15 And it came to pass that Ammon said unto them:
Behold, I and my brethren will go forth into the land of Zarahemla, and ye
shall remain here until we return; and we will try the hearts of our brethren,
whether they will that ye shall come into their land.
16 And it came to pass that as Ammon was going forth
into the land, that he and his brethren met Alma, over in the place of which
has been spoken; and behold, this was a joyful meeting.
17 Now the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was
full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of
his strength; and he fell again to the earth.
18 Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save
it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness.
19 Now the joy of Alma in meeting his brethren was
truly great, and also the joy of Aaron, of Omner, and Himni; but behold their
joy was not that to exceed their strength.
20 And now it came to pass that Alma conducted his
brethren back to the land of Zarahemla; even to his own house. And they went and told the chief judge all
the things that had happened unto them in the land of Nephi, among their
brethren, the Lamanites.
21 And it came to pass that the chief judge sent a
proclamation throughout all the land, desiring the voice of the people
concerning the admitting their brethren, who were the people of
Anti-Nephi-Lehi.
22 And it came to pass that the voice of the people
came, saying: Behold, we will give up the land of Jershon, which is on the east
by the sea, which joins the land Bountiful, which is on the south of the land
Bountiful; and this land Jershon is the land which we will give unto our
brethren for an inheritance.
23 And behold, we will set our armies between the land
Jershon and the land Nephi, that we may protect our brethren in the land
Jershon; and this we do for our brethren, on account of their fear to take up
arms against their brethren lest they should commit sin; and this their great
fear came because of their sore repentance which they had, on account of their
many murders and their awful wickedness.
24 And now behold, this will we do unto our brethren,
that they may inherit the land Jershon; and we will guard them from their
enemies with our armies, on condition that they will give us a portion of their
substance to assist us that we may maintain our armies.
25 Now, it came to pass that when Ammon had heard
this, he returned to the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, and also Alma with him,
into the wilderness, where they had pitched their tents, and made known unto
them all these things. And Alma also
related unto them his conversion, with Ammon and Aaron, and his brethren.
26 And it came to pass that it did cause great joy
among them. And they went down into the
land of Jershon, and took possession of the land of Jershon; and they were
called by the Nephites the people of Ammon; therefore they were distinguished
by that name ever after.
27 And they were among the people of Nephi, and also
numbered among the people who were of the church of God. And they were also distinguished for their
zeal towards God, and also towards men; for they were perfectly honest and
upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the
end.
28 And they did look upon shedding the blood of their
brethren with the greatest abhorrence; and they never could be prevailed upon
to take up arms against their brethren; and they never did look upon death with
any degree of terror, for their hope and views of Christ and the resurrection;
therefore, death was swallowed up to them by the victory of Christ over it.
29 Therefore, they would suffer death in the most
aggravating and distressing manner which could be inflicted by their brethren,
before they would take the sword or cimeter to smite them.
30 And thus they were a zealous and beloved people, a
highly favored people of the Lord.
Alma 27:15-30
The Anti-Nephi-Lehies have
departed their land and headed to the land of Zarahemla. As they approached Zarahemla, Ammon and his
brethren had them stop. Wait here, he
told them. We will go and meet with the
people of Zarahemla, asking the people if they would agree to allow them to
settle in the land.
It was here when Alma had his
joyful reunion with the sons of Mosiah.[1]
Ammon was overjoyed at
meeting with Alma. His joy was so
overpowering, he lost his strength.[2]
Ammon
appears to have fallen to the earth more than any other individual in the Book
of Mormon. His initial conversion experience occurred when the angel rebuked
him and his brothers along with Alma (Mosiah 27:12). As discussed above, he
fell to the earth again when King Lamoni and his wife were converted (Alma
19:14) and once more when he was overcome with joy as he and his brothers
chanced upon Alma in the wilderness (Alma 27:17). In his Mesoamerican context,
Ammon’s experiences—rather than being viewed as a sign of physical weakness or
perhaps a case of spiritual hypersensitivity—would actually have imbued him
with more spiritual potency as a holy man. Among the modern Tzotzil Maya of
Chamula, for example, “the ability to cure illnesses of increasing severity is
dependent upon the number of times the shaman has lost consciousness in a
trance.”[3]
Alma and the sons of Mosiah
returned to Zarahemla and stayed at the home of Alma.[4] They went to the chief judge and recounted
all that had occurred in the land of Nephi.
After being asked for land
for the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, the chief judge, Nephihah (Alma 4:17), went to the
people and asked the about giving land to the Anti-Nephi-Lehies.
The voice of the people was
heard. They agreed to give them the land
of Jershon as the land of their inheritance.[5]
Once again, it’s appropriate
to look at the pesky charge of racism in the Book of Mormon.
Could
the Nephites have been racist in their views of the Lamanites? Perhaps, in the
same sense that the biblical patriarchs were racist when it came to their pagan
neighbors—the Hittites, the Canaanites, and the Amorites—and did not want their
offspring to marry these unbelievers. But racism in its typical sense does not seem
to have been prevalent among the Nephites, considering the numbers who
dissented from Nephite culture at various times to join the Lamanites. And it
is recorded that whenever the Lamanites converted to the Nephite religion, the
barriers separating these people dissolved (Alma 27:21–27; 3 Nephi 2:13, 14; 4
Nephi 1:17). Even before they were converted, the Nephites considered the
Lamanites to be brethren, a term used more than fifty times in reference to the
Lamanites in the Book of Mormon.[6]
In addition to providing land
to them, the Nephites agree to protect them.
This was done because of their covenant and repentance. The Nephites had no illusion about who these
people had been. They acknowledged their
murders and wickedness,[7] yet
they forgave them.
There was a condition placed
on this. The Anti-Nephi-Lehies would be
expected to pay for their defense. “And the people of Ammon did give unto the
Nephites a large portion of their substance to support their armies; and thus
the Nephites were compelled, alone, to withstand against the Lamanites, who
were a compound of Laman and Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael, and all those who
had dissented from the Nephites, who were Amalekites and Zoramites, and the
descendants of the priests of Noah” (Alma 43:13).
Hearing this, Ammon and Alma
returned to the location of their campsite.
Ammon told them what occurred in Zarahemla. Alma recounted his conversion story,
including what happened to the sons of Mosiah.
They were overjoyed at the
thought that, not only would they receive a land of their own, but they would
be protected and allowed to keep their covenants. They their name from the Anti-Nephi-Lehi to
the people of Ammon, the Ammonites.
They were numbered among
church members. Mormon tells us they
were noted for the zeal towards God and man; they were “perfectly” (Alma 27:27)
honest and upright in all things, and kept their faith in Christ until the end.
“And as sure as the Lord liveth, so sure as many as believed, or as many as
were brought to the knowledge of the truth, through the preaching of Ammon and
his brethren, according to the spirit of revelation and of prophecy, and the
power of God working miracles in them—yea, I say unto you, as the Lord liveth,
as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were converted
unto the Lord, never did fall away” (Alma 23:6).
They continued to keep their
covenants. They would still, as they had
in the past, be willing to suffer death rather than pickup a sword again. Their hope was in Christ and the
resurrection.
They were a zealous, beloved,
honest people who were highly favored of the Lord.
Bishop Richard Edgley shared
person examples of the importance of being an honest people.
In
1955, after my freshman year of college, I spent the summer working at the
newly opened Jackson Lake Lodge, located in Moran, Wyoming … [A]fter … arriving
home, my father came out and happily greeted me. After a hug and a few
pleasantries, he looked into the backseat of the car and saw three Jackson Lake
Lodge towels—the kind you cannot buy. With a disappointed look he merely said,
“I expected more of you.” I hadn’t thought that what I had done was all that
wrong. To me these towels were but a symbol of a full summer’s work at a luxury
hotel, a rite of passage. Nevertheless, by taking them I felt I had lost the
trust and confidence of my father, and I was devastated.
The
following weekend I adjusted the plywood floorboard in my car, filled the
radiator with water, and began the 370-mile (595-km) round trip back to Jackson
Lake Lodge to return three towels. My father never asked why I was returning to
the lodge, and I never explained. It just didn’t need to be said. This was an
expensive and painful lesson on honesty that has stayed with me throughout my
life…
Some
30 years ago, while working in the corporate world, some business associates
and I were passing through O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois. One of these
men had just sold his company for tens of millions of dollars—in other words,
he was not poor.
As
we were passing a newspaper vending machine, this individual put a quarter in
the machine, opened the door to the stack of papers inside the machine, and
began dispensing unpaid-for newspapers to each of us. When he handed me a
newspaper, I put a quarter in the machine and, trying not to offend but to make
a point, jokingly said, “Jim, for 25 cents I can maintain my integrity. A
dollar, questionable, but 25 cents—no, not for 25 cents.” You see, I remembered
well the experience of three towels and a broken-down 1941 Hudson. A few
minutes later we passed the same newspaper vending machine. I noticed that Jim
had broken away from our group and was stuffing quarters in the vending
machine. I tell you this incident not to portray myself as an unusual example
of honesty, but only to emphasize the lessons of three towels and a 25-cent
newspaper…
My
prayer is that as Latter-day Saints we will be known as among the most honest
people in the world. And it might be said of us as it was of the people of
Anti-Nephi-Lehi that we are “perfectly honest and upright in all things; and …
firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the end” (Alma 27:27). In the name of
Jesus Christ, amen.[8]
[1] “AND
now it came to pass that as Alma was journeying from the land of Gideon southward,
away to the land of Manti, behold, to his astonishment, he met with the sons of
Mosiah journeying towards the land of Zarahemla” (Alma 17:1).
[2] “And
it came to pass that [Lehi] 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” (1 Nephi 1:7).
[3] “According
to Their Language, unto Their Understanding”: The Cultural Context of
Hierophanies and Theophanies in Latter-day Saint Canon, Mark Alan Wright,
Studies in the Bible and Antiquity, 3 (2011): 64.
[4] “Now
as I said, Alma having seen all these things, therefore he took Amulek and came
over to the land of Zarahemla, and took him to his own house, and did
administer unto him in his tribulations, and strengthened him in the Lord”
(Alma 15:18).
[5] As
a final example, Jershon designates a place that was given to the people of
Ammon as a “land … for an inheritance” (Alma 27:22). In Hebrew, Jershon means
“a place of inheritance.”29 It is simply inconceivable that Joseph Smith could
have known this in the late 1820s. (Mormonism
as a Restoration, Daniel C. Peterson, FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 397.)
[6] The
Charge of “Racism” in the Book of Mormon, John A. Tvedtnes, FARMS Review
15/2 (2003): 185.
[7] “Yea,
and they also knew the extreme hatred of the Lamanites towards their brethren,
who were the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, who were called the people of Ammon—and
they would not take up arms, yea, they had entered into a covenant and they
would not break it—therefore, if they should fall into the hands of the
Lamanites they would be destroyed. And the Nephites would not suffer that they
should be destroyed; therefore they gave them lands for their inheritance”
(Alma 43:11-12).
[8] Three
Towels and a 25-Cent Newspaper, Bishop Richard C. Edgley, October 2006,
accessed June 27, 2015.
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