The Second Nephi Isaiah materials are much more extensive than the first. In Second Nephi, Nephi's brother, Jacob, adds his material from Isaiah. Nephi records a single sermon of his brother's in which Jacob uses Isaiah as a part of his sermon. This sermon is almost a mirror of the doctrines and teachings of Nephi. Jacob explains he had "been consecrated by my brother Nephi" to teach. (2 Nephi 6: 2.) As Jacob's sermon informs us, he selected the Isaiah materials because "they are the words which my brother [Nephi] has desired that I should speak unto you." (Id. v. 4.) So, the Jacobian Isaiah materials are largely an extension of Nephi's own thoughts. This is why Nephi prized them so much, he hand-etched them into his metal record.
The longest single transcription of the Isaiah materials appears in 2 Nephi Chapters 12 through 24. Nephi ends his use of Isaiah with an interesting paraphrase of Isaiah Chapter 29, modifying it to fit the unfolding history of his own record.
Because of the volume of Second Nephi materials, we are going to look at them by a selective subject-by-subject process, fitting them into the themes Nephi has developed in his commentary. Although we looked at this commentary at the beginning of this book, it also appears at the end of Second Nephi. In the next chapter, we will return to the themes of his commentary, and fit the Isaiah material into those themes to show how Nephi worked to bring us an understanding of these prophetic issues.