LeGrand L. Baker

1 Nephi 1:8
8. And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.

To people in our modern culture it seems strange that Nephi would report that his father only “thought he saw God sitting upon his throne.” When we use that phrase, it means that we were not sure what we saw. However, Nephi came from a different culture, one that reflected the Greek influence that was being felt all through the Mediterranean world. The Greeks had established city-states along the southern coast of Italy and the island of Sicily. Archaeologists also find evidence of Greek influence on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea, near Palestine.

In the ancient world, most apparently in Greece, the highest human activity was to think. Our own western culture is based largely upon that same belief. The deists of George Washington’s time picked up on that and asserted that the surest evidence that there is a God is that man can think and feel emotion. The deists’ reasoning went this way: Man exists; therefore, we must have been created. If we were created, then there must have been a creator. If man can think and feel emotions, then his creator must have been able to think and feel even better than his creation. If that creator could think and feel as well as create, then he must be God. If those things are true, then it follows that God’s most important desire is to bring about good for the people he has created. That was their rationale for believing God had helped them in the American Revolution and had been instrumental in creating the Constitution.

The ancient Israelites believed that same sort of thing. To the ancients, the seat of both human thought and emotion was the heart. So they understood that the place where one thinks and the place where one feels emotion was the same. For example, in the Psalms, one can not “ascend to the hill of the Lord” or “stand in his holy place” unless he has “clean hands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24).

In that ancient world, to think was the most significant of all human activities. In Nephi’s culture, to think was the supreme act of the human “heart.” The past tense of “to think” is “thought.” Thus, Nephi’s use of the word “thought” is simply the past tense of “to think.” That is the way he explains his father’s reaction to his vision. Nephi was not expressing his father’s uncertainty about what he saw, but he was saying—in the strongest language he could use—that Lehi not only saw God but that he understood what he saw.

There is another example of a similar vision’s being introduced the same way. Enoch begins the Book of Enoch by saying,

Enoch a righteous man, whose eyes were opened by God, saw the vision of the Holy One in the heavens, that the angels showed me, and from them I heard everything, and from them I understood as I saw.{1}

So when Nephi says his father “thought” he saw God, he asserts that he not only saw with his eyes, but he also understood with his heart and mind. That is a far stronger testimony than his only saying that Lehi “saw” God.
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FOOTNOTE

{1} Enoch 1:1, R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Oxford, 1964, 1:188.

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1 Nephi 1:7-11
7 And it came to pass that he returned to his own house at Jerusalem; and he cast himself upon his bed, being overcome with the Spirit and the things which he had seen.
8 And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.
9 And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.
10 And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament.
11 And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth; and the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read.

With those words ,Nephi firmly established that his father was a true prophet, and he did so with a legalistic precision that the Jews and Christians would have recognized as legitimate even as late as New Testament times. The Bible clearly establishes the criterion for a true prophet, and Nephi emphatically states that he and his father met that standard.

The definition of that standard is expressed in Amos’s testimony: “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). The key word there is secret. It is translated from the Hebrew sode, which means the decisions of a divine council.{1}

Many Old Testament scholars agree that the council Amos referred to was the Council in Heaven, and that in similar contexts throughout the Old Testament, sode refers to the decisions made by that premortal Council of the gods. The most detailed study of the meaning of sode in the Old Testament and of its equivalent, mysterion in the New Testament (translated “mystery”), is by Raymond Brown. He writes:

We may begin with the Hebrew word “sod”. … the word has a wide semantic area: confidential talk, a circle of people in council, secrets….When we approach the early biblical uses of “sod” with the idea of “council” or “assembly” in mind, we find that this meaning particularly fits the passages dealing with the heavenly “sod” in biblical references to the heavenly council of God and his angels….Amos (3:7) announces almost as a proverb that God will surely not do anything until he has revealed his ‘sod’ to his servants the prophets.{2}

What Amos says is that the Lord will not do anything until after the prophet has returned, in vision, to the premortal Council in Heaven. During that vision, he will be shown the deliberations of the Council and the covenants and assignments he made and accepted in conjunction with those decisions—as they related to that prophet’s time and place on the earth. In other words, a true prophet is one who does and says on earth what he covenanted he would do and say while he was at the Council.

The Savior called attention to this principle in the Beatitudes when he said, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” He was quoting Psalm 37 and paraphrasing Psalm 25. Both psalms define the meek as those who keep their eternal covenants. Psalm 37 is not so explicit, but it equates “ those who wait on the Lord” with those who are “meek,” promising that they “shall inherit the earth”(Psalm 37:8-11).

However, Psalm 25 is very explicit. It defines the meek as those whom God will “teach his way,” who “keep his covenant,” whom God will “teach in the way that he [God] shall choose,” because “the secret [sode] of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.” The psalm reminds the meek that the Lord will bless them according to the covenants he made with them at the Council and that those blessings will reach into the eternities: “His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth.”{3}

Joseph Smith gave us a key to understanding the importance of a sode experience,{4} and of the Council in Heaven when he wrote that the Council took place in Kolob. In February 1843, at the request of W.W. Phelps, the Prophet re-wrote the vision in poetic form. It was published in the Times and Seasons, February 1, 1843, and republished in the Millennial Star the following August. In the poem, Joseph equates the Doctrine and Covenants phrase “of old” with the time and place of the Council “in Kolob.” In the preceding quote, Nephi seems to be using that phrase the same way. The poem reads:

For thus saith the Lord, in the spirit of truth,
I am merciful, gracious, and good unto those
That fear me, and live for the life that’s to come:
My delight is to honour the Saints with repose,

That serve me in righteousness true to the end;
Eternal’s their glory and great their reward.
I’ll surely reveal all my myst’ries to them —
The great hidden myst’ries in my kingdom stor’d;

From the council in Kolob, to time on the earth,
And for ages to come unto them I will show
My pleasure and will, what the kingdom will do
Eternity’s wonders they truly shall know.{5}

Notwithstanding the initial importance of the activities of the Council in Kolob, throughout the Bible and the Book of Mormon the most significant role of the members of the Council was not so much what they did in their premortal lives but what they did on the earth after they returned to the Council and re-affirmed their covenants regarding the responsibilities they had on this earth. The scriptures teach us that the significance of the premortal covenants each of us made before we came to this earth is as relevant to our present earthly responsibilities—and to our ultimate salvation—as the covenants God made with the prophets at the Council are relevant to their earthly responsibilities and ultimate salvation.

Paul carefully explains that in his letter to the Ephesians. He uses most of chapter one to discuss the covenants made at the Council. Then, in the rest of the letter, he teaches what one must do to fulfil those covenants. Implicit in that and in other scriptures is the principle that the covenants we make in this world are reaffirmations of the covenants we made before we came here. In short, the experience we have in remaking those covenants and ordinances is a kind of this-world representation of a sode experience, and carries with it much of the same responsibility.

Jeremiah established the standard in the Old Testament for knowing the difference between a true prophet and a false one (Jeremiah 23:18-22).{6} There, the Lord condemns false prophets for presuming to speak for God without authority from him. A true prophet is one is one who has the authority to speak on behalf of God.

Nephi was very aware of that standard; therefore, he clearly identified both his own and his father’s prophetic authority in those terms.

In his discussion of the meaning of the Hebrew word sode and the Greek word mysterion in the Old and New Testaments,{7} Brown shows that both words have essentially the same meaning. That is, they both refer to the decisions made at the Heavenly Council.

The Book of Mormon uses biblical words the same way the Bible does. So when Nephi writes in the very first verse that he has “a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God,” he is declaring that he has had a sode experience (which he will later describe to us in much detail) and that therefore he has met the qualifications of being a true prophet.

Almost immediately after that, Nephi identifies his father as being a true prophet by showing that Lehi was transported to heaven where he heard the angels singing (members of the Council), he saw God sitting upon his throne, and he received his assignment by reading it in the heavenly book that was given him by Jehovah.

In terms of the ancient Israelite religion, if the Book of Mormon is to be understood as scripture that was written by true prophets of God, then it must begin at the Council in Heaven with a sode experience—which is precisely what it does.

The ancient Israelite temple drama was a generic enactment of the sode, because in it each person in the audience remade the covenants they had once made at the Council. But even though it was generic, it was very personal. It was about each person’s relationship with God. Even though the room might have been full of people, the Spirit taught each one individually about its personal meaning to that person.

When the Spirit teaches us about who we are or about what we should be doing just then, he is opening a window for us. So, even though few of us actually see the vision, we are each taught as much about the sode as we need to know to enable us to keep our covenants, without imposing so much upon us that it impedes our agency.

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FOOTNOTES

{1} Sode is pronounced with a long “O” as in “over.” Some scholars spell it in all caps: SOD. Other scholars spell it differently. It is spelled “sode” in the dictionary at the back of James Strong, ed., The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, #5475.

{2} Raymond E. Brown, The Semitic Background of the Term “Mystery” in the New Testament (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1968), 2-6.

{3} That last phrase is one of many places in the scriptures that quietly teach the doctrines of eternal marriage and eternal increase. The Savior called attention to those doctrines at least twice in the Beatitudes: First, where he paraphrases Isaiah 61 (“Blessed are they that mourn from they shall be comforted” in which the new name and the final two verses contain those same eternal promises. Then again when the Savior called attention to the promises in Psalms 25 and 37 (“Blessed are the meek”).
The meaning of “inherit the earth” is clarified in D&C 88:17-20:

17 And the redemption of the soul is through him that quickeneth all things, in whose bosom it is decreed that the poor and the meek of the earth shall inherit it.
18 Therefore, it must needs be sanctified from all unrighteousness, that it may be prepared for the celestial glory;
19 For after it hath filled the measure of its creation, it shall be crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father;
20 That bodies who are of the celestial kingdom may possess it forever and ever; for, for this intent was it made and created, and for this intent are they sanctified.

{4} For a discussion of sode see Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, First edition, p. 195-208; Second edition, p. 139-148.

{5} “A Vision,” by the Prophet Joseph Smith. In February 1843, at the request of W.W. Phelps, the Prophet rewrote the vision, which is now the 76th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, in poetry form. It was published in the Times and Seasons, February 1, 1843, and republished in the Millennial Star, August, 1843.

{6} In these verses the word sode is translated as “counsel” rather than as “council” or “secret.”

{7} Raymond E. Brown, The Semitic Background of the Term “Mystery” in the New Testament (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1968).

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1 Nephi 3:9-15 

9 And I, Nephi, and my brethren took our journey in the wilderness, with our tents, to go up to the land of Jerusalem.
10 And it came to pass that when we had gone up to the land of Jerusalem, I and my brethren did consult one with another.
11 And we cast lots—who of us should go in unto the house of Laban. And it came to pass that the lot fell upon Laman; and Laman went in unto the house of Laban, and he talked with him as he sat in his house.
12 And he desired of Laban the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, which contained the genealogy of my father.
13 And behold, it came to pass that Laban was angry, and thrust him out from his presence; and he would not that he should have the records. Wherefore, he said unto him: Behold thou art a robber, and I will slay thee.
14 But Laman fled out of his presence, and told the things which Laban had done, unto us. And we began to be exceedingly sorrowful, and my brethren were about to return unto my father in the wilderness.
15 But behold I said unto them that: As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us.

The boys “cast lots—who of us should go in unto the house of Laban…. the lot fell upon Laman; and Laman went in unto the house of Laban, and he talked with him as he sat in his house (v. 11). Laban’s response was to disregard Lehi’s claim and to accuse the boy, “Behold thou art a robber, and I will slay thee.”

There is a fundamental principle illustrated here. Laman and Nephi each acted according to their father’s instructions, but each understood the importance of their mission differently. Laman thought he had fulfilled his responsibilities by only an attempt to succeed. Nephi thought their responsibilities included successfully completing the task they were assigned.

The questions whose answers illustrate the principle are these: Why did the brothers respond so differently? and Why did Nephi have such confidence in the outcome of his mission? The answer has to do with the nature of free agency.

Free agency is a product of knowing truth. “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.” (D&C 93:24) That is, truth is a knowledge of reality in sacred time. Sacred time is time as God experiences it, as opposed to linear time that we experience in this world. A primary function of the Holy Ghost is to teach us to understand our own reality in sacred time. To do that, the Spirit must also teach us how to define ourselves in terms of God’s love for us, and in terms of our love for other people. To the degree that we understand our own reality as love in sacred time, to that degree we are free to act independently within the sphere of that knowledge. Consequently, even though Laman and Nephi each acted according to their own will, Nephi experienced a freedom to choose that was far beyond anything Laman could have understood. We will see that as their story unfolds. Nephi was not always sure what he should do, but he knew he could trust God, and therefore was never unsure about the final results. Laman, on the other hand, was unsure about how to proceed because he did not trust God and therefore was not sure about the results.

Both were reasonably free to act, but to be completely free to act is not possible while we are in this mortal world. Such freedom would require that we not be constrained by any physical restrictions, cultural taboos, and social definitions of moral propriety. That kind of freedom does not exist here. No matter who or where we are, there are always limits on where and how fast we can move, and what society will permit us to do .But within those limits, both young men were free to act according to their own wills.

In this world, each of us is free to act according to our own volition—but only within the limits circumscribed by our physical ability and cultural taboos. However, there are also other restraints that limit our freedoms here. The most important is our sense of Self and the meanings we give to the rectitude of our intentions. It is that sense of right and wrong that informs and empowers our freedom to choose.

Freedom to choose can be a reality only when we can distinguish between our choices. If we do not know the consequences of our choices, then we cannot know which choice is best. If we do not know the consequences, then we can exercise no more real freedom of choice than someone who is blindfolded and is expected to choose by guessing. Freedom to guess and freedom to choose are not the same thing. Freedom to guess is being given the right to choose while being denied the correct criteria upon which to judge. That is only a pretended freedom. It may look like freedom—we may even accept it as freedom—but in reality it is a kind of slavery instead. When we know and trust God, the Holy Ghost gives us an assurance of the consequences, and therefore actually gives us the freedom to choose.

We are never subservient when we are obedient to the instructions of the Spirit, because the Spirit does not impose choices upon us. The Spirit magnifies our agency by giving us the freedom to be our Selves. Freedom to act and freedom to be one’s Self are quite different things.

Freedom to be one’s Self may be limited by severe external restraints. Most of them are cultural, social, or academic. To most of the people who now live or who ever have lived in this world, those limitations have been enormous, but to Latter-day Saints who have the scriptures and the gift of the Holy Ghost, they need not be. For us, the overriding limitation is probably our own lack of interest or else a desire that is not sustained by personal focus and dedication. The beginnings of freedom to be one’s Self are built upon personal integrity:

A) To be free one must have sufficient integrity to not be bribable. That is, to not be for sale for such prices as money, fame, power, popularity, or whatever else the world may use to bribe.

B) To be free one must have sufficient security to not be afraid. In the environment of this world, that could mean anything from a nation with a powerful defensive army, to a city with an efficient police force, to an individual secure in an honest neighborhood. On a personal level, it would mean one’s being so secure in his own sense of reality, that nothing could intimidate or threaten him into being or doing anything that is contrary to the law of his own being.

C) To be free one must have sufficient information to choose, rather than just to guess, then to act correctly. One is expected to study carefully, think rationally, and make intelligent choices about the things of this world. Then one can depend on the Holy Ghost to give additional insights.

The freedom to be one’s Self gives us enormous personal power—not the power to impose our will on anyone else but the power to choose according to our own desires. The root of this power is what the Savior described when he said,

27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27).

In the Beatitudes Jesus identified such people as “peacemakers.” Later, Mormon described them as “the peaceable followers of Christ. …because of your peaceable walk with the children of men” (Moroni 7:2-4).

For one to be at peace, one must have the power and freedom to act rather than to be acted upon. On this level, peace equates with freedom. Freedom with the power to be one’s Self. Both map to priesthood and sacral kingship. This equivalency works because peace, priesthood and sacral kingship can only be the fruition and fulfillment of the freedom to be one’s Self. Those same three principles that give one freedom in this world (when put into gospel language) are faith, hope, and charity.

A) Faith (pistis) in the Savior is evoking all the promises of the Father’s covenant. Faith must be preceded by our knowledge that the covenant is binding on both ourselves and God. So ultimately, for us, faith is an exercise in our own integrity—the valid evidence that we will be faithful to our covenants—that there is no gap between what we say and what we do, with nothing in this world so attractive or desirable that it can be used as a bribe to derail our sense of Self.

B) Hope is living in the security that God will fulfil his covenants—that is, hope is living as though the covenants were already fulfilled—“having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life” (Alma 13:29). With such a hope, there is nothing in this world that can intimidate us to not fulfil our part of the covenants. Hope makes one meek before the Lord and invulnerable to intimidation by anyone or anything else. For example, one of the most exquisite expression of hope found anywhere in the scriptures is this from Moroni:

34 And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen (Moroni 10:34).

C) Charity is the pure love of Christ. It is the love one feels for another when one understands another as God understands them. Charity, light, and truth (knowledge in sacred time) are equivalents, and charity (the way one feels and acts when one has light and truth) is the greatest expression of the three. Charity makes one meek before the Lord and invulnerable to intimidation by anyone or anything else. By definition, people who have charity have access to all the correct information they need to make choices about their relationships with other people. They are also expected to study carefully, think rationally, and make intelligent choices about the things of this world, and can depend on the Holy Ghost is to give additional insights.

Given the experiences Nephi had already had, Nephi’s freedom was expanded by his understanding that God would enable him to fulfill his part of the covenants. Because of the covenants, Nephi understood that his mission was necessary in the eyes of God, and therefore he understood himself to be invulnerable. This power to understand changed the nature of his agency. The agency Nephi exercised was founded on his understanding of eternal truths and was expressed in his determination to obey because he chose to. For Laman, the agency he exercised was founded on his not choosing to know, and expressed in his reluctance to try again.

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1 Nephi 3:7-8

7. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things that the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing that he commandeth them.
8. And it came to pass that when my father had heard these words he was exceedingly glad, for he knew that I had been blessed of the Lord.

Nephi has carefully laid out for us the background of this statement. It reads like a rather simple but honest retelling of the story, but at its foundation there is something that he wants his children, and their children—and us—to understand. Nephi crafted his entire autobiography as a kind of epic poem, following the dynamic pattern of the cosmic myth. In that poem, we are now at the point in the chiastic pattern where the hero is given his assignment. If one reads it that way, one readily discovers the two major elements of the assignment. The first is in chapter 2 where the Lord promises Nephi that he will be a ruler and a teacher (that is, a king and a priest). The second is here, where Nephi expresses his trust that the Lord will give no assignment unless its ultimate fulfillment is included in the promise that the Lord will assist the hero in fulfilling his part of the covenant.

There is an implicit and often explicit covenant imbedded into every commandment given God. The promise is that God will counterbalance any obstacle that would otherwise prevent us from keeping our covenants. A vivid example is Abinadi’s warning to the priests of Noah. Abinadi had not yet finished his assignment, and he could not be prevented from doing so (Mosiah 13:3). In Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, we assigned the name of “invulnerability” to that important covenant. It does not mean one will not have problems or that the assignment will be easy. It means that God will override very thing and everyone that might prevent our keeping our covenants. After that, like Abinadi when he had accomplished what he was sent to do, it almost does not matter what happens.{1}

Nephi’s testimony is that he understands that. He tells us:

8 And it came to pass that when my father had heard these words he was exceedingly glad, for he knew that I had been blessed of the Lord (1 Nephi 8).

Lehi also understood the truth and power of God’s promise of invulnerability. He recognized that Nephi’s assurance was not just the expression of a boy’s unschooled trust, but that Nephi had in fact “been blessed of the Lord.”
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FOOTNOTE
{1} For a discussion of the “covenant of invulnerability” see Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, first edition, 285-89; second edition, 201-04.

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1 Nephi 3:5  

5. And now, behold thy brothers murmur, saying it is a hard thing that I have required of them; but behold I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord.

We are often asked to do “a hard thing.” For example, compare the following two scriptures, one at the beginning of Jeremiah’s story, the other near the end.

Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nation (Jeremiah 1:9-10).

Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah … that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sank in the mire (Jeremiah 38:6).

It is an important concept, and one we tend to overlook: the promises of Jeremiah chapter 1 do not preclude the events of Jeremiah chapter 38—not in Jeremiah’s life nor in anyone else’s. Indeed, if one refuses to participate in the events of 38, one forfeits the fulfillment of the promises of chapter 1. That sounds dreary, but after all, this is a lonely, dreary world. In the end, of course, there is always a promised hope! The hope is found in the first covenant that the Lord made with Adam: “In the day you eat of the fruit you will surely die.”

In this life, one has to fulfill the assignment received in the premortal Council in Heaven. But that is not all. One must also slosh around in the muck of this world for a finite number of years; be a leaning post for others who have grown weary of sloshing; or hold some in his arms until they regain their strength; and refrain from harshly judging others because they are made dirty by the same muck that he is in. Then, after a while, someone will let a rope down to him and he can go back home again.

But if we refuse to do that, if we expend our time and energy in this world building some kind of pedestal so we can climb up and sit on its cushy softness, and mock those whose feet are dirty from being in the place where the Lord planted them, then we get to remain on our self-constructed throne for ever. There will be no rope, and no going back to our celestial home.
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1 Nephi 3:3

3 For behold, Laban hath the record of the Jews and also a genealogy of my forefathers, and they are engraven upon plates of brass.

Hugh Nibley observed that Laban was probably the commanding general of the Jewish army under King Zedekiah. He explained that the military organization of ancient Israel was divided into companies of fifty, with each officer in the chain of command having his own personal command of fifty. The military commander at the garrison at Jerusalem was also commander-in-chief of the entire Jewish army. Nibley concludes, “All of [this] applies with equal force to Laban, the military governor of Jerusalem, ‘a mighty man’ who ‘can command fifty,’(1 Nephi 3:31) in his garrison and ‘his tens of thousands’(1 Nephi 4:1) in the field.”{1} Consequently, Nephi’s description of Laban’s military power was absolutely correct.

When the Book of Mormon begins, Laban had probably had his military command for less than a year. That conclusion is easily reached: Nephi began his record in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, just after Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Jerusalem and taken king Jehoiachin and his court to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar left Zedekiah, the uncle of the rightful king, on the throne. Zedekiah was only a puppet king, but he was a younger son of Josiah, so his being on the throne looked legitimate enough. It is extremely unlikely that Nebuchadnezzar would have taken Jehoiachin to Babylon and left the commander-in-chief of the Jewish army at Jerusalem, and still in charge of the military there. Rather, he would have selected another prominent citizen of Jerusalem who had legitimate family connections, and made him his puppet commander of the Jewish armies. Laban fits that description. He had a house in Jerusalem and many servants.

Notwithstanding Laban’s position and power, he gave Laman an audience in the privacy of his own home. Given Laban’s status, his granting such an audience to a boy, who was about the age of a present-day senior in high school, would have been extremely unlikely unless that boy were a close family member. Later, Laban did it again (1 Nephi 4:23-24), only this time all four of the brothers were permitted to see him.

There are several reasons for believing that Laban was the actual head of the house of the Manasseh. The most compelling is that he owned the family regalia, history, and genealogy. Genealogies were the evidence of status and rank.{2} For example, Abraham rested his claim to authority, at least in part, on his having possession of the sacred family records.

But the records of the fathers, even the patriarchs, concerning the right of Priesthood, the Lord my God preserved in mine own hands; therefore a knowledge of the beginning of the creation, and also of the planets, and of the stars, as they were made known unto the fathers, have I kept even unto this day, and I shall endeavor to write some of these things upon this record, for the benefit of my posterity that shall come after me (Abraham 1:31).

It is of more than passing interest to us that the record that Mormon compiled (the Book of Mormon) from the great library in his procession, is almost entirely a history and genealogy of the royal Nephite family (they were kings, chief judges, prophets, apostles, and presidents of the church), and that Mormon’s concern was the same as Abraham’s (Mormon 6:6).

The tribe of Manasseh was one of the ten lost tribes taken north by Assyria about 120 years before Laban was made commander of the garrison in Jerusalem. So another form of the question is: How could it be that the prince of the house of Manasseh was living in Jerusalem, rather than away to the north where the other leaders of his tribe were taken by the Assyrians? The answer may be more simple than it appears.

After the death of king Solomon, Jeroboam led the ten tribes in their separation from the kingdom of Judah and Solomon’s heirs. To establish that separation more firmly, and to dissuade his people from returning to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship Jehovah, Jeroboam created a new state religion. His plan was not entirely successful and there were people who remained faithful to the God of their fathers. Notably, some were members of the tribe of Manasseh. There was a time, mentioned in the Old Testament, when some people from Manasseh traveled to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple there.

In 721 B.C., Sargon II, king of Assyria, attacked and defeated the ten tribes of Israel. He captured Samaria, Israel’s capital, and deported the people. Not long before that Assyrian invasion, King Hezekiah and his friend Isaiah invited all the people among the ten tribes, who were there still worshipers of Jehovah, to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover at the Temple.

1 And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel… .
5 So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem: for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written (2 Chronicles 30:1-5).

Josephus tells what happened next.

However, many there were of the tribe of Manasseh, and of Zebulon, and of Issachar, who were obedient to what the prophets exhorted them to do, and returned to the worship of God. Now all these came running to Jerusalem, to Hezekiah, that they might worship God.{3}

This event is probably more important to Book of Mormon history than has been documented. It may have been in response to Hezekiah’s warning, but it was certainly before the Assyrians conquered and deported the people of the tribe of Manasseh, that someone of that tribe who had access to some of the most valuable official tribal treasures (including the brass plates and ceremonial sword), took those treasures from the family vaults (perhaps in somewhat the same way that Nephi and Mosiah would do later) and fled with the family regalia to Jerusalem for protection. Because he had such access, it is probable that he was a tribal prince, and it is almost certain that he was an ancestor of Laban and Lehi.

The particulars of our story are the same as have been retold many times. It reads like the biography of the hero in a version of the cosmic myth. A younger son of the ruling family of Manasseh in the northern kingdom of Israel rebelled against the apostate ways of his father. He accepted Hezekiah’s invitation, absconded with the family’s sacred records and regalia, and ran for his life. He took refuge in Jerusalem, and because of his flight, our young hero was spared the death or captivity that would have come to him had he been home when the Assyrian army came.{4} It is the often repeated story of many scriptural heroes. It is the story of Abraham when he left the land of his birth; of Nephi when he and others left their original settlement in America and ran from his older brothers. It is the story of Mosiah I when he took the sacred things and escaped into the land of Zarahemla before the Lamanites destroyed those who remained in the original land of Nephi. It may be the story of some brave young prince of Manasseh, who responded to the warning of the Spirit and escaped to take refuge in Jerusalem when the Assyrians were about to devastate his homeland. It was also the story of Lehi and his family.

If that scenario is basically correct, it would account for why Laban, of the house of Manasseh, would be in Jerusalem 120 years after his homeland was devastated, and why he would still retain the rank and treasures of the prince of Manasseh.

King Hezekiah was killed in battle, and his twelve-year-old son, Manasseh, became king and reigned for the next 55 years. After that, the apostasy that King Manasseh had initiated continued through all of the last kings of Judah (2 Kings 23 & 24). Second Kings reports that when Nebuchadnezzar first conquered Jerusalem , he took Jehoiachin to Babylon and carried away 10,000 prisoners including all the nobility, and their treasures, and “none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land” (2 Kings 24:11-18). That appears to be not quite correct. Second Kings was written after the Babylonian captivity, but Jeremiah’s more contemporary account lists the king, his household, and principal members of his court, plus the craftsmen and smiths among the captives, and writes that the number was not 10,000, but only 3,023 (Jeremiah 52:28). If Jeremiah is correct, then there is no difficulty in accounting for why the new king Zedekiah, members of his court, and other wealthy persons like Lehi, Laban, and Ishmael were left behind.{5}

During the years of persecution and apostasy that followed Hezekiah’s reign, Laban’s family apparently had kept the brass plates concealed and intact. Therefore, the fact that Lehi even knew about them, and that young Nephi knew where they were kept on Laban’s estate, suggests not only that Lehi and his children were closely associated with Laban’s family but that young Nephi also had an intimate knowledge of Laban’s family secrets. We get a feel for the close relationship of those two families when we are told: “Laman went in unto the house of Laban, and he talked with him as he sat in his house. And he desired of Laban the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, which contained the genealogy of my father” (1 Nephi 3:11-12). This suggests that Lehi had some arguable claim to the plates, and hoped that Laban would just give them to him. Otherwise, he would not have sent his sons to simply ask for them, given the importance of the plates.

Lehi instructed the boys to “go unto the house of Laban, and seek the records, and bring them down hither.” (1 Nephi 3:4) Their father, Lehi, had not sent the boys to purchase the precious plates, but rather he sent them simply to ask for them. Such a request presupposes that Lehi believed that he, rather than Laban, had an arguable case for having the precious family history and genealogy. So the answer to the question, “Who was Laban?” may also answer the question, “Who was Lehi?”
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FOOTNOTES

{1} Hugh Nibley, “Two Shots in the Dark,” in Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1982), 115-17.
See also:
Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert/The World of the Jaredites/There Were Jaredites, edited by John W. Welch with Darrell L. Matthews and Stephen R. Callister (Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), 95-110.
Hugh Nibley, “Two Shots in the Dark,” in Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1982), 106.
Hugh Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon–Semester 1: Transcripts of Lectures Presented to an Honors Book of Mormon Class at Brigham Young University, 1988–1990 (Provo: FARMS), 89, 98, 158.
Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 3rd ed. (Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), 121.

{2} One example is that one of the acts for which king Hezekiah is lauded by the Old Testament writers, is that he had all the genealogical records checked for accuracy. Later, after the Babylonian captivity, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem, the Levites who could not prove their genealogies were no longer permitted to officiate in the religious ceremonies (2 Chronicles 31:16-21, Ezra 2:61-63, Nehemiah 7:5-8). In later years, up until just before the time of the Savior, the Jews would post their genealogy near their front doors so everyone could see who they were. But when Herod the Great was king, he resented that. He had no right to the throne by birth. He was a half-Jew from Idumea and his mother was a commoner. Herod would not be outshined by his Jewish subjects, so he had all of their genealogical records destroyed.

{3} Josephus, Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, chapter 13:2.

{4} This idea was first suggested by Sidney B. Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), 107-08.

{5} Another example showing that the author or authors were not too careful about historical details is verse 13:

13 And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said. (2 Kings 24:13).

The inaccuracy is that the Babylonians did not take away Solomon’s gold treasures. They had been taken away by the Egyptians only a few years after Solomon died.

25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem:
26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. (1 Kings 14:25-26)

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