lots of different insights. There’s no one right answer. It’s a very fun way to approach. When we’re reading the Psalms and we have symbols and we have images, it’s fun to say, okay, why that image? What is it about that image that helps me understand Jesus and His plan, His atonement better? In summary, we’re gonna read a little more slowly. We can read it out loud. We can look for unfamiliar words and define them. Then we can talk about symbols. Again, we gotta slow down. Why that symbol? Then I like to look at it this way. I’m gonna be open here. I sometimes look at poetry like it’s a math problem. Like I gotta figure it out.

                                           00:13:37             When it’s probably more like looking at art, where you’re reflecting on it, you’re observing it. It’s evoking a response in you that might be different than the way someone else is looking at it. Then we can have a conversation. I’ve approached poetry in the past, and even Old Testament poetry, a bit like a math problem. Like, I gotta figure this out. There is a right answer. When in fact, there’s probably multiple ways to let it speak to you.

Hank Smith:                      00:14:07             I remember reading an article that if someone goes to, like, a art museum, the average time they spend looking at a piece of art is, is something like 25 seconds. I kept reading that some art teachers will do, like, a slow art day where they’re like, “All right, 10 minutes.” Right in front of this painting, 10 minutes. And it sounds like if you’re advocating the same thing. Slow down.

John Bytheway:               00:14:33             And here’s a piece of art that somebody probably spent months producing, and we’re gonna grasp all of it even 10 seconds. That’s a great analogy. You know how hard they worked on the light and the shadow and where it’s dark and where it’s light and what’s the focus. Take five seconds. Yeah, that was nice.

Hank Smith:                      00:14:52             That was great. Great job.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:14:55             And it’s not a math problem. Most of the time, the point of poetry, the point of Hebrew Old Testament prophetic poetry is to actually instill within us, let the spirit help us in our particular circumstance, at our life point, understand what God wants to say to us. Sometimes we wanna say, “The mists of darkness equals the temptation of the devil,” which it does. There is a right answer. But then to say, “Why did he use that symbol?” Now we can have a really fun, open discussion. And people can feel safe not having to say, “I’m afraid, I don’t have the right answer.”

Hank Smith:                      00:15:35             Ross, I think you and William Tyndale have a lot in common.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:15:39             I’ve been told that multiple times. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:15:43             William Tyndale, I mean, how much does that guy love scripture?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:15:48             Oh, my word, yes.

Hank Smith:                      00:15:49             If you don’t know who he is, he gave his life for scripture. “Though we read scripture and babble of it ever so much, yet if we know not the use of it, and wherefore it was given, and what therein is to be sought, it profiteth us nothing at all.” Now listen to this. “It is not enough, therefore, to read and talk of it only. But we must also desire God day and night to open our eyes to make us understand and feel why the scripture was given. That we may apply the medicine of the scripture to our own source. As thou readest, therefore, think that every syllable pertaineth to thy known self.” How is that?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:16:39             Well, that’s something else.

John Bytheway:               00:16:41             I think that argues for the idea, Hank. I’m so glad you brought that up because I was literally thinking about who translated these, how much King James borrowed from Tyndale, and how much they must have poured over what they were looking at in the ancient languages. And how do you do justice to that? I would think that would be such a daunting task. How in the world do I keep all the things we’re talking about here and allow for people to think about it like you just said, Ross? Do you run through Moses 1:39? That is an earth-shaking, heart-stopping, wonderful verse, but we can read too fast. Like you said, Ross, okay, I’m gonna read a chapter a night.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:17:25             Yeah, exactly. By the way, I’m not opposed to somebody who says, “You know, I gotta, I gotta get the lay of the land.” I always tell them, “Have you ever read the Book of Mormon cover to cover?” No. Okay. Just read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. Get the lay of the land. But then when you go back, you don’t have to read fast. You don’t have to read a ton. Howard W. Hunter has this great quote where he said, you could spend profitably 30 minutes to an hour and not read a lot. I think the Tyndale quote is where you’re gonna get this depth. I’ve talked to people that may be struggling in their lives or having some concerns, and I’ll say, “Tell me about your scripture study.” And they’ll talk a little bit about it. And I’ll say, “Just let the word of God wash over you.” And they’ll be like, “What?” I’m back to my math problem.

                                           00:18:15             So sometimes we’re reading scriptures because we wanna create a doctrinal diagram. And I just said, “Let the word of God heal you. Let it wash over you. Take your time.” The follow-up I’ve had on that, people have been back. Wow. I had a session this morning where I read the word of God. I felt such peace. That’s beautiful. That’s so good. Take your time. So Hebrew poetry. Now, we’ve already compounded home the point that it doesn’t rhyme like John, Bytheway’s opening poem. Which didn’t technically rhyme either.

John Bytheway:               00:18:48             You had to kinda see it and then you saw that there’s a different kind of baron. And so, so Hank, I think we should all step back and wonder why did John use that example of forest or green?

Hank Smith:                      00:19:00             Barren…

John Bytheway:               00:19:02             What can that teach us?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:19:03             ‘Because you spent so much time on it, we should spend that equal amount of time.

John Bytheway:               00:19:08             I spent up to half a minute on that poem.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:19:12             I wanna say this, and this is really important, that the chief, maybe, characteristic of Hebrew poetry is a thing called parallelism. In fact, the introduction there on Thoughts to Keep in Mind in the Come Follow Me Manuel talks about parallelism. The idea is that one line in the sentence, in the verse, is then gonna have a parallel to the next line. They’re gonna reflect on each other and we can learn so much. Now, the way our verses are laid out, sometimes we think we’re reading narrative even though it’s poetic. It’s poetic parallelism. Parallelism is the defining feature of Hebrew poetry. Let me give a couple other ones. There’s imagery and figurative language which you’re gonna talk about. We’ve already said there’s rhythm more than rhyme. Repetition is a big Hebrew poetic idea. Look for phrases, words that repeat themselves. Obviously, the Lord through whoever’s writing that is trying to get a point across.

                                           00:20:21             Symbolism, I am going to talk about the chiastic structure, which is a particular Hebrew form of writing where you have a point like point A, then point B, then point C. C might be the middle. And then C prime, B prime, A prime, which parallel each one. I hope I said that clearly enough. There’s a famous one in the Book of Mormon, we all know, which is Alma 36, which is one of the great chiastic structures maybe in literature. There are really clear ones we’re gonna look at today in the Book of Psalms. The other thing thematically is to, especially in the Book of Psalms, there’s covenant-centered themes. God’s covenant with us, our covenant with Him, and of course, the character attributes and perfections of Jesus Christ. If you’re reading the Psalms, like John, you brought up earlier, Psalm 22. Oh my, it is Christocentric.

                                           00:21:18             It is Christ-centered beginning to end. As we’re reading the Psalms, we can be, “What are we learning about the Lord Jesus Christ? What are we learning about His covenant?” Those are some ideas. If you’re reading Isaiah, you’re reading some of the Psalms, we’re gonna see these parallelisms that are super helpful, but you gotta slow down. That’s where you gotta, oh, what are the parallels here? This is great.

John Bytheway:               00:21:41             Would it be fair to say then, in our common English poetry, we would think, oh, poetry means it’s gonna rhyme. But what you just said, the main thing would not be rhyme. It would be parallelism. Is that fair?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:21:53             That’s really accurate. It’s the defining feature.

John Bytheway:               00:21:57             Let me try an example. Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord? Parallel. Who shall ascend into His holy place? It’s kinda saying the same thing twice.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:22:07             Yeah. I have some examples. Can we look at them together?

Hank Smith:                      00:22:11             Let’s do it.

John Bytheway:               00:22:12             Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:22:12             Let’s do it. 2 Nephi 6: verse six. I know that that is the Book of Mormon, but it is Jacob who is going to quote Isaiah.

                                           00:22:23             He’s quoting Isaiah because Nephi gave him the assignment. It’s like he asked him to speak in church. And he said, you’re gonna talk on Isaiah chapter 49. By the way, he’s modeling for us. He only takes two or three verses from Isaiah and then expounds on them. He’s reading slowly, he’s taking his time, and he’s gonna expand on this. Second Nephi 6: verse six, “…I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people…” I would insert, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and I will set up my standard to the people. Meaning I think the “I will” continues through that. Does that make sense? Lift up. I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles. Lift up is paralleled with set up. So you got lift up and set up. They’re actually two different Hebrew words.

                                           00:23:17             One, nasah, literally means to raise up. It also is a root word to forgive. This is gonna be significant. And then I’m gonna set up. This is establish my standard. Now, notice, I will lift up mine hand. Hand is then paralleled with standard. Now, the word for standard is the same word they use to translate for ensign. God is going to lift up, nasah. He’s gonna raise up his hand to the gentiles. It’s kind of a punch in the face. If you’re reading this and Jacob’s reading it to his people, he’s not talking about the house of Israel. He’s talking about God lifting up his hand to the Gentiles. What’s going on here? Then the parallel line. And I will set up my standard, my ensign, to the people. The people is then paralleled with Gentiles. We’re talking about God doing a work among Gentiles.

                                           00:24:16             He is doing a work. He’s lifting up his hand. His hand is his power. His hand is his righteousness. His hand could even be symbolic of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Sometimes my arm and my hand can refer to the Messiah. I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles. I will set up my standard to the people. Lift up, set up, hand, standard, Gentiles, people. Are we getting the parallelisms here? Are you guys as excited about this as I am?

Hank Smith:                      00:24:43             This is good stuff. Ross, are you gonna do a little Hebrew today?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:24:47             I am gonna do some Hebrew, because I know John likes it when I do a lot “haching”.

Hank Smith:                      00:24:51             So do I.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:24:52             I want us to see that Nephi has asked Jacob to quote a few verses from the 49th chapter of Isaiah. They didn’t have it chapterized back then. He said, “I want you to take these verses. I want this to be on the small plates. This is sacred stuff. So, lift up, paralleled with set up. My hand is paralleled with my standard or an ensign to the Gentiles. It’s parallel to people. All right, so what’s going on? Here’s a Howard W. Hunter quote from General Conference, October 1979. “Whatever Jesus lays his hand upon lives. If Jesus lays His hands upon a marriage, it lives. If He is allowed to lay His hands on the family, it lives.” Unquote. If Jesus is laying His hand or raising His hand upon Gentiles, He is going to prosper and bless them. We know that the Book of Mormon and Jacob expounding of these verses, that’s exactly what God is doing.

                                           00:25:49             He will bless Gentile nations. To what end? Why? What is this grand and glorious role of these Gentiles upon whom he has laid His hand that He is lifting up and setting a standard among them? They, these Gentiles, are going to bring and carry, there’s the parallelism, sons and daughters of the covenant people in their arms and on their shoulders. Okay, wait, what? It’s still not super clear. These Gentiles that God has blessed among whom He has set up His standard are gonna carry and bring Israelites. Not Israelites, necessarily from the state of Israel. I’m talking about Israelite blood. Those that were seeking. They’re gonna be carried metaphorically in our arms. In fact, that’s like in your bosom, like this. We’re gonna carry them and then on our shoulders. To what end? Well, kings are gonna be nursing fathers. And queens, parallel, nursing mothers. That’s again, another punch in the face because we’re like, kings don’t nurse.

                                           00:27:00             But if you think about what do you do when you nurse, you’re giving essential nutrients for life. What happens when we go to the temple? To what are we anointed to become? Kings and queens, priests and priestesses. Then what are we supposed to do as kings and queens and priests and priestesses? We are to nourish them or to nurse them so that they have the essential nutrients to come back to the Holy One of Israel, to come back to Jesus Christ. What do we do? Metaphorically, we carry them in our bosom and we put them upon our shoulders and we bring them back to the source of true nurturing, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is awesome. And that’s just a couple of verses. Using the parallelism can help us, bless us, expand the verses. And as we slow down and think, it opens our eyes to the majesty of God’s beautiful plan.

Hank Smith:                      00:28:04             Kings and queens.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:28:05             Kings and queens.

Hank Smith:                      00:28:06             That’s fantastic.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:28:08             Nursing fathers, nursing mothers.

Hank Smith:                      00:28:09             Have you ever seen something, John, right in front of you the whole time? You’re like, “Why didn’t I ever see that?”

John Bytheway:               00:28:15             Yep, that’s why we do this. You just get humbler and humbler when you’re thinking, how could I miss that?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:28:21             Here’s the beauty. Now, I said metaphorically carried in our bosom and on our shoulders. But in some sense, there’s a literalness to this because when I go to the temple, I take that printed person’s name and I put it over my heart. And I’m literally carrying it back, metaphorically in the temple, to the presence of God, to the holy presence of God. Isaiah poetically, metaphorically, and to a certain extent, literally is opening our minds and opening our eyes to God’s work on earth, which is, of course, the salvation of humankind.

Hank Smith:                      00:29:04             Ross, didn’t you say even the high priest has Israel on his chest and Israel on his shoulders?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:29:10             Yep. I love that. The Book of Exodus teaches that the high priest has six on one stone here and six on the other of the house of Israel. Then over his chest, the breastplates got the 12 stones representing the house of Israel. Then beneath that, remember we talked about that’s the Urim and Thummim. That is the lights and perfections by which He will bring us back into the presence of God, which of course is the Lord Jesus Christ. I think I brought up that in the Book of Ether, how many stones are touched by the Lord? 16. How many stones are on the high priest? 16. They bring us back to the presence of God. That was an example to me of slowing down, looking at parallelism. Jacob actually modeled for us how to do that.

Hank Smith:                      00:29:55             Fantastic.

John Bytheway:               00:29:55             Oh, that’s great. What is the word that equated with an ensign?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:30:02             The Hebrew word is ness. The King James translators translated ness in this case as standard, but it’s usually translated as ensign. When he says, I will lift up my hand to the Gentile, I’ll set up my standard to the people. My hand is paralleled with my standard. My hand, I believe Jesus Christ, His power, His priesthood authority, the keys that are restored, are then paralleled with the ensign of the latter days, to which people will gather. Where is he setting that up? He’s not setting that up among the Jews. He’s not setting that up among the lost tribes of Israel. He’s setting it up among Gentiles. The Gentiles will be the platform, if you will, the jumping off point by which we then gather the rest of God’s children. Then we’re gonna carry them in our arms, put them upon our shoulders as nursing kings and nursing queens to the true ultimate nourishment, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.

John Bytheway:               00:31:02             Perfect. That idea of carrying those names to the temple, I will never forget that. That is great. I’ve had experiences in my life where I got to know well the person whose name I was carrying in, but 99% of the time, I don’t know their backstory. I just love to slow down and think every one of these names has a story and every one of them is important to Heavenly Father and we get to carry them, sort of, on our shoulders. I love it. Thank you.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:31:35             Beautiful. Let’s go. Isaiah chapter 44, verse 3. I know I’m doing two from Isaiah, but we’re gonna get to the Psalms. Isaiah 44:3, it’s one verse, but it is so powerful. “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground”. Already, I love the imagery. Like, already I think this is powerful.

John Bytheway:               00:32:01             Is this a barren desert? We’re talking about a barren desert here. I just, Hank, wanted to point that out.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:32:07             Are you criticizing me? Is this a barren B-A-R-O-N desert? Is it a b-a –

John Bytheway:               00:32:11             No, I’m saying my poem had some deep, profound meaning to it. Okay.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:32:16             So I already love the imagery. Water being poured upon him that is thirsty. We’ve all been thirsty and we all know, man, how that feels. And then floods upon dry ground. It’ll change the landscape. Notice the parallelism. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed and my blessings upon thine offspring. So, if you don’t slow down here, it’s good. It’s all good. But when we slow down, we know that poured water is paralleled with floods. Him that is thirsty is paralleled with dry ground. That sentence is then paralleled with the next sentence. So, what Isaiah did, he created a parallel within that one sentence and then took that whole sentence and then parallel it with the next sentence. So, follow. Pour my spirit is parallel with my blessing. And thy seed is parallel with thine offspring. Water and floods are equated with my spirit and my blessing.

                                           00:33:18             Why are water and floods good symbols for my spirit and my blessing?

John Bytheway:               00:33:25             I love that Jesus never said things like, I’m like gold, or I’m like jewels, or I’m like silver. I love that he would say things like, I’m like bread, or I’m like light, or I’m like water. We got a probe on Mars right now. What’s it looking for more than anything else? Water. Because if there’s water, there’s life.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:33:44             That’s right. That’s beautiful.

Hank Smith:                      00:33:47             I love the idea that water can fill space. You can’t contain it. It’s tough. What does the Lord say? Well, my man stretched forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri River in its decreed course. Go ahead and try to stop this water. Not gonna happen. Not gonna.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:34:04             Oh, that’s great. I resonate with him that is thirsty. I was thirsty at one point in my life. I lived a wonderful life, but my spirit was thirsty. It wasn’t quenched. I was him that is thirsty. And I, to a certain degree, I was dry ground. I sought for to quench that thirst and looked at different things. There’s other great places. But when I found the Book of Mormon, when I found the standard or the ensign, it was like literally He poured His spirit like water upon me and the flood was inside me. My dry ground was changed. The landscape changed with water. And my spirit was quenched because He poured out upon me His spirit. I resonate with this verse because I believe it’s me, and I think it’s everyone to a certain degree. I think everyone has that.

                                           00:35:01             And I wanna go back to Joseph in the grove. I believe that Joseph Smith’s story to some degree is everyone’s story. Every one of us has to have that experience with God vertically. It is literally like, to a certain degree, and this is Jesus, of course, saying, I’m the water. I am the true living water. All of us are thirsty. All of us are dry ground until He pours out His spirit upon us and He floods us with His blessing. I think that’s all of us.

Hank Smith:                      00:35:36             That’s great, Ross.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:35:38             Now, we all know Psalm 23. In Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. Here are some symbols just from Psalm 23. I’d like John and Hank and anybody who’s listening, think about what strikes them, what impacts them? Why did God use those symbols? And which particular symbol would you highlight? We’ve got shepherd, green pastures, still waters, paths of righteousness, the valley of the shadow of death, the rod and the staff of the Lord, a table, anointing with oil, and a cup running over. Pick one and tell me what is it about that symbol and why do you believe the Lord would’ve used that symbol?

John Bytheway:               00:36:28             I love the idea of green pastures. When I try to envision the Holy Land, there’s some places where it’s pretty dry, but a green pasture is gonna be cool, comforting. There’s life. If it’s green, it’s full of life. I have memories of the smell of grass in Little League Baseball that it just, whenever I’m around the smell of grass or cut grass, it brings back such happy memories. That’s what I think of when I think of green pastures.

Hank Smith:                      00:36:58             Ross, when you said cup runneth over, I’m sure you both have had the moment where the gospel is working in your life and you’re looking at your blessings. And you’re grateful for the commandments and the power to be obedient and to repent. You can’t quite grasp it. You want to. You wanna grasp it, you almost wanna hold it and just be like, oh, it just seems to be overflowing. Feeling of it, it also overflowing. I don’t want this moment to pass, but then another moment passes and I get the same thing again. Well, it’s not all the time. I don’t want anyone out there thinking, “Oh, what’s wrong with me?” We’ve all had our moments of trial and pain, but there are days where I just look around me and go, I can’t express my feelings about this moment.

John Bytheway:               00:37:40             Yeah.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:37:41             That’s well said.

John Bytheway:               00:37:43             And the line, He restoreth my soul. He is a restorer. When you’ve got a deficit, you’ve got a sin, you’ve got a darkness. He can put it all back.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:37:54             A great, fun family exercise is to do what we just did. Is to say, hey, look at these beautiful symbols. Which one impacts you? Not looking for a right answer here. And why? You both have shared different things. I think it’s so powerful. Anointing with oil, for me, oil is like plenty. It’s light. Acts chapter 10 verse 38 says Jesus was anointed with the Holy Ghost. John chapter 12, Mary anoints Jesus, in token of his death and burial. They’re such powerful concepts with anointing. I’ve had some very spiritual experiences with the idea of being anointed. All of these different symbols can evoke so many different emotions and insights into God’s plan. I’ve shared before that I had stage four cancer. When you have stage four cancer and you have tumors, and you’re experiencing paralysis and going through chemo, there is a certain valley of the shadow of death kind of thing.

                                           00:38:57             But he says, “…thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” And I can testify that that’s true. Absolutely. It was an incredible experience. I like to say sometimes that my spirit never burned brighter than during that time. Even though my body was deteriorating and I was having very difficult times physically, I felt the promise that’s contained in the Psalm 23 absolutely being fulfilled in my life. He did comfort me. He was with me, even though it was the valley of the shadow of death. Now, in my particular case, I was spared. I don’t know totally why, but I was. And many people better than me weren’t. For God’s calendar and God’s reasoning. But I can testify that what he’s saying here is true. The rod and the staff of the Lord, they will comfort you and He is with us.

                                           00:39:46             That has a lot of meaning for me, as well. There’s some wordplay, here comes the Hebrew, in Isaiah chapter five, verse seven. Isaiah five, this is this little teeny allegory/parable about the vineyard.

John Bytheway:               00:40:03             One of his only parables.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:40:05             I’m gonna read verse seven in Hebrew, and I’m gonna try to read it kinda slow so that you can pick up. What Isaiah does here is a little bit of wordplay with the way things sound. Then we’ll read the English and then I’m gonna talk about the wordplay. It says, <Hebrew>.

                                           00:40:43             A lot of it probably sounded like <Hebrew>, but the English says he looked for justice. The word justice in Hebrew is mishpat. John and Hank, mishpat. Mishpat. John?

John Bytheway:               00:40:59             Mishpat.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:41:01             But the word for bloodshed or oppression is mishpach. Okay, John and Hank? Okay, good. All the listeners worldwide are like, this is awesome. Okay. Mishpat is justice. Mispach is bloodshed or oppression. So, he deliberately is doing this. Then he says, <Hebrew>. He says, <mispach>. He says bloodshed oppression. Then <Hebrew>, righteousness. That’s what he wants. That’s what he’s looking for. <Hebrew>. But instead, behold, <Hebrew>. That is, in other words, this idea of an outcry, the idea of we’re saddened, right? He parallels justice with bloodshed and oppression and righteousness for an outcry. This is what he’s playing with and he’s doing it with wordplay. My question for you, why do you think he would do that?

John Bytheway:               00:42:02             I can’t tell you why right off, but I can tell you because that’s what they love to do. Because it’s poetry. You hear those words because you think he’s this, but it’s this, but it’s really close. That’s the art of it.

Hank Smith:                      00:42:16             It’s barren and baron, right?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:42:19             There you go.

Hank Smith:                      00:42:19             There you go. Wow.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:42:20             Here’s the interesting thing too. It seems that in the ministry of the Savior, that oftentimes the Pharisees wanted to kind of talk to Jesus about technical legalisms that were immoral but technically correct. So, for example, can we divorce a woman for any cause? Technically, by the law of Moses, you could. But Jesus doesn’t wanna play that game. Morally, it’s incorrect. Technically, I’ve got this one word, mishpat, which is justice. But it’s really close to mispach. What Isaiah is doing is, of course, the Savior speaking through Isaiah, foreshadowing what’s gonna happen in Jesus’ ministry. You wanna play this fine line. It sounds the same. Can we divorce our wives for any cause? Have you guys ever thought about that question? You’ve got Jesus standing in front of you and you’re gonna ask him about some legalistic weirdness. Instead of saying, Lord, how can I be a better husband?

                                           00:43:26             Lord, teach me about how I can change so that my marriage rises up to the level you would have it. Instead, they’re asking about technicalities. What Isaiah is doing is that line. The technical line between how close these words are and how quickly we can devolve into from justice to oppression and from righteousness to sadness or an outcry. That’s what’s going on here in Isaiah chapter five, verse seven. Again, parallelisms and wordplay.

John Bytheway:               00:44:02             It’s sad in a way that we don’t hear that in English. The English translators –

Hank Smith:                      00:44:08             Right.

John Bytheway:               00:44:08             – did the best they could, but I think we all need to know there is stuff here that’s hidden that we might not see in English, although it’s beautifully translated in English.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:44:17             This particular verse is super well translated. I would say like A plus. I also wanted you guys to notice that justice is paralleled with righteousness and bloodshed or oppression is paralleled with an outcry. Then Isaiah chapter 54, the Lord will say, thou shalt be established in righteousness. My counsel for every young couple that I interview who are gonna get sealed, is your marriage, your family, your household will be established in righteousness. Stay on the Lord’s side of the line. Be righteous, and then you will be established. But if there’s wickedness, if there’s oppression, then there will be sadness and there will be an outcry. I think that’s partly what Isaiah’s saying here in Isaiah chapter five, verse seven. Those parallels go both ways. There’s a word play horizontally, and then there’s a parallelism between the two lines.

John Bytheway:               00:45:17             That’s the poetry. Mishpat and mispach.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:45:21             There you go. Beautiful. Well done, John. Mishpat justice. By the way, mishpat is a very common word. But mispach, a little less so. When he says, I looked for mishpat, but instead, behold, mispach, that would’ve really like drawn them in because these two words are so similar. One a little less often used. Then tzedaka, which is used all the time with tseaqah, which is the outcry. So fun. So fun. That’s the art, like you said, this is the poetry.

John Bytheway:               00:45:56             So it’s like, you didn’t go to Penn State, you went to the state pen. Except that’s English and it’s not different.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:46:02             That sounds like a three stooges joke a little bit there. I’m not sure.

John Bytheway:               00:46:07             But I love that it’s close. But it’s almost opposite too.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:46:11             That’s exactly right. Part of the poetry.

John Bytheway:               00:46:14             Sounds close, almost opposite in meaning.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:46:17             Sounds close, almost opposite. Again, maybe there’s a technical thing. Isaiah might be teaching us like, Lord with that whole marriage question with the Pharisees. You can slide from technical obedience that’s actually immoral. Because somebody who divorces their wife for any cause, they didn’t squeeze the toothpaste from the right side of the tube is an idiot.

Hank Smith:                      00:46:37             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:46:38             But I love what you’re doing here, Ross, because when I was a teenager and my seminary teacher said Isaiah was a poet, I thought, no, he isn’t. I can’t find any poems in here. He’s writing poetry in a different way. Thank you for this. Yeah.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:46:52             They did use wordplay, like we always wanna say. Well, it’s parallelism, which it is. And its imagery and symbolism, which it is. But Isaiah does use wordplay on purpose. It’s kinda fun. And only the way Isaiah could. I mean, I don’t even think the Psalmist had quite the expansive vocabulary that is contained in the book of Isaiah.

John Bytheway:               00:47:16             Beautiful. Mishpat and Mispach. I’ll never forget it.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:47:20             Good. I’m glad to hear it. Repetition. One of the most striking examples of repetition is Psalms 136. In Psalms 136, the phrase, “for His mercy endureth forever” occurs 26 times in 26 verses.

Hank Smith:                      00:47:42             Okay.

John Bytheway:               00:47:44             Yeah, that’s repetition by definition. That works.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:47:47             Here’s the Hebrew. <Hebrew>. They translated <Hebrew> as for His mercy endureth forever. If you’re looking at your King James, the word endureth is in italics, which means that it has been supplied by the King James translators to make the sentence smoother and make some other sense. <Hebrew>. He’s saying for or because le’olam, for eternity, forever, everlastingly. And then the word here, <Hebrew>, is hesed. <Hebrew>. For everlastingly His mercy. I don’t mind endureth there. That doesn’t bother me too much. Again, it’s not specifically in the text, but I think you could justifiably use the word le’olam in this context, everlastingly. And so, in English, they’re translating hesed as mercy. His mercy endures forever. I think it’s okay. The new English translation says, “For his loyal love endures.” They’re trying to find another word for hesed there, and they’re using loyal love. Instead of saying forever, they’re saying endures to encapsulate the idea of le’olam.

                                           00:49:09             I was reading the general conference leadership session, and President Nelson spoke about Psalms 136. It wasn’t in general conference. It was in a leadership session. And he said, “Hesed,” and some of you know this, “is a Hebrew word that has no complete equivalent in English. In the Old Testament, it is often translated as mercy”–as it is here. “It refers to God’s covenantal love-or the love God feels for his children, especially those who choose to make covenants with Him and His beloved son.” And then listen to this. “I invite you,”–now he’s talking to all the general authorities– “to study the book of Psalms, especially Psalm 136, where hesed (translated as ‘mercy’) appears in all 26 verses.” Again, the repetition. “Hesed is the principle reason the Lord instructed us to undertake the extremely difficult project of renovating the Salt Lake Temple. It is the reason He instructs us to build, preserve, and renew temples-so that God’s covenant love”–hesed– “can be offered to all who choose to qualify to enter His holy house.”

                                           00:50:17             “Each time a new temple is dedicated, numberless people, on both sides of the veil, may receive their essential ordinances and make covenants with God to qualify for more of God’s covenantal love.” Hesed. “Each time a person chooses to be baptized and steps onto the covenant path, he or she is connected to God in a special relationship with access to His covenant love.” Hesed. Because why? I’m now saying this, this isn’t President Nelson. For His mercy, His loyal love, His covenantal love endures forever. Isn’t that beautiful? Psalm 136 is an example poetically of the idea of repetition and really pounding home this idea of hesed.

John Bytheway:               00:51:01             This is fun to go through. I’m in my dad’s scriptures and he underlined those endure forever. So, he saw that and was like, oh, what’s this all about?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:51:09             It’s hard not to see that one in Psalms 136.

John Bytheway:               00:51:11             Yeah. It’s hard not to see it when it’s in every verse, that’s right.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:51:14             I also think I had not really seen what I just quoted to you from President Nelson, but I find it powerful the prophet focused on Psalms 136, focused on this idea, then talked extensively about it. What a beautiful concept here. His mercy endures forever. His loyal love endures. His covenantal love is everlasting.

John Bytheway:               00:51:43             It sounds like the Lord’s in relentless pursuit of us.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:51:46             There you go, Elder Kearon. Thank you. Yeah. I think that’s exactly right. His covenantal love. It is beautiful. And then I love First Nephi 17, where he says that he loves those that will have him to be their God. We willingly, voluntarily, without compulsion, choose God. I think this idea, He loves all His children, no question about it. But those that will have him to be their God, that choose that have that more expansive, more profound idea of what His hesed will do for us. Psalms 136 is a striking example of repetition. We don’t think of that, John. Like you said, you might have read that as a 17-year-old and gone that’s not a poem. Well, that’s a Hebrew poem. That kind of repetition, that’s a Hebrew poem. The Psalmist is purposely doing that, obviously, to teach us certain things, but that was their poetic way of doing it.

John Bytheway:               00:52:46             Yeah. Not rhyme in this case. Not rhyme, but repetition. In other cases, not rhyme, parallelism. You’re showing us all the ways that they could be classified a poem.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:52:58             Deep symbol of shepherds and green pastures and still waters and cups running over and shadow of the valley of death. So deep images, rich images. We’re like, well, is that poetry? It is Hebrew poetry. It’s Hebrew poetry. And the Psalmist and Isaiah and Job and Ecclesiastes and Proverbs are all doing it in their own particular way. I’m focusing more on Isaiah and Psalms because those are paradigmatic ways that these guys are doing their Hebrew poetry.

John Bytheway:               00:53:30             Well, I love it. We don’t have to shy away from these. Here’s President Nelson saying, go read this and go study this.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:53:39             Yeah. I invite you to study the Book of Psalms in general. Then he says, “Especially Psalm 136.”

John Bytheway:               00:53:48             I love it when they say things like that.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:53:50             I know, me too. Yeah. Makes it clear. It’s so fun. By the way, it’s a very interesting activity if you took Psalm 136, just took your time. Because the first part of every verse says something different than the end part says, “for His mercy endureth forever.” It’s like the punchline at the end of every verse is, “His mercy endures forever.” “His mercy endures forever.”

John Bytheway:               00:54:13             It’s another version of the creation story because it starts out like the waters, the great lights, the sun to rule the day, the moon starts to rule the night. But it’s with the backdrop of all of this is because of his love for us. Not just here’s how he made the earth or here’s the order. Here’s why he did all this.

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:54:36             Again, that’s a fun discussion to say, so what does the creation of the earth teach me about the character of Jesus Christ? Wow, that’s a fun discussion. The Psalmist is saying to us, look, he did the lights and the waters and all these things. Why? Because his covenantal love endures forever.

John Bytheway:               00:54:58             I was reading in one of Stephen Covey’s books, and he said that somebody had asked Albert Einstein once, if you could ask God anything, what would you ask him? And he said, well, I’d ask him how he created the universe. And then almost immediately changed his mind and said, no, I would ask him why he created the universe. Because then I would know the meaning of my life. You look at this chapter, and it’s all about love and covenant to love with us, which supplies the why, doesn’t it?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:55:26             Yeah. No, that’s great. President Monson was once asked, what would you ask Jesus if you were with him?” And he said, “I wouldn’t ask him anything. I would listen.”

John Bytheway:               00:55:35             Brilliant.

Hank Smith:                      00:55:36             Probably wouldn’t say a word.

John Bytheway:               00:55:38             Brother Ross, this is great. We’ve done sound alike in Isaiah five. We’ve done repetition as a poetic form in Psalms 136, which was amazing. What else have we got that’s poetic, poetry-like?

Dr. Ross Baron:                00:55:52             Maybe not poetic-like Iambic pentameter of William Shakespeare, but poetic structure in terms of rhythm, we have what’s called a chiasmus. The fancy word is it’s an inverted parallelism. That doesn’t mean a lot to a lot of people, but the idea is you have a principle A, another principle B, another principle C, and then maybe D is the heart around which everything is focused. Then it works itself out. So, you’d have double D, both principles, then you’d have C prime paralleling with C, B prime paralleling with a B, A prime paralleling with A. And that is a particular way to write. We don’t write that way. We have some simple forms. Old King Cole was a merry old soul was a merry old soul was he. That’s A, B, B, A. A chiasmus in Hebrew is much more complicated and rich in that it’s actually trying to teach us particular things.

                                           00:56:51             Very similar parallelism, but more of a complicated or deep way. It also seems to be a mnemonic device. Maybe perhaps literacy rates were low. And if you could memorize the first half, it was easier to memorize the second half if it was structured chiastically. Some scholars think that the chiasmus was set up as a mnemonic device, which I don’t hate. I think it does provide some rich opportunity for learning. The famous chiasmus in Alma chapter 36 in the Book of Mormon, which I think is astounding, by the way, is what’s called an antithetical chiasmus because the first part of the structure doesn’t parallel harmoniously, it’s antithetical. Where Alma was seeking to destroy the Church of God. The parallel is he spent his life seeking people to bring to Christ. They’re antithetical, they’re opposites, but they’re still paralleled. Does that make sense? There’s quite a few in the Old Testament.

                                           00:58:03             I’m gonna just do two because I think they’re really clean examples and then people can find others. But these are fun. And as a family or in a family scripture study setting, if you wanted to take some time and map it out and look at it and say, what do we learn from the parallels? This is really practical, also innovative and fun to do in your scripture study. The first one I’d like to look at is the famous one we’ve already looked at for symbolism, and that’s Psalm 23. Psalm 23 is considered a pretty famous, obviously one of the most famous Psalms, but also structured in a particular way. Now, we have to realize that our versification, the way we versify things in the scripture, if you have an ancient manuscript, it’s not versified. It’s not double columned with footnotes at the bottom. It’s not anything like that.

                                           00:59:03             So let me lay out the structure of what I think’s going on here in Psalm 23. First of all, you have the Lord as shepherd. That’s verses one and two, kind of acting in that role as guiding, directing. I’ll call that A. Principle B is he’s gonna give us guidance and provisions. That’s verse three. Verse one and two, the Lord’s acting as a shepherd. Verse three, I’m calling that B, is guidance and provision. Then we go into the dark valley, the valley of the shadow of death. I’m calling that C. That’s verse four. And I’m saying A. It’s the first part of what we versified as verse four. So 4a is though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Then D, which I’m saying is the center of the chiasmus. This is the central point is you are with me for thou art with me.

                                           00:59:58             That’s 4B If you’re looking at verses, we’ve got the Lord as a shepherd. He’s gonna guide and provide. Even though we walk through dark valleys, whether it’s the valley of the shadow of death, or it could be physical ailments or financial reversals or mental illness or whatever our struggle is, thou art with me. Then it works itself out. C, dark valley is then paralleled with protection from enemies, which I’m saying is verse five, the first part, verse 5A. Then guidance and provision, I’m paralleling with verse three, is provision at the table. He’s preparing a table before us in the presence of our enemies. He’s doing that for us. And then A, working itself all the way out, is we dwell with the Lord forever, which is verse six, which parallels with God being our shepherd. The center of the chiasmus is God is with us, thou art with me.

                                           01:00:59             He is gonna be my shepherd. He’s gonna guide. He’s gonna provide even in hard times, which is C, dark valleys and protection from enemies. He’s gonna provide for us a table and we’ll be able to eventually dwell with the Lord forever. I believe there’s a beautiful chastic structure there that teaches us about him, about his role.

John Bytheway:               01:01:20             I love the center of it because I think that idea of God being with us, that’s the name Emmanuel. That’s what we are promised at the sacrament table. Always have his spirit to be with us. The Lord seems to be telling us over and over, you are not ever alone. I am with you. For me is the most exciting part, the center of that.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:01:42             No, that’s great. Thank you for sharing that.

Hank Smith:                      01:01:45             Just what we’ve been doing today, we worship God with our heart, might, mind, and strength. I feel like, one, when we talk about structure, we’re worshiping God with our mind. I really wanna understand this. Like, I truly wanna understand this. But then we look in the structure and try to feel, and we’re worshiping God with our heart. As you read that, I thought, man, I’m doing both here. I wanna understand the structure and I’m trying to feel it. Like this is how you get in the zone, scripture reading.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:02:16             Yeah. I wanna be practical so some family is reading in the Psalms and you’ve got some people there that are maybe like, I don’t know what’s going on here. You could get out a piece of paper and you could just say, hey, let me show you this structure. You could have some fun with that. How does the verse that He’s with us, like you said, John, why would that be at the center? Wouldn’t, shouldn’t death be at the center? You know, that’s the horrible thing, but that’s not at the center. And what’s God gonna do? I mean, there’s, like you say, we’re gonna understand the structure with our minds. We’re gonna kinda get it, lay it out, but then we’re gonna start to feel and apply and figure it out and kinda get it deep in our hearts.

Hank Smith:                      01:02:57             If you stop with the structure, that wasn’t the point. We do that sometimes in Alma 36. We show people the structure, right?

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:03:04             We get so excited about it and we move on.

Hank Smith:                      01:03:07             Yeah, we don’t read it.

John Bytheway:               01:03:09             I tell my class, don’t get so excited about the form that you missed the message, right? The fact that Alma is talking to Helaman, chiasmus doesn’t just come out of your head that way. This was a amazing journal entry that he made somewhere on paper or plates or whatever. This was a lot of work to write that beautiful thing. And that’s what’s fun to see when you find a chiasmus in the Book of Mormon. They were prepared speeches. King Benjamin has a couple.

Hank Smith:                      01:03:38             So we should appreciate the structure, but don’t miss the message.

John Bytheway:               01:03:42             Yeah. Just have a reverence for. So exciting. And that’s what we’ve been talking about today with this poetry. These are poetry in forms that may be hidden in plain sight if you think a poem is just rhyme.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:03:55             If you look at everything we’ve done today on this podcast, we have gone slow. We looked at one verse or two verses. We’ve had to break them apart and think about them. Do the structure and then do the feeling part and do, interrelate it and connect it. But it’s slow. It’s not, we’re gonna cover Jeremiah 1-45 today. We’re not doing that. That’s not how we’re reading this. It’s a little bit of a different mindset to study scripture this way.

John Bytheway:               01:04:25             Especially perhaps in the Proverbs, it’s easier to see parallelisms. One of the examples, the Thoughts to Keep in Mind manual gives a soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. There’s a nice parallel there. Even young people could see that if you slow down, like you’re saying.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:04:46             That’s an antithetical parallelism. So, the soft answer is paralleled with grievous words. That would be a fun example to say, look, you can have parallelisms that are trying to have you look carefully at the opposites, not the harmony. It’s a different way the poet is trying to express their thought. But like you said, that one’s graspable.

John Bytheway:               01:05:09             And that’d be a fun word search activity. Go find some parallelisms in Proverbs because they’re, they’re all over there, I think. The little repeated thing. I’m gonna repeat the same thought in some different words.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:05:23             The Isaiah ones can be a little more difficult, but they’re there. And Psalms all over the place, obviously. Psalms seems to want to do imagery, symbolism, chiasmus, parallelisms. Psalms is invoking the whole thing. It’s bringing it all together.

John Bytheway:               01:05:40             I really like what Hank said earlier about it’s like art. These aren’t just words with content. When it’s poetry, it’s gonna be words in an art form. That’s what we’re talking about. It wasn’t just quickly writing down some stuff. They really thought about what they were writing and crafted it and worked on it.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:05:59             I think your point about Alma 36 is really good. Alma 36 is clearly thought out. Mosiah chapter 27 is more the extemporaneous version of what happened to Alma.

John Bytheway:               01:06:11             Yeah, that’s the narrative. That’s. Here’s what happened. Yeah.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:06:14             Exactly. But Alma 36 is now, I’m older. I’ve reflected. I’m gonna teach Helaman this. There are things that have to get across. And structurally, I’m gonna frame it so that it cannot be missed.

John Bytheway:               01:06:28             Ross, tell us what the center of that chiasmus is in Alma 36.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:06:33             Jesus Christ. I remembered my father spoke concerning Jesus Christ. When I though this, I could remember my pains no more. Boom. The pivot point of the entire chapter is Jesus Christ.

John Bytheway:               01:06:47             Intentional.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:06:48             Yeah, intentional. Psalm 23, for thou art with me. The center point is the Lord Jesus Christ.

John Bytheway:               01:06:56             So good.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:06:57             Psalm 67 is actually one of the cleanest chiasmus to see. Psalm 67. Point A, verse one, God’s blessings. Verse two, nations will know God’s ways. That’s what we’re doing worldwide, trying to teach people God’s ways, trying to live God’s ways. Verse three is people praise God. You got verse one, God’s blessings. Verse two, the nations know or will know God’s ways, and that then we will praise God. The center of the chiasmus, the nations will rejoice because God judges righteously. I wanna talk about that. Then as it backs itself out, verse five, people praise God. By the way, the wording is identical to verse three. That’s why this one’s so easy to see. Verse three is gonna parallel with verse five. Verse four is the center. Verse six, earth receives the blessings of God because the nations know God’s ways, paralleling with verse two. Finally, verse seven, God’s blessings spread to all nations.

                                           01:08:06             Paralleling with verse one, God’s blessings. So, the center of this chiasmus is nations will rejoice because God judges righteously. My question on this one would be, what is it about God’s judgments, which often times we think, ugh, I don’t want God’s judgements, but we rejoice in God judging. It’s kind of a fun thing to think about. Why would that be the center of that Psalm?

John Bytheway:               01:08:32             Can I go back to Isaiah 5?

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:08:35             Yes.

John Bytheway:               01:08:37             “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah, his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment.” I always tell my students, add righteous judgment. He looked for justice. He looked for perfect justice. But behold, oppression, change it to justice because there were a lot of bad judgements and injustices. Wouldn’t you rejoice when you know that there’s a God who judges righteously when you haven’t seen a whole lot of that?

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:09:05             I’d say that most of our lives, and especially when you have children, they’re running around the house saying, “That’s not fair.” There must be something from premortality where in us, woven into our spiritual DNA, we know that God is fair. God is just. Then when we come to mortality, we experience injustice, right? You’re exactly on point, the mishpat. The justice we want is God’s justice. Mosiah chapter 16:1, Abinadi says, everybody’s gonna confess thy judgments are just. No one’s gonna say it’s not fair. No one. No one will be judged by God and say it’s not fair. They might not love what the consequences were, but they’re not gonna accuse God of being unfair. The fact that nations rejoice because God is judging righteously is something that can be, in mortality, it can be very difficult to experience.

John Bytheway:               01:10:04             President Oaks gave a talk at BYU years ago called, “Judge Not and Judging”. It helped me so much when he said that he felt that all the scriptures to say don’t judge are talking about final judgments, which we are forbidden to make, but they’re intermediate judgements which we are commanded to make but on righteous principles. We know that for God’s judgment, we can say, you know, I don’t have to make final judgments. I can say that’s beyond me. I have to make intermediate judgments. Those are where we need help. Here’s Isaiah writing, I’m sure these people have seen the Psalmist writing injustice. It drives us crazy even when we’re old. When we see injustice, that’s what I saw there. Thou shalt judge the people righteously. Oh, finally, a judge who is gonna judge righteously.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:10:54             Do you remember in the Doctrine and Covenants, the guy, James Covel, who was the minister– 39,40–where he says, I’ll do whatever the Lord wants. I know that this is true. Then he gets this revelation, the Doctrine and Covenants, and then he bails.

John Bytheway:               01:11:10             Like the next day, wasn’t it?

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:11:11             Like that next day. I love to say to the students, so what do you think? And it’s like, that guy’s going to hell. I was like, hey, we can’t make final judgment. And they’re like, clearly, he’s going to hell, Brother Baron. Clearly, this guy is. And if you read section 40 verse three, “Wherefore, he broke my covenant”. That’s a fact. “…and it remaineth with me to do with him as seemeth me good.”

John Bytheway:               01:11:38             Leave it to me.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:11:40             That verse is don’t do what you’re doing right now.

Hank Smith:                      01:11:45             Just stop.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:11:46             That remains with me. That is Psalm 67, verse four. Notice on each side of verse four, verses three in verse five, the structure is the people will praise God. And the point is, as we come to the center, the pivot point, why are we praising God? Because he judges righteously. For it remaineth in me to do with him as it seemeth good, not you. We’ve all experienced injustice. I think James Covel is an interesting example.

Hank Smith:                      01:12:16             We talked about him last year. He actually ended up having a good life. He became a good Methodist minister, did a lot of good. It was good. The Lord did with him as seemeth him good.

John Bytheway:               01:12:26             I’m so glad you brought that up. I’m gonna hook that now to our discussion about making intermediate judgments and making final judgments. That’s a perfect way to say it. The Lord says, I got this. You’ve got your own issues. Go work. I will take care of this. Oh, I love it.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:12:43             And I think it also relates, if I might, to John chapter nine, where there’s the guy born blind. And in their minds, there’s only two possibilities. He sinned or his parents sinned. Jesus is like, there’s another dimension. There might even be an infinity of dimensions about which you know nothing. One of the reasons this guy was born blind is because that the glory of God might be made manifest. And they were just probably going, we don’t even know what that means. What our category is James Covel broke the covenant. He’s certainly going to hell. And the Lord’s like, hold on. I’m gonna make righteous judgment here. That should give us all great hope. He totally understands. He gets our particular situation. He will be our judge. Mosiah 16:1, we’re gonna all say thy judgements are just for which we will praise him. Psalm 67.

John Bytheway:               01:13:38             Section 46 describes spiritual gifts. And there’s one little point in verse 15 where it says that the Lord uses the phrase suiting his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men. Meaning all of that is taken into account by a perfect judge. The conditions, the teenage world. The world I grew up in as a teenager had no internet, no TikTok, no Instagram. But a teenager today, those conditions are different and the Lord knows how to hold all of that in account. That’s another one. He judges righteously. That’s a reason to rejoice. That is such a good point. We’ll make it the center of a chiasmus.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:14:20             We’re gonna highlight that point. It’s such a good point because we don’t experience, generally do not experience it in mortality. I think some of the greatest tragedies and some of the hardest things for certain people to believe in God are the injustices that occur down here.

Hank Smith:                      01:14:37             The other part of this that I loved is the govern. If there’s anything we’ve learned from the Old Testament, it’s that kings don’t work. Actually, we want to have a king. When Jesus comes, I want him to run the whole thing. You be the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the President. Be every king, run every, make every law. There’s gonna be people, he wants to be king. He does. Let him be king.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:15:04             It’s like you said before, Hank. Saul started out great. Ended up bad. David started out great. Ended up bad. Solomon started great. Ended up bad. And then the irony, which we’ve talked about is they had a king. We want a king like other nations. You have a king.

Hank Smith:                      01:15:24             You guys have both done quite a bit of traveling. If you see the oppression of corrupt government on people’s lives, it is horrendous. Ugh.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:15:35             It’s interesting you bring that up. I don’t know if you guys have ever gone into, like, a juvenile correction facility and taught. I went to a juvenile correction facility and I taught their Sunday school. The students, these kids who were, I guess, legally in this place would file in. And the first thing they would do is they would write a hymn they wanted to sing on the chalkboard. We would spend 15 minutes singing. And it brought a great spirit. Then we’d have this gospel discussion on a particular verse or whatever we were talking about. And I remember I left the first time and I was driving home and I was like, I felt the Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost was there. Then I went back and I was talking to these kids and I drove home and I thought I would put all their parents in jail, let them all out.

                                           01:16:21             In other words, this is suiting God’s judgment according to the conditions of the children of men. Most of these young people had horrific, unjust family situations that you or I would’ve struggled massively and in all likelihood, would’ve ended up in the same situation. So, so sad. God will judge righteously. We can worship him, praise him, and all nations will because of that. I hope we’ve had fun today looking at different ways to parse Hebrew poetry. I think, John, something you said earlier is gonna be super helpful. Just because it doesn’t have rhyme doesn’t mean it’s not a poem. The fact that it has repetition in every single verse is a Hebrew way of saying, hey, by the way, this is a poem. We’re gonna teach you something differently this way, or a chiasmus, or parallelisms, or rich symbolism and imagery.

Hank Smith:                      01:17:21             Yeah. Beautiful. Ross, let’s go slow. Sometimes as parents, we’re like, how am I gonna cover every Psalm? You’re not going to. You’re not gonna cover all the Psalms. And that’s okay.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:17:32             Tonight, we’re gonna read Psalms one through 20. Don’t do that. I mean, generally don’t do that. Look, if you as a parent wanna do that, you can do that. But man, take a Psalm, find one, have some fun with it. Look at parallelisms. Look at some rich words. They will remember that always. Like, it’s fun. It’s good stuff. If you can create a bumper sticker, John, let’s do it.

John Bytheway:               01:17:55             Yeah. If you can find a phrase that is refrigerator magnet short type of phrase.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:18:00             It’s great. So fun. For his mercy, endureth forever.

John Bytheway:               01:18:06             That’s a good one. I love to call him a sermon in a sentence, and you can find a lot of those in the Psalms and in the Proverbs, but it sounds like they’re trying to be brief in some cases.

Hank Smith:                      01:18:17             John, we only have one Thoughts to Keep in Mind left.

John Bytheway:               01:18:21             Oh, no.

Hank Smith:                      01:18:22             I know. That is a sad moment.

Dr. Ross Baron:                01:18:25             Sad moment.

John Bytheway:               01:18:27             And I need to keep more of them in my mind. That’s the sad part.

Hank Smith:                      01:18:30             Yeah. How are we gonna keep them in mind if we don’t do these anymore? Ross will be back one more time with Prophets and Prophecy, as we begin Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. It’s gonna be fun to hear his take on these.

John Bytheway:               01:18:46             Well, thank you so much, Ross. I know you mocked my poem, but our barren desert has become green because Dr. Ross Baron has shed some living water all over it.

Hank Smith:                      01:18:56             In the manual, here’s the very last paragraph under wisdom literature, just the last sentence. “You might think of wisdom literature as thoughtful conversations with inspired mentors who want to share observations about God and the world He created–and maybe help you understand these things a little better than before.” That’s what we’re going for.

John Bytheway:               01:19:16             That’s right. To quote the center of one of the chiasmustics verses we did tonight, may God be with you. Best wish ever. He’s with us. Well, thank you for joining us, everyone, on Thoughts to Keep in Mind with Dr. Ross Baron. Thank you, Ross. We just love having you, and I’ve learned so much. I’ve got all my notes. I’m ready to insert these in my scriptures. You don’t have to read fast. You can read slow. Enjoy it. That’s how you read poetry. So, we’ll see you next time on another episode of followHIM.