A Family Divided
I cried out to the Lord again and again because of my brothers' rage.
But their anger only grew worse. They wanted me dead. They complained bitterly: 'Our younger brother thinks he can rule over us. He’s caused us nothing but trouble. Let’s kill him and be done with it. We’re not going to let him be our ruler—we’re the older brothers. We should be the ones leading this people.'
I’m not going to write down everything they said against me. It’s enough to say they wanted me dead.
Escape to the Wilderness
The Lord warned me to leave them and escape into the wilderness, taking everyone who would come with me.
So I took my family, along with Zoram and his family, my older brother Sam and his family, my younger brothers Jacob and Joseph, my sisters, and everyone else who wanted to come. Those who joined me believed in God’s warnings and revelations, so they listened to what I said.
We packed our tents and whatever we could carry, then traveled through the wilderness for many days. After our long journey, we set up camp.
My people wanted to name the place Nephi, so that’s what we called it. Everyone with me started calling themselves the people of Nephi.
Building a New Home
We followed all of the Lord’s commandments and kept the law of Moses in everything we did.
The Lord blessed us, and we thrived. We planted seeds and harvested abundant crops. We raised flocks, herds, and all kinds of animals. I had also brought the brass plates and the compass the Lord had prepared for my father. We continued to flourish and grow in number.
I took the sword of Laban and used it as a pattern to make many more swords. I knew my brothers—now called Lamanites—hated me, my children, and my people. I had to protect us in case they attacked.
I taught my people to construct buildings and to work with wood, iron, copper, brass, steel, gold, silver, and precious ores—all of which we had in abundance. I built a temple, modeled after Solomon’s temple—though we didn’t have access to all the precious materials Solomon had, so ours couldn’t match his. But the design followed Solomon’s pattern, and the craftsmanship was excellent. I made sure my people worked hard with their hands.
They wanted me to be their king, but I didn’t want them to have a king. Still, I did everything I could to serve them.
The Lord’s words to my brothers came true. He had said I would be their ruler and teacher. I had led and taught them according to the Lord’s commands—right up until they tried to kill me.
The Curse and the Divide
So the Lord’s word was fulfilled. He had told me: 'If they won’t listen to you, they’ll be cut off from my presence.' And they were.
He brought a severe curse on them because of their rebellion. They had hardened their hearts against him until they were like stone. They had been fair-skinned and attractive, but to keep them from drawing my people away, the Lord caused their skin to become dark. The Lord God said: 'I will make them repulsive to your people, unless they turn from their sins.' 'Anyone who intermarries with them will be cursed with the same curse.' The Lord spoke it, and it happened.
Because of the curse on them, they became lazy, full of trouble and deception, hunting wild animals in the wilderness. The Lord God told me: 'They’ll be a constant threat to your descendants, to remind them of me. If your descendants forget me and don’t follow my words, the Lamanites will punish them—even to the point of destruction.'
Years of Peace and War
I ordained Jacob and Joseph to be priests and teachers for my people.
We lived happy lives.
Thirty years had passed since we left Jerusalem.
I had been keeping records of my people on my plates.
The Sacred Record
The Lord God told me: 'Make another set of plates. Engrave on them the things I want recorded—things that will help your people.'
So, obeying the Lord’s command, I went and made these plates and engraved these things on them.
I engraved what pleases God. If my people care about the things of God, they’ll value what I’ve engraved on these plates.
If my people want more detailed history, they can look at my other plates.
It’s enough to say that forty years had passed, and we’d already fought wars with our brothers.
Influences
- 5:7 — Romans 15:4 (KJV)For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
- 5:8 — Galatians 2:10 (KJV)Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.
- 5:8 — 2 Maccabees 1:36 (KJV)And Neemias called this thing Naphthar, which is as much as to say, a cleansing: but many men call it Nephi.
- 5:9 — Acts 19:13 (KJV)Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.
- 5:14 — Galatians 2:2 (KJV)And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.
- 5:17 — 1 Corinthians 4:12 (KJV)And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
- 5:18 — Acts 18:14 (KJV)And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you:
- 5:20 — John 12:38 (KJV)That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
- 5:25 — 2 Peter 1:13 (KJV)Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
- 5:25 — Luke 22:19 (KJV)And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
- 5:32 — 1 Corinthians 2:11 (KJV)For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
Notes
- 5:6
This is the only reference to sister(s) in the Book of Mormon. The words grandmother and aunt are never used.
Nephi never mentions his wife's name. Nephi does not name any of his own children either (1 Nephi 18:19). Interestingly, he uses his own name "I, Nephi" eighty-six times.
Sariah is one of only three women in the New World who are given names. The others are "Abish" in Alma 19:16, and "the harlot Isabel" in Alma 39:3.
"The fact that the Book of Mormon story says so little about women seems to throw a serious cloud of doubt over Joseph Smith's contention that it was written by a number of ancient Jewish authors after 600 B.C. The claim is that these men had the ancient books of the Bible-books which contain the names of many women and stories concerning them. However, the uniform lack of material regarding women in the Book of Mormon points to just one author." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 199.
- 5:8
"There are thirty-two interesting parallels between material found in three books of the Apocrypha and the Book of Mormon story of Nephi....Interestingly, twenty-eight of the thirty-two parallels to the Apocrypha are found in the first five chapters of the Book of Mormon. This constitutes an extraordinary cluster of similarities..." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 29.
Parallel: There is a significant parallel in wording between 2 Maccabees and the Book of Mormon in that both books use the words "the place" and "call it Nephi" (see 2 Maccabees 1:34, 36).
For other parallels, please see: 1 Nephi 1:1, 1 Nephi 1:2, 1 Nephi 1:17, 1 Nephi 4:20-24, 1 Nephi 2:4-6, 1 Nephi 3:3, 1 Nephi 3:16, 1 Nephi 3:25, 1 Nephi 3:31, 1 Nephi 4:1-2, 1 Nephi 4:4-5, 1 Nephi 4:7-9, 1 Nephi 4:18, 1 Nephi 4:19-24 & 38, 1 Nephi 4:20, 1 Nephi 4:27, 1 Nephi 5:9, 1 Nephi 13:40, 2 Nephi 5:8, Mosiah 10:13, 4 Nephi 1:31.
For a full note on the use of the Apocrypha, please see the annotation at 1 Nephi 1:1.
- 5:21
The 1830 edition of 2 Nephi 30:6 read, “shall be a white and delightsome people.” In 1840, this wording was changed to “shall be a pure and a delightsome people.” However, in 1841 the text was reverted back to “white and delightsome.” It was not changed again to “pure and delightsome” until 1981—three years after the 1978 lifting of the priesthood ban.
Although many Latter-day Saints argue that “white” should be understood metaphorically as referring to righteousness or purity rather than race or ethnicity, statements from LDS leaders leave little ambiguity about how these passages were historically interpreted. Here are just a few statements from LDS authorities:
“You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation …When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people” (Journal of Discourses 7:336).
At the October 1960 LDS Church Conference, Spencer Kimball utilized 2 Nephi 30:6 when he stated how the Indians “are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.” He said,
“The [Indian] children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation” (Improvement Era, December 1960, pp. 922-3).
During the same message Kimball referred to a 16-year-old Indian girl who was both LDS and “several shades lighter than her parents…” He went on to say,
“These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.”
Elder Eugene J. Neff, in a 1927 conference message claimed, “The first missionaries went from this section around to another little town on the east side of the island, and there they gathered in a grass hut one hundred people to hear the message of these strange white men, As they all sat around the mat and heard the voice of this missionary from Utah, they were transfigured before George Q. Cannon, and he saw ninety-seven of them become white, and three of them remained dark. He did not understand. He did not know why it was that three of them would remain dark and all the rest should become light. He received a partial answer to this manifestation when it was learned that ninety-seven of those people in meeting at this time joined the Church, became devout members, lived and died Latter-day Saints, while three of them never did. It is said that they will become a white and delightsome people. They are delightsome at present, and I believe they are going to become white. They are growing whiter from year to year. I have said to myself and to some of my intimate friends that I thought the Hawaiian people would become white and delightsome, through intermarriage. I do not know whether that is according to the doctrines of the Church or not, but they have married the oriental races and married white people on the islands to such an extent that today there are more half casts than there are pure Hawaiians” (Conference Report, April 1927, p.49).
The Juvenile Instructor (26:635) reads, “From this it is very clear that the mark which was set upon the descendants of Cain was a skin of blackness, and there can be no doubt that this was the mark that Cain himself received; in fact, it has been noticed in our day that men who have lost the spirit of the Lord, and from whom his blessings have been withdrawn, have turned dark to such an extend as to excite the comments of all who have known them.”
See also 2 Nephi 5:21; 2 Nephi 30:6; 3 Nephi 2:15-16; Jacob 3:8-9; Alma 3:6.
- 5:33
Many of the same phrases that appear in the Book of Mormon are also found in Smith’s writings. Among them is the recurring expression “more particular."
This phrase, "more particular," can also be found in: 1 Nephi 19:2; Alma 13:19; and D&C 10:39-40.
See 2 Nephi 28:22; 1 Nephi 1:1; 2 Nephi 26:15; 2 Nephi 28:16; and 1 Nephi 8:2 as other examples of Smith's common phrases.
- 5:34
It is reasonable to wonder how, within just forty years, the population could have grown large enough to sustain what the text describes as “wars.” After all, this would still have been the first generation of people in the New World. It is also important to note that Lehi’s original group likely consisted of only seventeen to nineteen adults.