25 Therefore, choose
you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the
laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which
were given them by the hand of the Lord.
26 Now it is not
common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is
right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which
is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business
by the voice of the people.
27 And if the time
comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that
the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit
you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.
28 And now if ye have
judges, and they do not judge you according to the law which has been given, ye
can cause that they may be judged of a higher judge.
29 If your higher
judges do not judge righteous judgments, ye shall cause that a small number of
your lower judges should be gathered together, and they shall judge your higher
judges, according to the voice of the people.
30 And I command you
to do these things in the fear of the Lord; and I command you to do these
things, and that ye have no king; that if these people commit sins and
iniquities they shall be answered upon their own heads.
31 For behold I say
unto you, the sins of many people have been caused by the iniquities of their
kings; therefore their iniquities are answered upon the heads of their kings.
After warning them of the consequences of an unrighteous
king, Mosiah returns to explaining why having judges selected by the voice of
the people avoids these consequences.
“There would be a ranking of judges, with higher and lower
ones, and the judges would regulate each other. If a lower judge did not follow
the law, then a higher judge would judge the matter; if a higher judge became
corrupt, then a ‘small number’ of lower judges would judge him, ‘according to
the voice of the people’ (Mosiah 29:29).”[1]
The people will “be judged according to the laws which have
been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by
the hand of the Lord” (Mosiah 29:25).
The people will usually desire to do what is right. It is
common the minority will desire the opposite. This is why they need to do “business
by the voice of the people” (Mosiah 29:26).
If the people choose evil, then God’s judgements will bring
destruction to the people. Around 10 years later, Amulek, when preaching to the
people of Ammonihah, would remind them of Mosiah’s words.
“Yea, well did Mosiah say, who was our last king, when he
was about to deliver up the kingdom, having no one to confer it upon, causing
that this people should be governed by their own voices—yea, well did he say
that if the time should come that the voice of this people should choose
iniquity, that is, if the time should come that this people should fall into
transgression, they would be ripe for destruction” (Alma 10:19).
Some 60 years later, the Nephites would be facing the
consequences of iniquity. “For as their laws and their governments were
established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more
numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction,
for the laws had become corrupted” (Helaman 5:2).
“One of Mosiah's justifications for allowing the people to
elect their judges was that ‘it is not common that the voice of the people
desireth anything contrary to that which is right’ (Mosiah 29:26]. But he noted
that ‘if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then
is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time
he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this
land’ (Mosiah 29:27). Since the Nephites had not experienced such ‘great
destruction’ on ‘this land,’ Mosiah must have had the destruction of the
Jaredites in mind.
“Significantly, Joseph Smith did not dictate the story of
the Jaredites until long after he dictated the book of Mosiah, so during that
earlier effort he could not have known the historical details of Jaredite
kingship. That these two widely separated records agree in such details
evidences the authenticity of the account of Mosiah's having translated the
book of Ether and becoming acquainted with its contents. It also is further
evidence of the internal consistency of the Book of Mormon.”[2]
If there are lower judges who refuse to judge according to
the law, the people can have a higher judge review that judge’s decision. If higher
judges do not judge righteously, the people can have a number of lower judges
meet to judge the higher judge according to the voice of the people.
“Mosiah desired to rectify the inequality that can occur when
one man exerts such excessive control over the lives and actions of his fellow
men and to establish instead a land in which ‘every man may enjoy his rights
and privileges alike’ (Mosiah 29:32).”[3]
Mosiah commanded them to “do these things in the fear of the
Lord” (Mosiah 29:30). Should there be a wicked king, and he causes his people
to sin, these sins will be “answered upon their own heads” (Mosiah 29:30).
The sins caused by the unrighteous king will be answer upon
their heads. We saw this in Old Testament times.
“And [the Lord] shall
give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made
Israel to sin” (1 Kings 14:16).
“And [Nadab the son of Jeroboam] did evil in the sight of
the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made
Israel to sin” (1 Kings 15:26).
“One of the prices of kingship is that a king must assume
personal responsibility for many of the iniquities of his subjects (Mosiah
29:30-34, 38). Mosiah specifically wanted to protect his sons from this burden.
He desired ‘that the burden should come upon all the people, that every man
might bear his part’ (Mosiah 29:34), and that each be willing ‘to answer for
his own sins’ (Mosiah 29:38).”[4]
[1] “And
it came to pass . . .”: The Sociopolitical Events in the Book of Mormon Leading
to the Eighteenth Year of the Reign of the Judges, Dan Belnap, Journal of
Book of Mormon Studies, 2014 Volume 23, pg. 105.
[2] King
Mosiah and the Judgeship, John A. Tvedtnes, Maxwell Institute website.
[3] “And
it came to pass . . .”: The Sociopolitical Events in the Book of Mormon Leading
to the Eighteenth Year of the Reign of the Judges, Dan Belnap, Journal of
Book of Mormon Studies, 2014 Volume 23, pg. 105-106.
[4] Mosiah:
The Complex Symbolism and Symbolic Complex of Kingship in the Book of Mormon,
Gordon C. Thomasson, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2/1 (1993): 36.
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