Chapter 4
War and carnage continue—The wicked punish
the wicked—Greater wickedness prevails than ever before in all Israel—Women and
children are sacrificed to idols—The Lamanites begin to sweep the Nephites
before them. About A.D. 363–375.
War continues. The
Nephite army met the Lamanite army around the land Desolation. The warning
against this future war was prophesied by Lehi at the beginning of Nephite
history. “Yea, as one generation passeth to another there shall be bloodsheds,
and great visitations among them; wherefore, my sons, I would that ye would
remember; yea, I would that ye would hearken unto my words” (2 Nephi 1:12).
The Lamanites forced
the Nephites to retreat back into the land Desolation. Fresh troops came and
supported the Lamanite army; the Nephites received no new support. The
Lamanites successful took possession of the city Desolation. Just two years
earlier, the Nephites had defeated the Lamanites here. “And it came to pass
that in the three hundred and sixty and first year the Lamanites did come down
to the city of Desolation to battle against us; and it came to pass that in
that year we did beat them, insomuch that they did return to their own lands
again” (Mormon 3:7).
Many Nephites died
or were taken prisoners.
“Two years later the
Nephites foolishly took the offensive and as a result lost both the land and
the city of Desolation, ‘and the remainder did flee and join the inhabitants of
the city Teancum’ (Mormon 4:3). This makes it clear that we are still reading
only of Mormon’s band of Nephites, and not a history of the whole nation, for
the people of Teancum, which was ‘in the borders by the seashore . . . near the
city of Desolation’ (Mormon 4:3), had up to then taken no part in the fighting.
It must always be borne in mind that by this time the Nephite people had become
broken up into ‘tribes,’ each living by itself and following its own tribal
laws (3 Nephi 7:2-4). So what Mormon gives us is only a sampling of the sort of
thing that was going on.”[1]
Once again, we see when
the Nephites fight an offensive war, they lose. Only when the Nephites fought
after a Lamanite attack were they able to obtain victory.
“Another
of [the late Major A. Brent] Merrill’s insights on military practice based on
economic and strategic considerations is the conclusion that the Nephites were
prudent to maintain a grand strategy of defensive warfare: ‘Fortifications,
which needed relatively few men to man, became force multipliers, by means of
which the Nephites could extend a combat front, and served as a base of
maneuver for mobile field forces. This was an effective use of one principle of
war, the economy of forces’ (pp. 276-77). He does go on to conclude that when
this principle was violated, the Nephites usually suffered defeat, referring
the reader to Mormon 4:4.”
The Nephites faced
God’s judgments. God will overtake the wicked. “The Lord is slow to anger, and
great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in
the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet” (Nahum
1:3).
Only the wicked will
punish the wicked. It is they who stir up men to bloodshed. “But these,
as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the
things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own
corruption” (2 Peter 2:12).
“I have sworn in my
wrath, and decreed wars upon the face of the earth, and the wicked shall slay
the wicked, and fear shall come upon every man” (D&C 63:33).
“It’s always the
wicked against the wicked in the Book of Mormon, never the righteous against
the wicked. In the duel between Amlici and Alma (see Alma 2:29-31), wasn’t that
a good guy against a bad guy? No, when the war was over they mourned terribly
because they were convinced that the war had been because of their wickedness.
They had brought it on themselves. They weren’t fighting bad guys as good guys
after all. In the same way, Mormon counsels, Don’t worry about the wicked;
surely the ‘Judgments of God will overtake the wicked; and it is by the wicked
that the wicked are punished’ (Mormon 4:5).[2]
[1] An
Approach to the Book of Mormon, Strategy for Survival, Hugh Nibley, Maxwell
Institute website.
[2] Warfare and the Book
of Mormon, Hugh Nibley, Reprinted by permission from Stephen D. Ricks and
William J. Hamblin, eds., Warfare in the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book and FARMS, 1990), 127-45, Maxwell Institute website.
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