“I knew I could do it because, well, I already did.” -Harry Potter, on conjuring his patronus. So it is with Nephi and his ship. He knew he could do it, because the same type of miracle had already been done by Moses in leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea on dry ground, and into their promised land. Nephi knows scripture, and if we can internalize scripture as deeply as Nephi, we too will have the faith and assurance to perform wonders for the Lord (even if we never actually cast a patronius charm ;). See Moro 10:3.
Activity: Search the chapter to discover what Nephi had learned from his study of scripture that helped him in his current difficulty.
1 nearly eastward, “From this time onward, the Lehite group traveled cautiously in a remote region, eating their meat raw as the smoke or light from fires would have invited Bedouin attack. Travel through this region – the still almost totally isolated and forgotten northeast plateaus of modern Yemen – certainly occupied the most arduous part of their eight-year journey in the wilderness. The Liahona, which earlier had led them to the “more fertile parts,” now likely functioned in directing them to scarcer water sources until Bountiful was reached. Water wells are almost nonexistent in this remote region, but huge standing pools of water sometimes last for months after rain has fallen.” (SW 1:292-93)
2 raw meat, it may have been necessary for them not to betray their presence by smoke from fires. Hugh Nibley notes that it is a matter of self-preservation as robbers infest the land.
bear their journeyings, note how the Lord strengthens us in our journey of life—He does not take us out of our difficulties, but instead strengthen us within them.
3 provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them, hearkens back to one of Nephi’s theses, 1 Ne 3:7 “I will go and do…” He said it in faith earlier, and now he knew it by experience. Note that Nephi has matured—this verse is far more complete then his earlier, somewhat naïve, response to his father in 3:7. Contrast this verse, which is Nephi’s experience of the previous 8 yrs, with 17:21, which is L&L’s experience.
4 eight years, why so long? In Alma 37:39-43, Alma informs us that Lehi’s family “did not travel a direct course” or “did not progress in their journey” because on so many occasions the Liahona ceased to work given their lack of faith and transgressions. This would explain why a journey that would have been of much shorter duration took so long.
5 Bountiful…Irreantum, Hugh Nibley notes that Bountiful was likely in the Qara mts on the eastern shore of the Sinai peninsula. ‘Much fruit’ and ‘wild honey’, prepared by the Lord so they would not perish, reminds us of the fruit of the tree of life (feasting on the love of God, the Atonement, etc.) and the scriptures (which are ‘sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb’ Ps 19:10). It is Semitic custom to name every hill, river, and oasis. (HN, Lehi in the Desert 85-7)
7 get thee into the mountain, the Lord does not unload the whole revelation at first. Rather, He simply has Nephi go up to the mountain. We may have thought, why should I go up that mountain? That’s a long journey, what’s the point? We want more direction first, more vision; ‘one step’ is not enough for us. But for Nephi, it is enough. As to the mountain itself, the instruction of the Lord to Nephi was not to be given in the comfort of his tent. Nephi ascended the mountain so that the Lord might speak to him. Mountains are nature’s temples and are frequently used as such by prophets when no temple is available.
cried unto the Lord, Nephi did not ascend to await the Lord, but to seek him. It’s one thing to willingly respond to the commandment of the Lord, but another to actively inquire as to how we might serve.
8 after the manner which I shall show unto thee, Nephi was given a revealed blueprint for the construction of his ship. Moses was given a pattern in Sinai to be followed in making the tabernacle that Israel was to take with them into the wilderness (see Exodus 25:40). Joseph Smith, in like manner, was given a pattern for the laying out of the city Zion, for the building of various buildings, in particular the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples (D&C 94:2, 5, 6, 12; D&C 97:10).
that I may carry thy people across these waters, this is a new turn of events! They did not know they would be crossing Irreantum. More likely they thought Bountiful was it, was the promised land.
9 Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore, how would I have reacted? What would have been my first response? Incidentally, ore has now been found all over the coastal area between Yemen and Oman, near where Bountiful would have been.
11 I Nephi did make a bellows wherewith to blow the fire, He really has to start from scratch. Some scholars have argued that Lehi’s family was in the business of blacksmithing (SW 1:299). Also, 1200 BC is usually identified as the beginning of the Iron Age, and the bellows was well known to the Hebrews.
14 After ye have arrived in the promised land, ye shall know…that I, the Lord, did deliver you, see Exodus 6:7-8. Indeed, after arriving at the Promised Land, Lehi had a vision of Jerusalem’s destruction (2 Ne 1:4).
3,13,15 inasmuch as ye keep the commandments, I’m interested in what specific commandments Nephi is referring to. The only “commandments” we’ve seen so far are that they go where the Lord directs and not complain about it; oh, or try and kill Nephi :). So what commandments is Nephi referring to? See Alma 37:38-47. In any event, this principle is one of the grand themes of the Book of Mormon, though it may not always be apparent—DO GOOD and it will be well with you!
and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led, the idea I guess is that they would not be dependent on earthly fire/light, but dependent upon God. So it is with followers of Christ. They are not dependent upon the world’s sources of happiness/motivation/etc. or the world’s aims/goals/purposes/plans. Rather, the true disciple of Christ is dependent upon God, motivated and led by Him, by things completely different from the world.
17-18 Our brother is a fool…they did not believe that I could build a ship, In one sense, this is kind of funny. I mean, who cares what they believe. But because Nephi was never going to build a ship alone, it’s a pretty serious problem. And there’s a pattern here, both for L&L as well as Nephi—they doubt, and he has faith. Note the cause is ultimately, as before, because they did not believe it could be done. They likely never dreamed of crossing the water; they thought they would simply establish a community in the desert, as had been done before by the Rechabites (see this article, The Rechabites: A Model Group in Lehi’s World).
20-21 we might have been happy, compare Ex 16:3 where the children of Israel desire the same thing. As the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we sometimes think we are missing out on something when we choose God. It’s striking that even after 8 years, L&L cannot abandon their inheritance in the hearts. How like us—we may not be sinning, but neither have we completely abandoned sin in our hearts!
22 we know that the people who were in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people, one point that Nephi seems to emphasize in his retelling of the Exodus is the fact that “the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one” and that people are “chosen” only if they are righteous. Perhaps Nephi had seen how the perversion of the “chosen people” idea had contributed to the downfall of his people in Jerusalem, and he may have worried that his brothers’ belief that “the people who were in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people” was a sign that they were falling into the same trap.
25-29 ye know, the phrase is used 8x in these five verses. Clearly, what we DO does not always align with what we KNOW. “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” (James 2:19) Faith is far more a power than knowledge because it implies action. “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead…I will shew thee my faith by my works.” (James 2:17-18)
23-34 our fathers…the children of Israel, Nephi models for us the power of turning to the scriptures during our struggles. He finds meaning and application in how the Lord dealt with Israel and makes a parallel to himself and his family (as HP called on a previous event to give him similar certainty). More broadly, the Book of Mormon account of Lehi’s journey to the New World echoes the earlier biblical story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt in remarkably complex ways—so remarkable that it stretches the imagination to think that young Joseph Smith’s biblical knowledge was sophisticated enough to have produced it. See, Exodus & Nephi’s Wilderness Journey for an in depth look at the parallels, and the following chart for a summary:
35 the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one, see 2 Ne 26:33 “all are alike unto God.” These two verses, for my part, are arguably the most important in the entire Book of Mormon text. They debunk the central idea of biblical history, that somehow God favors a particular people.
he that is righteous is favored of God, in the D&C 130:20-21 sense, that “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.”
the Lord did curse the land against them, and bless it unto our fathers, exactly what was then happening in the Americas, where the Jaredites were cursed from the land, and it was being blessed unto the Lehites (cross-reference 2 Cor 7:15; Acts 10:34-35; Mal 1:1-4; D&C 130:20-21; 82:10; Mt 5:45; 1 Sm 2:30; Jn 14:21; 15:10).
36-38 the wicked he destroyeth, Nephi is still a product of his time, steeped in biblical narrative, such as the genocide of the Canaanites. God did not command Moses to wipe them out, and rather than destroying the wicked, his spirit strives with them as he sends servants/prophets to teach them to repent. It would be more true to say that wickedness can yield destruction as a natural consequence.
35,38,40 he leadeth away the righteous into precious lands…he loveth those who will have him to be their God, when we are amenable, God can do wonders with us; while when we are resistant and hard-hearted, he can do little. His aim is our happiness, individually, in our families, and in our communities; hence he invites us to “flee Babylon” (Is 48:20; Jer 50:8; 2 Cor 6:17; Rev 18:4; etc.) to create a Zion society. This is the central theme of scripture (see the journeys of Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Lehi, etc.).
39 the earth is his footstool, another way of saying that he created or built it.
41-42 fiery flying serpents, I’ll address this later in Alma 33
41 straitened them…with his rod, interesting use of the rod. ‘Straiten’ means to ‘put into difficulties.’ How have you been straitened by the Lord? See 1 Ne 16:1-3
43 the time has come, in fact, the Jews had only 5 more years (600BC minus 8 years in the wilderness equals 592BC; and Jerusalem is destroyed 587 BC).
45 swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God, as we all are.
heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words, incredible description of the Holy Ghost and its influence. This is exactly the experience all of us have. We are Laman & Lemuel, not Nephi.
47 I am full of the Spirit of God, I have felt this once before when I spoke sharply to a mission companion who wouldn’t leave the apartment to go teach and was hindering our missionary work. It was probably effective because I showed love for him, as Nephi did (D&C 121:43).
48 touch me not, compare with Abinadi, Mosiah 13:3
52 Now they durst not do this lest they should wither before me, perhaps they remembered Miriam (Num 12:1-15) or Korah/ Dathan/ Abiram (Num 16:31-33).
53-55 the Lord did shake them…And now, they said: We know of a surety that the Lord is with thee, I suppose this was for expediency, so the ship could be built. In all probability, the fear was gone by now and L&L were about to carry out their murderous plans once again, hence, the shock. One thing L&L did respect/worship was power!
The two extremes of Nephi’s and L&L’s characters remind me of the useful analogy of the sport dressage. Dressage is a horse competition where a rider must have her horse perform certain tasks without it appearing that the rider is doing much at all with the horse; it must be subtle and seamless. Directions are given to riders on the spot so there is no pre-programmed preparation. The rider must then gently nudge the horse to perform the direction. The more subtle, the better. The opposite would be a horse who needs a violent spurring or a whip to the rear to get going. Point: the Lord is pleased when he can direct us gently—a still small voice. It is his preferred method because it builds character and fosters relationship. Still, he may sometimes use more aggressive methods (like a shock) to get our attention and to get something done, though that method does little for our characters.
Holy Envy 