The Gathering of Israel — It Is Still Happening
One of the great covenant promises of the Old Testament — actively fulfilling in our time
The gathering of Israel is not a metaphor. It is one of the most specific and repeatedly promised prophecies in the entire Old Testament — and it is happening right now. The scattering of Israel, caused by covenant unfaithfulness and divine judgment over centuries, was always matched by an equally emphatic promise of gathering. God said He would scatter, and He did. He said He would gather, and He is.
Most Protestant Christians have a vague awareness of the gathering of Israel as a concept — often associated with modern-day Israel and the return of Jewish people to the Middle East. That physical gathering is real and prophetically significant. But LDS doctrine understands a dimension of the gathering that is equally important and far less appreciated: the spiritual gathering of scattered Israel through the restoration of the gospel and the missionary work of the Church.
These two gatherings — physical and spiritual — are not competing. They are complementary aspects of the same ancient covenant God made with Abraham, now unfolding in the last days with increasing specificity.
What the Gathering of Israel Is
When the twelve tribes of Israel broke apart — the northern ten tribes scattered by Assyria in 722 BC, the southern two tribes exiled to Babylon, and ultimately dispersed across the earth through the Roman destructions — the prophets of Israel spoke consistently: this is not the end. God will gather them. All of them. From all the nations where they have been scattered.
Isaiah 11:11–12
“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”
The second time. The first time was the Exodus from Egypt. The second gathering is something greater — from every nation under heaven, not just from one land of bondage. LDS doctrine holds that this second gathering is the dispensation of the fullness of times, the era in which all things are being restored and all Israel gathered through the restoration of the gospel.
Jeremiah 31:7–10
“For thus saith the Lord; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither... He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.”
He that scattered Israel will gather him. The scattering was divine judgment. The gathering is divine mercy. The same God who administered the one has promised the other — and the promise is not conditional on Israel's worthiness to return. It is unconditional in the sense that God will do it. He is doing it.
The Promises Made to Abraham
The gathering of Israel cannot be understood apart from the covenant God made with Abraham. That covenant had three components: posterity as numerous as the stars and the sand; a promised land; and a responsibility to bless all the families of the earth. The third component — blessing all nations — is the one most relevant to the gathering.
How does Abraham's seed bless all the families of the earth? Through carrying the gospel. Through being the vehicle by which God's covenant — His priesthood, His ordinances, His truths — reaches every nation and every people. The gathering of Israel is not an ethnic project. It is a covenant project. Those who accept the covenant join Israel. Those who hold the priesthood carry the means of blessing to the world.
The Abrahamic Covenant Across Scripture
- Genesis 12:2–3 — The original covenant: land, posterity, and blessing to all nations through Abraham's seed
- Abraham 2:9–11 (Pearl of Great Price) — The covenant's missionary dimension: Abraham's seed to bear the priesthood and the gospel to all nations
- Galatians 3:29 — If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise
- Isaiah 43:5–7 — God will bring Abraham's children from the east, west, north, and south — from the ends of the earth
Every Latter-day Saint who receives a patriarchal blessing is told their tribe of Israel. That declaration is not ceremonial — it places them within this covenant lineage and identifies them as part of the vehicle through which God's promise to Abraham is being fulfilled right now.
The Two Sticks — Bible and Book of Mormon
Ezekiel's prophecy of the two sticks is one of the most specific messianic prophecies in the entire Old Testament — and one of the most consistently misunderstood.
Ezekiel 37:15–19
“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... 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.”
The stick of Judah is the record of the Jews — the Bible. The stick of Joseph (specifically Ephraim) is the record of Joseph's descendants — the Book of Mormon, a record of a branch of Israel (through Lehi, a descendant of Manasseh and Joseph) who were led to the Americas. LDS doctrine identifies the Book of Mormon as the fulfillment of this prophecy: the two records, joined in the hands of the gathered covenant people, bearing unified witness of Jesus Christ.
The gathering of Israel, in LDS understanding, is inseparably connected to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Christ himself, visiting the Nephites, identifies the Book of Mormon as the instrument of the gathering: when the Gentiles receive the fullness of his gospel, the work of the Father in gathering Israel will begin (3 Nephi 16:11–12). It is not coincidence that the Church's worldwide growth began with the Book of Mormon and is fueled by it in every generation.
The Scattered and the Gathered
Where did the ten tribes go? The Old Testament records the Assyrian scattering of the northern kingdom but does not record their destination. LDS doctrine acknowledges this openly: the location of the ten tribes in their fullness is not currently known. What is known is that they were scattered, that their records were kept, and that they will be gathered — and that their records will come forth as part of the restoration of all things.
What the gathering looks like today is less dramatic than the visions of prophets describing mountains being leveled and rivers being parted. Today the gathering is a person in Brazil accepting the gospel, a family in Nigeria being sealed in the temple, a young man in the Philippines serving a mission. These are acts of covenant gathering — real Israelite blood and adopted covenant children being called home to their Father's house through the only channel through which that gathering can come: the restored gospel.
D&C 110:11
“After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us; and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north.”
The keys of the gathering were restored in the Kirtland Temple in 1836 — specifically by Moses, the man who led the first gathering out of Egypt. Those keys are held by the President of the Church and exercised through the missionary program of the Church in every nation. This is not metaphor or institutional triumphalism. It is the specific claim that the prophetically promised gathering is operating now, through these channels, under these keys, toward these ends.
Why LDS Missionary Work Is Covenant Fulfillment, Not Just Evangelism
Protestant missionary work is generally understood as carrying the gospel to the lost. That is a genuine and important motivation. LDS missionary work carries that motivation but adds a layer that is rarely understood from outside the Church: we are not merely sharing a message. We are gathering Israel. We are fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant. We are doing what God promised Abraham his seed would do — carrying the covenant to all nations.
When a missionary teaches a family and they are baptized, something prophecy described three thousand years ago has happened. When a temple is dedicated in a new nation, a stake of Zion is established, and the gathering gains a new anchor. When a convert in Ghana or Peru or South Korea receives their endowment and their family is sealed, they are no longer scattered. They are gathered.
This is the framework within which the worldwide growth of the Church makes theological sense. It is not institutional expansion. It is prophetically promised covenant fulfillment. The gathering of Israel was never going to be quiet, and it was never going to be finished quickly. It is the work of the last dispensation — the fullness of times in which all things are gathered into one in Christ (Ephesians 1:10). It is happening now. It is happening one family at a time.
The Gathering Continues Today
The physical gathering to a central location — which was the practice of the early Church in Missouri, Illinois, and then Utah — is no longer the primary form of the gathering. President Spencer W. Kimball taught that members should gather to their own nations and build stakes of Zion where they live. The gathering is now spiritual and ecclesiastical, not geographic.
This means the gathering is not something that happened in 1847 when the pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley. It is something happening today in 130 countries, through 75,000 missionaries, in thousands of stakes and wards and branches. Every person who accepts the gospel and is baptized is gathered. Every person who goes to the temple is gathered. Every family sealed in a temple is gathered.
The Old Testament prophets were right. He that scattered Israel will gather him. It looked impossible for centuries. It no longer looks impossible. It looks like exactly what it is: the fulfillment of the most persistent and comprehensive promise God ever made to His covenant people, unfolding in the time He designated, through the means He prepared, at a pace that — once you know what you are looking at — is remarkable to watch.