Understand the Back Story Part 2

I want to share a quick example that shows the Understand the Back Story skill in action. I came across the following phrases while studying Isaiah in 1 Nephi 20:

He will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall come upon the Chaldeans.

Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter to the end of the earth; say ye: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

Babylon throughout the scriptures is used as a symbol of the world so that was a given. But, what about the Chaldeans who where they and why are they mentioned here. I could have at this point just made an educated guess and moved on which is what I did with my initial reading. Knowing that Babylon represented the world, I guessed that the Chaldeans were those that pushed the ideals of the world. However, I decided to do more research into the Chaldeans so I could illustrate this skill and found it to be fascinating, enlightening and very enriching towards my goal of unlocking symbolism.

First, I turned to the Bible Dictionary and found Chaldea which gave me a very brief synopsis of the land and people:

The portion of Babylonia that lay south and east of Babylon, though the name was sometimes used after the days of Jeremiah to denote the whole district lying between and adjoining the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. In Dan. 2:2, 10 the name is applied to a learned class in Babylon who made a special study of astrology.

This answered some of the questions I had but added several more. For instance, what was the significance of this small region or group of people of Babylonia? The Bible Maps helped visualize where these people lived in conjunction to Babylon. A scripture search returned that this name was used quite often during the time of prophets such as Jeremiah, Daniel and Habakkuk which made sense since they lived during the height of the Babylonian empire which I could easily see using the Old Testament timeline bookmarker and the Bible Chronology.

I next turned to secular learning since these were people of a well known world power in the annuals of world history. Wikipedia gave a detailed rundown of the Chaldeans and their significance to Babylonia. I learned that they moved into the Euphrates and Tigris river area late in the game after Babylonia had been established for many years and came under the control of Babylonia which at this point was paying tribute to Assyria. Over the next several centuries, they sought after the throne with small success until just before 600 BC when they not only dominated the throne of Babylonia but with the help of other nations overthrew the Assyrians. The Chaldean dynasty of Babylon conquered and subdued many nations that had been under the rule of Assyria and added several additional nations including Judah. And, the greatest of the Chaldean leaders was King Nebuchadnezzar.

The Babylonian empire declined after King Nebuchadnezzar until its overthrow by the Persians. Babylon eventually faded into obscurity and the Chaldeans by this point had become totally absorbed into Babylonian culture to the point that there was no distinction between them. The name Chaldean continued on to describe a societal class of learned men of astrologists and astronomers whom the Persians described as masters of reading and writing, and especially versed in all forms of incantation, sorcery, witchcraft, and the magical arts. Even, this societal class eventually fell by the wayside dropping into oblivion.

He will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall come upon the Chaldeans.

This little exercise gave me a better understanding of what Isaiah is trying to teach me about the world and what I am fleeing from. He not only taught me that the Chaldeans were those that aggressively pushed the ideals of the world but I was taught how to recognize those ideals. Not everything I learned was intellectual but I also gained a feeling of being connected with these verses. I felt the urgency of the Lord's message to flee from the world and to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and about the infinite Atonement—the great counter weight to the world's teachings which will bring both peace and hope to all mankind.

Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter to the end of the earth; say ye: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.