LeGrand L. Baker

1 Nephi 16:25-31 

25 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came unto my father; and he was truly chastened because of his murmuring against the Lord, insomuch that he was brought down into the depths of sorrow.
26 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord said unto him: Look upon the ball, and behold the things which are written.
27 And it came to pass that when my father beheld the things which were written upon the ball, he did fear and tremble exceedingly, and also my brethren and the sons of Ishmael and our wives.
28 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the pointers which were in the ball, that they did work according to the faith and diligence and heed which we did give unto them.
29 And there was also written upon them a new writing, which was plain to be read, which did give us understanding concerning the ways of the Lord; and it was written and changed from time to time, according to the faith and diligence which we gave unto it. And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things.
30 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did go forth up into the top of the mountain, according to the directions which were given upon the ball.
31 And it came to pass that I did slay wild beasts, insomuch that I did obtain food for our families.

Nephi has brought us to the critical turning point in his story. We are now at the time of apparent defeat in the chiasmus we described earlier He patterned the entire book of First Nephi after the cosmic myth, that is, after the same pattern as the Feast of Tabernacles temple drama.{1}

As in the cosmic myth, after reaching the point when success seems impossible, Nephi presents us with two critical elements that are the turning point toward their ultimate triumph and victory. Those two are their receiving of the Liahona and Nephi’s finding food at the mountain top to sustain his family. In the subtext, he has also brought us to the top of the cosmic mountain where we find the tree of life and can partake of its fruit. Having the assurance one receives at the tree does not portend an easy time from there, just as the food did not for Lehi’s family in the desert, but it does give the assurance that failure is no longer looming as a possible conclusion of the journey.
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FOOTNOTE

{1} As already observed, when written as a chiasmus, a pattern of 1 Nephi looks like this:
.    A. Nephi and his family must leave home
.         B. They are given a seeming impossible task
.             C. They receive all necessary empowerment
.                 D. Rebellion and starvation in the wilderness
.             C. Liahona directs him to mountain top for food
.         B. They travel to Bountiful to complete their task
.    A. They arrive at the promised land

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1 Nephi 16:23-24 

23. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make out of wood a bow, and out of a straight stick, an arrow; wherefore, I did arm myself with a bow and an arrow, with a sling and with stones. And I said unto my father: Whither shall I go to obtain food?
24 And it came to pass that he did inquire of the Lord, for they had humbled themselves because of my words; for I did say many things unto them in the energy of my soul.

It is probably true that no one has read this account without noting that Nephi did not presume to himself the prerogative of asking the Lord, but rather he went to his father to seek instructions. Nephi’s deference to his father calls into question the whole argument that his writing is for his own self-justification or self-aggrandizement.

The Hiltons have also given us important insights about the wood that could have made an effective bow. They wrote,

This, then, [the broken bow] was the problem facing Nephi. He records that he found wood to build a new bow in 1 Nephi 16:23. Our friend Salim Saad enthusiastically pointed out that the pomegranate tree, that grows around Jiddah, would make good bows. These trees grow throughout the Middle East, even in brackish water. Pomegranate is a relatively straight and close-grained fruitwood that is remarkable lumber and tough. Until a decade ago, Arab teachers kept a pomegranate rod handy for disciplinary purposes, and one friend told us that being struck once across the knuckles caused such severe pain that he reformed and became a model pupil. This made us wonder if, in addition to Nephi’s possible use of pomegranate wood as a bow, he might have suffered from its other uses earlier when his brothers beat him ‘with a rod’ (1 Nephi 3:28).{1}

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FOOTNOTE

{1} Lynn M. Hilton and Hope A. Hilton, Discovering Lehi (Springville, Ut., Cedar Fort, Incorporated, 1969), 114-15.
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1 Nephi 17:11 

11 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make a bellows wherewith to blow the fire, of the skins of beasts; and after I had made a bellows, that I might have wherewith to blow the fire, I did smite two stones together that I might make fire.

The Hiltons gave us an interesting insight about the bellows Nephi might have made to smelt the iron ore. They wrote,

The idea for a bellows was certainly not Nephi’s own invention. His contemporary, Jeremiah, mentions bellows in his own writings (Jer. 6:29).

We were excited when we discovered an old skin bellows in a blacksmith’s shop in Oman. It is very probable Nephi used a similar one. It is called keer in Arabic. The bellows was hanging, blackened and neglected, on the wall of the shop. The blacksmith told us that this bellows had been used by his father, his father’s father, and so on back for many generations (an estimated six hundred years). We had never seen a bellows like this before; it did not work in accordion fashion, pressed together like a European bellows, but was worked on the ground by a pump-like motion. The neck of the tanned goatskin was tied around a wooden coupling tube that fit into an iron pipe which would, naturally, have been placed under the fire. This reminded us of a clay pipe, dated 1,000 B.C., that we had seen in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, a device that had also been used to carry air from a bellows to the fire. The four legs of the skin of this bellows of Oman had been folded back and tied off carefully. The entire back end of the goat skin was open, the skin fastened to two parallel sticks so that it looked like a woman’s large knitting bag that can snap shut. The blacksmith showed us how to grasp these two sticks in one hand, holding them open while he pulled the skin up, drawing in air, then closing them as he pushed the skin bag down, forcing the air out the neck pipe. We were impressed that it worked well, and we wondered how such bellows differed, if any, from Nephi’s.{1}
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FOOTNOTE

{1} Lynn M. Hilton and Hope A. Hilton, Discovering Lehi (Springville, Ut., Cedar Fort, Incorporated, 1969), 159.
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1 Nephi 17:8-10 

8 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters.
9 And I said: Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?
10 And it came to pass that the Lord told me whither I should go to find ore, that I might make tools.

During S Kent Brown’s BYU exploration of the area that Lehi called Bountiful, he discovered not just a possible source of iron from which Nephi could have constructed his tools but a remarkable deposit of iron ore that would have enabled Nephi to pick the ore off the surface of the ground and smelt it with great ease. They report:

The unique part of the iron ore discovery that we made was that the iron is actually mixed in with carbonate, which is used naturally as a flux to lower the melting point of iron. The iron ore is highly concentrated and so not only would it have been easy for Nephi to see and collect, it would have been easy for him to make a tool from these raw materials.

The iron ore in only these two areas is right on the surface of the ground. We have veins of iron ore coming up through the metamorphic rock right to the surface of the ground. And so collecting it would have been no problem at all. Nephi could have collected enough iron ore in a matter of a few minutes to make all the tools he would want. And it is right by the coast. You load it into a boat, carry it wherever you want it, and process it.{1}
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FOOTNOTE

{1} S. Kent Brown and Peter Johnson, Journey of Faith, from Jerusalem to the Promised Land (Provo, Utah, The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, BYU, 2006), 64. Statements by Ron Harris and Revell Phillips.
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1 Nephi 17:7 

7. And it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had been in the land of Bountiful for the space of many days, the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord.

There is much one can learn from this seemingly incidental part of Nephi’s story. Its importance is emphasized by similar circumstances being repeated over and over again throughout the scriptures and sacred history. There are many examples of prophets finding seclusion on a mountain in order to speak with God. Not everyone has immediate access to the quietude of a mountain, but that is not the point. The point is this: When the Spirit says “stop what you are doing and go to the mountain” or “go for a walk” or “go to your room” or “sit quietly and listen,” then one should obey.

We take the sacrament weekly as a token of the covenant that we will do our part to have the Spirit always be with us, but we sometimes get too busy to listen when he is there. That is like walking in the mountains with a friend but ceaselessly talking about a football game, or about politics, or about philosophy all the way going and coming—and never really having been on the mountain at all.

We often get on our knees and expect the Lord to answer our questions just then, while we are taking the minute to talk at him. We grunt and groan inside, trying to get as “spiritual” as we can for the experience. Nothing happens and we go away disappointed, or we let our own enthusiasm get in the way of our listening and go away convinced that the Lord shares that enthusiasm and that he approves of whatever it was we tried to convince him to sanction. Then when it doesn’t work out, we respond incredulously, “But I prayed!” Or else we kneel down with our hearts so full of sorrow, or disappointment or fear that those feelings take up all the space in our heart and soul and we go away thinking that we have had “a stupor of thought,” so that must be God’s answer. Shakespeare expressed the problem clearly when he had King Claudius say,

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.{1}

Real prayer is not a routine, night and morning recital of our usual shopping list. It is a quiet conversation, but the time for such quietude is sometimes hard to come by. There is an ancient Jewish tradition according to which Satan and one of his henchmen watched as Adam and Eve left the Garden. Satan tells his subordinate how to frustrate God’s plans— simply fill up human life with so much trivia that people will be too busy to listen to the Spirit. It concludes, “Cast men into great distractions and pains in life, so that their men should be preoccupied with life, and not have time to attend on the Holy Spirit.”{2}

That is why a quiet prayer is so important. Prayer is a togetherness. It is walking in a mountain with a friend. Sometimes stopping to talk. Sometimes just needing to talk and talk and know that you are being listened to. Sometimes filling one’s mind by listening to what he has to say. Sometimes filling one’s whole soul by just knowing that you and he are together.

Our world tends to crowd out such prayer, and the needs of just living can make that forever so. But when the Spirit whispers, “Arise, and get thee into the mountain,” it is time to go and to walk with a Friend.
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FOOTNOTES

{1} Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3.

{2} Roger Aubrey Bullard, The Hypostasis of the Archons (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1970), 29, lines 7-11.
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1 Nephi 17:5-6

5 And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish. And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters.
6 And it came to pass that we did pitch our tents by the seashore; and notwithstanding we had suffered many afflictions and much difficulty, yea, even so much that we cannot write them all, we were exceedingly rejoiced when we came to the seashore; and we called the place Bountiful, because of its much fruit.

Brown and his associates give us this description of the richness of this little spot of fertile land tucked away at the edge of that great desert.

The steep mountain cliffs on either side of the alcove had natural caves etched into them where, the locals informed us, bees stored honey. The abundance of date palms, edible plants, grapes, melons, and fish further testified to why Lehi called this place Bountiful and why local herdsmen have been coming to this place for millennia. Our first view of Wadi Sayq revealed a place that would have been a great joy and blessing to Lehi’s family after their long and wearying journey through the parched and threatening heat of the Arabian desert.{1}
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FOOTNOTE

{1} S. Kent Brown and Peter Johnson, Journey of Faith, from Jerusalem to the Promised Land (Provo, Utah, The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, BYU, 2006), 136-37.
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