Latter-day Blog

One of my favorite church videos is Mountain of the Lord as it describes events that occurred during the 40 year process to build the Salt Lake Temple. Most interesting to me was at the end of the movie with it explain that Utah means “Top of the mountains.” What I had not realized (or had forgotten) was that it was not the originally intended name for our state. The saints wanted to name the state “Deseret.” The name “Utah” was a compromise with the Ute tribe. The state was named in 1950. The construction of the temple began in 1953.

The following is taken from a Wikipedia entry:

Also, an interesting claim is to note that the Old Testament book of Isaiah 2:2 reads, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” The original settlers of the state of Utah wanted to name the state “Deseret”. The U.S. Government instead chose to create the territory and name it “Utah” with the Compromise of 1850. The word “Utah” means “Top of the Mountains” in the Ute-Indian language. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ headquarters are in the heart of the Capital City of Utah, i.e Salt Lake City. In 1853, the LDS church began construction of the Salt Lake Temple. The temple was completed 40 years later in 1893. Many LDS Church members believe this to be a literal fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, which again states that the “mountain of the Lord’s house” (”mountain” signifying the Church headquarters and the “Lord’s house” being the Salt Lake Temple) was to be built in “the top of the mountains”, i.e. Utah. This prophecy also states that these events would occur in the “last days” and all nations shall flow unto it. Salt Lake City was the host of the 2002 Winter Olympics and more than 5 million visitors tour The Salt Lake Temple grounds, aka Temple Square, every year.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 5:23 am and is filed under Church History, Old Testament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.