Chapter 5
Mormon again leads the
Nephite armies in battles of blood and carnage—The Book of Mormon will come
forth to convince all Israel that Jesus is the Christ—Because of their
unbelief, the Lamanites will be scattered, and the Spirit will cease to strive
with them—They will receive the gospel from the Gentiles in the latter days.
About A.D. 375–384.
Mormon had earlier refused to lead the Nephites.
“And it came to pass that I, Mormon, did utterly refuse from
this time forth to be a commander and a leader of this people, because of their
wickedness and abomination…
“And it came to pass that I utterly refused to go up against
mine enemies; and I did even as the Lord had commanded me; and I did stand as
an idle witness to manifest unto the world the things which I saw and heard,
according to the manifestations of the Spirit which had testified of things to
come” (Mormon 3:11, 16).
He expresses his regret for having made such an oath. The
Nephites looked to him as their only hope for defeating the Lamanites.
When Mormon once again took command of the army, he did so
without hope. He had expressed these feelings earlier. “Behold, I had led them,
notwithstanding their wickedness I had led them many times to battle, and had
loved them, according to the love of God which was in me, with all my heart;
and my soul had been poured out in prayer unto my God all the day long for
them; nevertheless, it was without faith, because of the hardness of their
hearts.” (Mormon 3:12).
“In Mormon 5:2 there’s a really deep feeling that it is
already too late. Mormon prayed fervidly for his people, but he knew it was
without hope. He says he had no hope. He prayed for them and did the best he
could, but there is a point of no return (at)
when you can’t go back. Have we passed that point? Is it too late?”[1]
The Nephites had fled to the city Jordan. The Lamanites
attempted to take the city, but were defeated. “After that evacuation they fled
to another land and city, the city of Jordan, where they held their own for a
while (Mormon 5:3). At the same time the same sort of thing was going on in the
rest of the scattered and disintegrating Nephite world.”[2]
The Lamanites regrouped and attached Jordan once again, but
they were defeated. Throughout the land, other cities cut off the Lamanite
armies and prevent the people in the land from being destroyed.
As Mormon went throughout the land, he saw cities which had
been abandoned had been burned and destroyed.
“Here you have a clear picture of Nephite society. Separate ‘lands’
living their own lives, now in this last crisis terribly reluctant to move and
join the swelling host in the retreat to the north. Those who refused to pull
up stakes were one by one completely wiped out by the Lamanites. This was no
planned migration but a forced evacuation, like dozens of such we read about in
the grim and terrible times of the ‘Invasion of the Barbarians’ that destroyed
the classic civilizations of the Old World.”[3]
“Readers of the Book of Mormon tend to oversimplify matters
when it comes to the wars in the days of Mormon. They see two great opposing
forces, Lamanites and Nephites. They forget, for example, that the inhabitants
of some of the ‘Nephite’ cities did not join the retreating Nephites and were
wiped out (see Mormon 5:5). If they were of different tribes, they may have
thought they were not part of the war. Another point is that there are three
main groups, not two. The third comprised the Gadianton robbers who, Mormon
informs us, lived among the Lamanites (see Mormon 1:18).”[4]
[1] Lecture
8: 1 Nephi, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 1, Lecture 8, 1 Nephi
Escape from Doom, Maxwell Institute website.
[2] A New
Approach to the Book of Mormon – Strategy for Survival, Hugh Nibley,
Maxwell Institute website.
[4] Book of
Mormon Tribal Affiliation and Military Castes, John A. Tvedtnes, Maxwell
Institute website.
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