Omni 1:15-19

15 Behold, it came to pass that Mosiah discovered that the people of Zarahemla came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon.

16 And they journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters, into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth.

17 And at the time that Mosiah discovered them, they had become exceedingly numerous.  Nevertheless, they had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time; and their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them; and they denied the being of their Creator; and Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could understand them.

18 But it came to pass that Mosiah caused that they should be taught in his language.  And it came to pass that after they were taught in the language of Mosiah, Zarahemla gave a genealogy of his fathers, according to his memory; and they are written, but not in these plates.

19 And it came to pass that the people of Zarahemla, and of Mosiah, did unite together; and Mosiah was appointed to be their king.

Omni 1:15-19

When the people led by King Mosiah1 arrived in the land of Zarahemla, they found people there.  These people came from Jerusalem about the same time Lehi’s party left.  Their leader’s name was Mulek, son of Zedikiah. 

They were led to this land “by the hand of the Lord across the great waters.”  The people wandered in the wilderness until they chose the land they called Zarahemla to settle.  A city was built and called Zarahemla.

We learn about the Mulekites later in scripture. 

2 Now there were not so many of the children of Nephi, or so many of those who were descendants of Nephi, as there were of the people of Zarahemla, who was a descendant of Mulek, and those who came with him into the wilderness.

3 And there were not so many of the people of Nephi and of the people of Zarahemla as there were of the Lamanites; yea, they were not half so numerous.

4 And now all the people of Nephi were assembled together, and also all the people of Zarahemla, and they were gathered together in two bodies.

Mosiah 25:2-4

Who was Mulek?   We learn he was a son of Zedekiah. 

8 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.

9 Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave judgment upon him.

10 And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah.

11 Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.

Jeremiah 52:8-11

We see a problem here.  Mulek was a son of Zedikiah, yet Jeremiah writes that all his sons were killed (Jeremiah 5:10).  There are many possible explanations (for example, see New Information about Mulek, Son of the King by Robert F. Smith). 

John Tvedtnes offers another explanation.

The Book of Mormon identifies Mulek as the only son of King Zedekiah to escape execution during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem (Omni 1:15; Helaman 8:21)…

Supposing Mulek to have been a literal son of Zedekiah, some Latter-day Saint scholars have explored reasons why Mulek is not named in the Bible, how he survived Nebuchadnezzar's purging of Judah's nobility (2 Kings 25:7; Jeremiah 39:6), and why the people of Zarahemla (descendants of Mulek's group) allowed a newcomer, Mosiah, to be their king rather than their current leader, Zarahemla, who descended from Mulek (Mosiah 25:2).¹ Recent evidence introduces an interesting new possibility: Perhaps Mulek was not a "blood son" of King Zedekiah, but a "son" in some other sense.

A bulla (clay seal) from Israel bears the official seal of King Jehoiakim's "son" Yerahme'el. Prominent Jewish scholar Hershel Shanks translates the seal impression thus: "Belonging to Yerahme'el "son' of the King." He explains: "I have put ‘son’ in quotation marks because it is not clear whether the term denotes a biological son. Scholars are of three minds—at least: (1) the word means what it says; (2) ‘son’ refers to a royal official unrelated by blood to the king; (3) ‘son’ refers to any male scion [descendant] of the royal family"²…

In light of such information, we may reconsider Helaman 6:10 and 8:21, which represent Mulek as being a "son" of Zedekiah. If Mulek was not a blood son of the king, his preservation despite the report in 2 Kings 25:7 that Zedekiah's sons (presumably all of them) were slain becomes more understandable: that report may refer only to "blood sons."

Moreover, if Mulek was not a literal heir to the Judahite throne, this may help explain why Zarahemla and his "exceedingly numerous" people (Omni 1:17) accepted Mosiah as king, apparently without question or incident. In terms of the tradition of the Judahite fathers of Mulek's group, Zarahemla, as a descendant of Prince Mulek, might seem to have deserved the kingship. But Mosiah, though not of the preferred royal line through Judah, at least had major appurtenances of kingship that Zarahemla lacked. Mosiah's possession of such sacred Nephite relics—the plates of Nephi, the brass plates, the sword of Laban, the Liahona—and the impressive fact of his literacy may have conferred on him a special aura that helped convince the people of his suitability to rule as king.

Mosiah's qualifications for the kingship would have been even stronger if the "Mulekites" knew that Zarahemla's lineage was not securely tied to Judahite kingship. Of course, whether or not Zarahemla had claim to royal lineage through Mulek, Mosiah's strengths carried the day.[1]

The number of Mulekites had grown.  They had a large population.  Like the Nephites, they had experienced numerous wars with many having died.  It is not clear with whom the wars were.  It could have been among themselves; it could have been with the Lamanites; it could have been with the indigenous population.  We just don’t know.

Both their language and their religious beliefs had been corrupted over the centuries.  This is because they took no records with them.  Why?

We know nothing about the Mulekites history.  We know nothing about the original group.  We can infer that the original group rapidly departed the Old World.  They were survivors of a war.  We don’t even know if the Mulekites brought families, women, cattle, etc. 

We see the wisdom of Nephi bringing the brass plates.  “And behold, it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers” (1 Nephi 3:19).  King Benjamin would explain to his sons, “And he also taught them concerning the records which were engraven on the plates of brass, saying: My sons, I would that ye should remember that were it not for these plates, which contain these records and these commandments, we must have suffered in ignorance, even at this present time, not knowing the mysteries of God” (Mosiah 1:3).

Mosiah₁ began to work on communication.  He taught the Mulekites his language.  Once they could communicate, Zarahemla gave Mosiah₁ an oral genealogy.  This was recorded on the large plates.

Mosiah₁ was able to unite the Nephites with the Mulekites and he was appointed their king.  “And now all the people of Zarahemla were numbered with the Nephites, and this because the kingdom had been conferred upon none but those who were descendants of Nephi” (Mosiah 25:13).

From the Nephite account, it would appear the unification of the groups went smoothly.  But, the reality is there had to be problems.  John Welch explains.

While the Mulekites had initially welcomed the arrival of the Nephites in Zarahemla (at least according to the Nephite version of that encounter, recorded in Omni 1:14), it is doubtful that the entire Mulekite population remained content under Nephite rule for long. Human experience says that it would have been extraordinary for an indigenous population to have relinquished control over its own city, to have forgotten all its loyalties to its own king, and to have lost its own cultural identity without some reluctance and eventual resistance. Indeed, several hints and clues in the Book of Mormon indicate that these two groups of people, though politically united for a while under the Nephite king (see Omni 1:19), did not merge into a homogeneous population. In the ensuing years, several political and religious conflicts were led by men within the land of Zarahemla who were opposed to the Nephite regime.[2]

---

[1] Insights: An Ancient Window, John Tvedtnes, Maxwell Institute, accessed June 9, 2014.

[2] Benjamin, the Man: His Place in Nephite History, John Welch, Maxwell Institute, accessed June 9, 2014.