The Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah more than any other Old Testament text.

Nephi explains why: “I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (1 Nephi 19:23).

The Nephites read Isaiah as the handbook for their own situation: a people who left Jerusalem before its judgment, carrying the same covenant framework Isaiah was delivering to Judah, now applying it to a new land and a new chapter of the covenant story.

Isaiah is the Old Testament’s greatest covenant theologian.

He knows both covenants deeply. And he opens his book with the Great King filing a lawsuit against his people for violating the terms of the agreement delivered to them at Mount Sinai.

Isaiah 1 opens with the rib, the covenant lawsuit, in the most dramatic possible terms: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken” (Isaiah 1:2).

Heaven and earth are summoned as witnesses, the same cosmic witnesses Deuteronomy 30:19 called when Moses said: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you.”

Isaiah’s opening line is the Great King filing his covenant lawsuit before the treaty’s own witnesses.

The trial has begun.