The narrative describes the parable as one of the teachings of Zenos found in the brass plates, a lost record.
[2] Zenos is believed by members of the Latter-day Saint movement to be a prophet from Israel or Judah who lived sometime after Abraham and before Lehi, and had writings included in the brass plates but not the Hebrew Bible, which became the Old Testament.
"[2] The House of Israel is compared with a tame olive tree that grows old and begins to decay.
[5] Comparing Romans 11 and Jacob 5, Head of the School of Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen Seth Kunin writes that the difference between the two metaphors is that the Book of Mormon includes grafting in of other branches to an olive tree.
[6] Paul Hoskisson, Brigham Young University professor of ancient scripture, explains the allegory by associating tame olive tree with the House of Israel and the wild olive trees as non-Israelites, the vineyard is the world.