1 Ne 19:23 I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning

Nephi imagined that the words of Isaiah were speaking directly to him and his people. This same principle is practiced by latter-day saints all the time. We generalize D&C scriptures that were given unto certain individuals because of their universal applicability. It would be tragic to assume that the instructions to Joseph Smith, Sr. found in DC 4 applied only to him. Nevertheless, with Isaiah, it is sometimes harder for us to find as much personal meaning. Nephi helps us to do this by giving us many spiritual insights into the meanings of Isaiah’s writings.

The spirit of God often speaks to us through the scriptures. If we are reading them with a clinical detachment of heart, the way a historian reads about events long since passed, we will not hear the message of the Spirit.

“In reading any of the standard works of the Church it is well to ascertain the literal meaning of the passage read first, and the lesson it was intended to convey to those to whom it was first communicated. And then it might be well to ask, What lesson does it convey to my time and age? To my nation? My community? My family? Or to myself?” (Reynolds and Sjodahl, Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 1, p. 206)

Brigham Young

“Do you read the Scriptures, my brethren and sisters, as though you were writing them, a thousand, two thousand, or five thousand years ago? Do you read them as thou you stood in the place of the men who wrote them? If you do not feel thus, it is your privilege to do so, that you may be as familiar with the spirit and meaning of the written word of God as you are with your daily walk and conversation, or as you are with your workmen or with your households.” (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 128 as taken from Latter-day Commentary on the Book of Mormon compiled by K. Douglas Bassett, p.63)