2 Nephi 20:15

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Reference Search: 2 Nephi 20:15

15 Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith? Shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? As if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself as if it were no wood!

Quotes for Discussion

Axe/Saw – Rod/Staff

axe/saw. These are tools used to cut down trees of the forest, mentioned in 10:18-19. Here the axe or saw represents Assyria in the Lord’s hand. Assyria and her king are proud enough to believe that they are greater than God, who holds the tools in his hands and uses them for his divine purposes.

rod/staff. Isaiah makes it clear that the rod or staff—symbols of Assyria (10:5)—are as fragile as pieces of wood when compared to the might and power of God.

Parry, Parry, Peterson, Understanding Isaiah, p. 108

The ax gets the ax

Which is greater, the tool or the carpenter? The Lord illustrates that although the Assyrian king believes he did all these things on his own, he was only a tool in the carpenter’s hand.

John Bytheway, Isaiah for Airheads, p. 132

Not long after I was ordained a deacon, my bishop, Leon Walker, asked me into his office to give me an assignment. He handed me a bright key, the key to the chapel, and charged me with responsibility to help look after the building. I considered myself one of the most fortunate boys in the world to have an assignment from my priesthood president. I thought this would not be a difficult task. My home was just a one-minute bicycle ride away from the building. But I soon learned what I supposed all bishops know, and that is, everybody in the ward seems to have a key to the building. As soon as I had the building locked up of an evening, someone came along behind me and opened a door. As soon as I had opened a Primary classroom, some diligent soul was there behind me to lock it up again. I could hardly stay on top of that job.

But I began to learn then, as I have come to understand since, that any call, any service in our Lord’s cause sanctifies us. Whether it is performed in the glare of the public eye or in a quiet corner known only to God is of no consequence. What matters is that we do serve, for by serving we keep our covenants with deity….

I acknowledge that anything I may achieve will be by virtue of the power and the grace and the gift of God. I am not, in Isaiah’s words, the axe that shall “boast itself against him that heweth therewith”; I am not the saw that shall “magnify itself against him that shaketh it” (Isaiah 10:15). With Nephi, “I know in whom I have trusted” (See 2 Ne. 4:19).

D. Todd Christofferson, Ensign, May 1993, 83