Abstract: Isaiah’s oracle in Isaiah 22 regarding a man named Eliakim employs significant and unique language regarding a “nail in a sure place.” This language is accompanied by clear connections to the ancient temple, including the bestowal of sacred clothing and authority, offering additional significant context through which to understand this phrase. Additionally, according to early leaders of the Church, this oracle may not be translated correctly into English, which has caused some confusion regarding the true meaning of the oracle’s conclusion. As such, I offer a new translation of this oracle based on intertextual clues that resolves some of the apparent issues regarding this text and further highlights the temple themes employed by Isaiah.

A unique oracle in Isaiah 22 relates that a court official named Eliakim would be given additional power and responsibility from the Lord. Although not unique in historical content, as other political or ecclesiastical figures are referred to throughout Isaiah’s corpus of prophesies, this oracle is unique in language employed by the prophet Isaiah. Quoting from the King James Version of the Bible, the Bible most familiar to English-speaking Latter-day Saints, we read the following:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah: and I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and [Page 38]he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 22:20–25)1

This oracle contains specific imagery relating to the temple in addition to the referent to “a nail in a sure place.” This language regarding a nail is seldom touched upon in the scriptures, but I will argue that it, too, was understood by ancient authors to be related to the temple and appears to have been understood in a temple context by the prophet Joseph Smith and other leaders of the Church.

For instance, in December 1844, an unsigned editorial was published in the Times and Seasons simply entitled “Keys.” This editorial offered commentary on this oracle against Shebna and the prophesied rise of Eliakim to power. The editor of the Times and Seasons states that this oracle is “[t]he first important passage in the bible” relating to Priesthood keys and contains “some other very curious knowledge unexplained” by the ancient prophet.2 The apostle John Taylor was the leading editor for the Church newspaper at this time, and so it is likely that he was the principal author of this editorial.3

Regarding the final three verses of this oracle, John Taylor wrote,

“The nail fastened in a sure place,