King Mosiah Sends Men to Find the Missing People
After King Mosiah had peace for three years, he wanted to know about the people who went to live in the land of Lehi-Nephi. His people had not heard anything from them since they left Zarahemla. So they kept asking him about it. King Mosiah said that sixteen strong men could go to the land of Lehi-Nephi to find out about their brothers. The next day, they started their trip. They took with them a man named Ammon. He was strong and came from Zarahemla. He was also their leader.
They did not know which way to go through the wilderness to get to the land of Lehi-Nephi. So they wandered many days in the wilderness. They wandered for forty days. After they had wandered forty days, they came to a hill north of the land of Shilom. There they set up their tents. Ammon took three of his brothers with him. Their names were Amaleki, Helem, and Hem. They went down into the land of Nephi.
Ammon and His Brothers Are Captured
They met the king of the people who lived in the land of Nephi and in the land of Shilom. The king’s guards surrounded them. They were taken and tied up and put in prison. After they had been in prison two days, they were brought before the king again. Their ropes were taken off. They stood before the king. He told them they had to answer the questions he would ask them.
He said to them: 'I am Limhi, the son of Noah. Noah was the son of Zeniff, who came up from the land of Zarahemla to take this land. This was the land of their fathers. The people made him king.' 'I want to know why you were brave enough to come near the walls of the city when I was there with my guards outside the gate.' 'I have kept you alive so I could ask you questions. If I had not, my guards would have killed you. You may speak now.'
Ammon Speaks to King Limhi
When Ammon saw that he could speak, he went forward and bowed before the king. Then he stood up again and said: 'O king, I am very thankful to God today that I am still alive and can speak. I will try to speak with courage.' 'I know that if you had known me, you would not have let me wear these ropes. I am Ammon. I come from Zarahemla. I came from the land of Zarahemla to ask about our brothers who Zeniff brought up from that land.'
After Limhi heard Ammon’s words, he was very happy. He said: 'I know for sure that my brothers who were in the land of Zarahemla are still alive. I will be happy. Tomorrow, I will make my people happy too.' 'We are slaves to the Lamanites. They make us pay a tax that is hard for us to pay. Our brothers will save us from being slaves or from the hands of the Lamanites. We will be their slaves instead. It is better to be slaves to the Nephites than to pay money to the king of the Lamanites.' King Limhi told his guards not to tie up Ammon or his brothers anymore. He had them go to the hill north of Shilom and bring their brothers into the city. That way they could eat, drink, and rest from their long trip. They had suffered many things. They had been hungry, thirsty, and tired.
King Limhi Speaks to His People
The next day, King Limhi sent a message to all his people. He told them to come together at the temple to hear the words he would speak to them.
When they had come together, he spoke to them like this: 'O my people, lift up your heads and feel better. The time is coming soon when we will not be under our enemies anymore. We have tried many times and failed. But I believe there is still one good fight left for us to try.' 'So lift up your heads and be happy. Put your trust in God. He is the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God who brought the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. He made them walk through the Red Sea on dry ground. He fed them with manna so they would not die in the wilderness. He did many more things for them.' 'That same God brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem. He has kept and saved his people until now. We are slaves because of our sins and bad things we have done.'
How Zeniff Was Tricked by King Laman
'You all know that Zeniff was made king over this people. He wanted too much to get the land of his fathers back. So King Laman tricked him with his sneaky ways. King Laman made a deal with King Zeniff. He gave him the city of Lehi-Nephi, the city of Shilom, and the land around them.' 'He did all this just to make this people become slaves. We now pay money to the king of the Lamanites. We give him half of our corn, barley, and all our grain. We give him half of our sheep, cattle, and half of everything we have. The king of the Lamanites takes all this from us, or he will kill us.'
'Is this not hard for us to do? Are not our troubles great? We have good reason to be sad.' 'Yes, we have great reasons to be sad. Many of our brothers have been killed. Their blood was spilled for nothing. All this happened because of sin.'
The People Killed God’s Prophet
'If this people had not done wrong things, the Lord would not have let this great evil come to them. But they would not listen to his words. They fought among themselves so much that they killed each other.' 'They killed a prophet of the Lord. He was a chosen man of God who told them about their sins and bad things they did. He told them about many things that would happen in the future. He told them that Christ would come.'
'He told them that Christ was God, the Father of all things. He said Christ would take on the body of a man. Man was created to look like God. God would come down to the people and take on flesh and blood. He would walk on the earth.' 'Because he said this, they killed him. They did many more things that made God angry at them. So no one should wonder that they are slaves and that they have big troubles.'
God’s Warnings About Doing Wrong
'The Lord has said: ‘I will not help my people when they do wrong things. I will block their ways so they do not do well. The things they do will make them fall down.’' 'He also said: ‘If my people do bad things, they will get bad things back. It will be like a strong wind. The results will be like poison.’' 'He also said: ‘If my people do bad things, they will get the east wind. It brings quick destruction.’'
'The Lord’s promise has come true. You are hurt and have troubles.' 'But if you will turn to the Lord with your whole heart and trust in him and serve him with all your mind, then he will save you from being slaves. He will do this when and how he wants to.'
Influences
- 7:1 — Acts 20:31 (KJV)Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
- 7:1 — Luke 23:8 (KJV)And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.
- 7:8 — Acts 16:26 (KJV)And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.
- 7:12 — Luke 2:34 (KJV)And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
- 7:12 — Acts 4:31 (KJV)And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
- 7:13 — John 14:7 (KJV)If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
- 7:14 — Acts 12:11 (KJV)And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.
- 7:14 — Acts 25:17 (KJV)Therefore, when they were come hither, without any delay on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat, and commanded the man to be brought forth.
- 7:15 — Luke 11:46 (KJV)And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
- 7:16 — Mark 5:26 (KJV)And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
- 7:18 — Revelation 22:10 (KJV)And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.
- 7:18 — 1 Peter 3:1 (KJV)Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
- 7:24 — Luke 12:5 (KJV)But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
- 7:27 — Colossians 3:10 (KJV)And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
- 7:28 — Ephesians 5:6 (KJV)Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
- 7:30 — Hosea 8:7 (KJV)For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.
Notes
- 7:1-33
LDS author J. N. Washburn writes, "Chapters 7 and 8 bring the first break in the continuity and lead into the most complicated and difficult part of the whole Book of Mormon. Here the story of the Nephites in Zarahemla is suddenly dropped-almost before it is well begun-for no good reason at all that is apparent, that we might follow, though briefly, an expedition up to the land of Nephi. This brings us to another story, but to the end rather than the beginning. To put it another way, the story of Zeniff begins with the end... it is in chapter 8 also that we first learn about the Twenty-four Gold Plates of the Jaredites who are known to us only through the prophet Ether. For Ether the date is probably about 600 B.C., and for the story we must go almost to the end of the Book of Mormon! Mention of the Gold Plates leads into another complication of the Book of Mosiah. Some little time before the appearance of Ammon and his fifteen friends in the land on Nephi, Limhi had sent out forty-three scouts to find Zarahemla... The forty-three scouts became lost in the wilderness. They went far northward, missing Zarahemla, and found the dead civilization of the Jaredites... The forty-three started back again, hoping, doubtless, to find Zarahemla this time. unless, indeed, they supposed they had already found it, in death and ruin. But once more they missed the city, and eventually found themselves again in their native Nephi. This whole circumstance is instructive, representative of much that is found throughout the book of Mormon. In its setting, people are always getting lost. Almost no one can go very far from his home with any assurance of finding his way back. The incident also indicates the discontinuousness of the record. At once now we run into more of this irregular material. Having met Ammon in chapters 7 and 8, we leave him suddenly, but only for a short time, that we might jump backward between seventy-five and eighty years to about 200 B.C., to Limhi's grandfather Zeniff, and to the beginning of the story of which we have already come to the end... To put it another way, from chapters 7-8 we go forward to chapters 9-22 in order to [go] backward from 121 B.C. to 200 B.C. All this is done without explanation or preparation and also without transition. We simply go from one story to another by passing from one paragraph to another...." -J.N. Washburn, The Contents, Structure and Authorship of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954), pp. 35-38.
- 7:27
"Smith's writings contain many similar phrases as the Book of Mormon...'Or, in other words' is another common phrase of Smith's but not in the Bible. This phrase is in the 1830 Book of Mormon Preface, the Bok of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Smith's revision of the Bible and other writings, such as his 1838 Liberty Jail letter published in the Times and Seasons." Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 40.
See Preface 1830 Book of Mormon; 1 Nephi 8:2; 1 Nephi 10:4; Mosiah 7:27; Alma 32:16; 3 Nephi 6:20; D&C 10:17; D&C 61:23; D&C 95:17; Luke 6:29-30 JST; Luke 17:37 JST; Mark 9:3 JST; Joseph Smith's 1838 Liberty Jail Letter, Times and Seasons, vol. 1 no. 6, p. 83.
For additional examples Smith's common phrases, see: 1 Nephi 19:2; 2 Nephi 28:22; 2 Nephi 26:15, and 2 Nephi 28:16.