Post by Ezekiel –
As I have followed Nephi’s blog here in Babylon, I have been comforted to realize God’s actual fulfillment of promises He has made to His children. Let me share with you a little background and then what I know to be true.
The Bible to be found in the latter days will contain no history of the House of Joseph after approximately 721 B.C. Since we have considered the wonderful promises of the Lord to Joseph and his seed, we cannot refrain from asking: “Where is the record of the fulfillment of these promises? Is it possible that the Lord would have given Joseph such outstanding promises, even above those given to any of his eleven brothers, and then have made no provision for a record of their fulfillment?” It should be kept in mind that the Lord promised Joseph a new land “unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills,” and that this blessing would come upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. Let us see what the Lord has to say about a record of the House of Joseph.
I am Ezekiel and am a prophet in Judah unto whom “the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.” I was called to be a prophet around 600 years. B.C. As you recall, that is about the time Lehi took his family and departed into the wilderness. Please carefully consider a command I received from the Lord, according to my own account:
“The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.”
In our time, in addition to keeping records on metal plates as Nephi has done, it is the custom to write upon parchment, which is then rolled upon sticks for preservation. Therefore when I was commanded by the Lord to “take thee one stick and write upon it, For Judah . . . then take another stick and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim,” it is the equivalent of commanding the me to write one record for Judah and a separate one for Joseph.
It is quite evident that when this commandment was given to me, the Lord did not anticipate that all His promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to the twelve sons of Jacob, would be recorded in the record of Judah by me personally.
Recall that at the time this command was given to me, the house of Joseph had already departed northward into unknown lands, where they have been for some one hundred twenty years. Nevertheless, the Lord wanted all Israel to know that there would be two records kept, one “For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions,” and the other “For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.”
The Lord made it plain that in His own due time He would “make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.” I don’t know exactly when this will take place but as I read the prophecies that Nephi has shared in this blog, I am comforted to know a record is being kept and I assume in the latter-days when Nephi’s record is brought forth, it will be joined with the record of Judah, part of which I am keeping.
Therefore, the earnest seeker after truth should realize that he cannot expect to have all the record of the Lord’s dealings with His children if he has but one of these records. Since prophets like me and Daniel and Isaiah and many others have and are contributing to the record of Judah, you must inquire, “Where is the record of Joseph?”
