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Jacob 5
The Allegory of the
Olive Tree
“The parable of Zenos, recorded by Jacob
in chapter five of his book, is one of the
greatest parables ever recorded. This
parable in and of itself stamps the Book of
Mormon with convincing truth. No mortal
man, without the inspiration of the Lord,
could have written such a parable. It is a
pity that too many of those who read the
Book of Mormon pass over and slight the
truths which it conveys” (Joseph Fielding Smith,
Answers to Gospel Questions, 4:141).
Jacob 5
Do you know someone who has
questioned God’s love for him or her,
particularly during a time of trial when the
person may have turned away from Him?
• • A young priesthood holder develops a
sinful habit. He believes that others can
be forgiven, but he doubts the Lord will
accept his repentance.
• • A young woman transgresses a
commandment. She experiences guilt,
feels terrible about herself, and
questions if the Lord still loves her.
Jacob’s Zenos’
Intent… Intent…
Jacob 4:4-6
Jacob 4:12
Jacob 4:14
Jacob 4:15-18
Jacob 5:3
Jacob 5:74
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
An olive tree with pruned branches
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
Allegory of the Tame & Wild Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
Olive Tree with Shoots from the Roots
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
Shoots from a Cut Down Olive Tree
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
What is the symbolism of Olives and Olive Oil?
• Olive branch is the universal symbol of peace or
victory
• Olives are best picked individually
• Olive oil is used for healing
• Olive oil is the brightest burning of the vegetable oils
• Ancient prophets, priests, and kings were anointed in
the temple with olive oil
The Symbols in the
Allegory
Read Jacob 5:3-4. 7-8, 11
and look for a symbol
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
MEANING
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
MEANING
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
Plucking and grafting branches
(verses 7–8)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
Plucking and grafting branches
(verses 7–8)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
The scattering and gathering of the Lord’s
covenant people.
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
Plucking and grafting branches
(verses 7–8)
Burning branches (verse 7)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
The scattering and gathering of the Lord’s
covenant people.
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
Plucking and grafting branches
(verses 7–8)
Burning branches (verse 7)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
The scattering and gathering of the Lord’s
covenant people.
God’s judgments upon the wicked
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
Plucking and grafting branches
(verses 7–8)
Burning branches (verse 7)
Fruit (verse 8)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
The scattering and gathering of the Lord’s
covenant people.
God’s judgments upon the wicked
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
Plucking and grafting branches
(verses 7–8)
Burning branches (verse 7)
Fruit (verse 8)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
The scattering and gathering of the Lord’s
covenant people.
God’s judgments upon the wicked
The lives or works of people
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
Plucking and grafting branches
(verses 7–8)
Burning branches (verse 7)
Fruit (verse 8)
Roots of the tame olive tree
(verse 11)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
The scattering and gathering of the Lord’s
covenant people.
God’s judgments upon the wicked
The lives or works of people
Jacob 5
SYMBOL
Tame olive tree (verse 3)
The vineyard (verse 3)
Decay (verse 3)
Master of the vineyard (verse 4)
Pruning, digging, and nourishing
(verse 4)
Wild olive tree (verse 7)
Plucking and grafting branches
(verses 7–8)
Burning branches (verse 7)
Fruit (verse 8)
MEANING
The house of Israel, God’s covenant people
The world
Sin and apostasy
Jesus Christ
Roots of the tame olive tree
(verse 11)
The covenants the Lord makes with those who
follow Him.
The Lord’s efforts to help us be righteous
Gentiles
The scattering and gathering of the Lord’s
covenant people.
God’s judgments upon the wicked
The lives or works of people
Jacob 5
First Visit (Jacob 5:4-14)
• The master sees that the old tame olive tree (Israel) is
dying. (vs. 3)
• The master prunes and fertilizes the tree and wild branches
(gentiles) are grafted in.(vss. 4-11)
• Tame branches are transplanted into the nethermost part of
the vineyard (vss. 8, 13, 14)
The days before Christ
Jacob 5
“Now in that parable the olive tree is the House of
Israel in its native land it began to die. So the Lord
took branches like the Nephites, like the lost tribes
to other parts of the earth. He planted them all
over his vineyard, which is the world. No doubt he
sent some of these branches into Japan, into
Korea, into China. No question about it, because
he sent them to all parts of the world” (Answers to
Gospel Questions,comp. Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., 5 vols. [1957–
66], 4:204–5).
Jacob 5
Second Visit (Jacob 5:15-28)
• The grafted-in gentiles have helped save the tree. (vss. 1518)
• The tame branches in the poor spot of ground have borne
fruit. (vss. 20-22)
• The good ground bears good fruit, but part is wild. (vs. 25)
After the Crucifixion
Jacob 5
Third Visit (Jacob 5:29-60)
• The tree is cumbered with all sorts of fruit and none of the
fruit is good; apostasy has become almost universal. (vss.
29-32, 36) (vs. 39)
• In the good part of ground, the wild branches have
overcome the tame.
• The Lord of the vineyard weeps.
What does verse 47 tell you about how the Lord feels
concerning the inhabitants of this earth?
The Great Apostasy
“What could I have done more for my
vineyard?” (Jacob 5:41, 47, 49)
Jeffery R. Holland,
The Grandeur of
God, October 2003
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: “After digging
and dunging, watering and weeding,
trimming, pruning, transplanting, and
grafting, the great Lord of the vineyard
throws down his spade and his pruning
shears and weeps, crying out to any who
would listen, ‘What could I have done more
for my vineyard?’
“What an indelible image of God’s
engagement in our lives! What anguish in
a parent when His children do not choose
Him nor the gospel He sent!”
Jacob 5
Fourth Visit (Jacob 5:61-77)
• The final gathering takes place by the Lord’s servants. (vss.
52-64)
• The wild branches are cast away. (vss. 72-76)
• The good are gathered and the bad burned for the last time.
(vs. 77)
Our Day
Jacob 5
The Grandeur of God (Elder Holland, October 2003) video]
or Book of Mormon Teacher Resource Video
“What could I have done more for my
vineyard?” (Jacob 5:41, 47, 49)
“At least fifteen times the Lord of the
vineyard expresses a desire to bring the
vineyard and its harvest to his ‘own self,’
and he laments no less than eight times, ‘It
grieveth me that I should lose this tree.’
[This allegory] makes the Lord’s mercy so
movingly memorable.”
Jeffery R. Holland,
(Christ and the New
Covenant [1997],
165-66).
“What could I have done more for my
vineyard?” (Jacob 5:41, 47, 49)
Jeffery R. Holland,
(Christ and the New
Covenant [1997],
165-66).
“Clearly this at-one-ment is hard,
demanding, and, at times, deeply painful
work, as the work of redemption always is.
There is digging and dunging. There is
watering and nourishing and pruning. And
there is always the endless approaches to
grafting—all to one saving end, that the
trees of the vineyard would ‘thrive
exceedingly’ and become ‘one body; . .
.From all the distant places of sin, it has
always been the work of Christ (and his
disciples) in every dispensation to gather
them, heal them, and unite them with their
Master”
Olive
Trees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive
Definition of
Gethsemane
Gethsemane comes from the Hebrew words Geth [Gath],
meaning “press,” and semane [shemen], meaning “oil” –
and therefore means “the press of oil.” The word has
reference to huge stone presses that were used to squeeze
the oil from olives or the juice from grapes; such presses
would have been found in Gethsemane, which was a grove
of olive trees. In like manner, the Savior was “pressed” in
that garden by the weight of the sins of all mankind until His
blood flowed from His skin.
Stephen E. Robinson
Believing Christ: The Parable of the
Bicycle and Other Good News
Page 119
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capernaum_roman_olive_press_by_David_Shankbone.jpg
To produce olive oil, the refined
olives had to be crushed in a press. The
olives were placed in burlap bags and
flattened on a furrowed stone. Then a huge
crushing circular rock was rolled around
on top, paced by a mule or an ox.
Another method used heavy
wooden levers or screws twisting beams
downward like a winch upon the stone
with the same effect: pressure, pressure,
pressure—until the oil flowed.
The first liquid to appear is red,
followed by the grey-green olive oil we are
used to seeing (Truman G. Madsen, “The Olive Press,”
Ensign, Dec 1982, 57)
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Symbolism of
Olive Trees
The Atonement
“Imagine, Jehovah, the Creator of this and other
worlds, 'astonished'! Jesus knew cognitively what He must
do, but not experientially. He had never personally known the
exquisite and exacting process of an atonement before.
Thus, when the agony came in its fulness, it was so much,
much worse than even He with his unique intellect had ever
imagined! No wonder an angel appeared to strengthen him!
All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part
of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement.”
Neal A. Maxwell
Ensign, May 1985
Pages 72-73
The Atonement
“For many years I thought of the Savior’s experience
in the garden and on the cross as places where a large mass
of sin was heaped upon Him. Through the words of Alma,
Abinadi, Isaiah, and other prophets, however, my view has
changed. Instead of an impersonal mass of sin, there was a
long line of people, as Jesus felt “our infirmities” (Hebrews
4:15), “[bore] our griefs, … carried our sorrows … [and] was
bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:4–5).
“The Atonement was an intimate, personal experience
in which Jesus came to know how to help each of us…”
The Atonement
“The Pearl of Great Price teaches that Moses was
shown all the inhabitants of the earth, which were
“numberless as the sand upon the sea shore” (Moses 1:28).
If Moses beheld every soul, then it seems reasonable that
the Creator of the universe has the power to become
intimately acquainted with each of us. He learned about your
weaknesses and mine. He experienced your pains and
sufferings. He experienced mine.
“He knows our weaknesses. But more than that, more
than just knowing us, He knows how to help us if we come to
Him in faith.”
Merrill J. Bateman
“A Pattern for All”
Ensign, October 2005
The Atonement
Jacob 5
The Allegory of the Olive
Tree: What applications did
you see? What thoughts
came to your mind? What
impressions did you have?
Jacob 5:47-48
“Develop Spiritual Roots”
“It seems that some among us have this same problem;
they want bountiful harvests without developing the root system
that will yield them. There are far too few who are willing to pay
the price, in discipline and work, to cultivate hardy roots. Such
cultivation should begin in our youth. Let us each cultivate deep
roots, so that we may secure the desired fruits of our welfare
labors” (Spencer W. Kimball, C.R., Oct. 1978, 113).