Question: Mormons sometimes say that Isaiah 29:1–4 refers to the Book of Mormon, but this passage includes the phrase "familiar spirit," which is used to designate witchcraft when it is used in the Old Testament.

Answer: A study by Robert Cloward that appears in the book Isaiah in the Book of Mormon (ed. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch. Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1998), demonstrates that Isaiah's prophecy in chapter 29 referred to the people at Jerusalem, not to Lehi's descendants. However in 2 Nephi 27, Nephi continued his established practice of "likening" the words of Isaiah to his own people. In pointing out the relevance of Isaiah's prophecy to his Nephites, he incorporates some of Isaiah's words into his own prophecy of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

The biblical expression "familiar spirit" often refers to a ghost, and the King James Version of the Bible takes great liberty in construing statements about "them that have familiar spirits' as referring to spirit mediums, even when that is not always intended in the Hebrew. The single Hebrew word involved comes through in the KJV in terms like these:

"them that have familiar spirits" (Leviticus 19:31; Isaiah 8:19; 19:3)

"those that have (or had) familiar spirits" (1 Samuel 28:3, 9)

"the workers with familiar spirits" (2 Kings 23:24)

"counsel of one that had a familiar spirit" (1 Chronicles 10:13)

"familiar spirits" (2 Kings 21:6).

However in the case of Isaiah 29:4 the Hebrew is best read as "thy voice shall be as a ghost out of the ground"; it has nothing to do with spirit mediums. The New English Bible version indeed translates it as "ghostlike out of the ground." That fits well with Nephi's intention and use of Isaiah's statement in reference to the record of his own people who would become extinct.