the name “mosiah” - edgemontscripturestudy.comedgemontscripturestudy.com/00 bom 1/bom 1cleaned...

Transcript of Edgemont Stake Book of Mormon Classes by John W. Welch, 2007 to 2009

Mosiah 1-2

(Class welcome and announcements)

The last time I taught an honors Book of Mormon Class at B.Y.U. I decided that I was only going to focus on a few things that I really liked the best. I spent a fourth of the semester on King Benjamin’s speech, and I think it was justified. In the process, we ended up cross-referencing it to almost everything in the Book of Mormon.

To me King Benjamin’s speech is what I call the Grand Central Station of the Book of Mormon, at least until the Savior comes, and we then get the Sermon at the Temple in 3rd Nephi chapters 11 to 18 which will then make everything new in a new sense. However, until that happened, King Benjamin’s speech was the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Gettysburg Address and General Conference for all of these people – it was everything rolled into one.

Here is Nephite culture and Nephite religion. These are things that matter most to them, and since it was written down, I think we have the actual text that Benjamin delivered. I think that when it was put into the Book of Mosiah, it was so highly regarded that no one would have dared edit it. When Mormon came around to abridge the book, this would have been one of the jewels that he just would have wanted to leave exactly the way it was. It has so many characteristics of a compact, dense, ritual, ceremonial, inspired text. Everything just beautifully organized and put together. We could literally spend months talking about this.

If you figure that Joseph Smith is going at the pace of about ten pages a day in translating, which is the rate at which he has to work in order to translate the Book of Mormon within the time frame that he has, it means that he has no more than a day and a half to produce this text, which I think is one of the masterpieces of world religious literature anywhere. I hope you, as you look at it, approach it with great respect and with a feeling of awe and appreciation for what we are blessed to have here. This is an amazing text.

Obviously, we are not going to get through the 42 questions tonight. I hope that they stimulate your thought. I thought one way to go through this would be to just ask you whether there are any questions here to which you think you know the answer to and want to raise your hand; if there are any that you would like to talk about; or some that you wonder, “what on earth is Brother Welch thinking on this one?” I would be happy just to let you call out or bring up one of these. Let us just start with any that you would like to talk about. Does anyone want to ̶

The Name “Mosiah”

(Student) Questions 3 and 4?

3 and 4. What if the name Mosiah is related to the word messīah or môšiac We do not know exactly how Mosiah was spelled, but it looks like the root of Mosiah has something to do with Messiah, and the word messiach is a deliverer and so it may be that Mosiah, King Mosiah – he delivers his people from that condition in the City of Nephi that the Lord says you must leave. If you stay here, the conditions that we encountered in the end of the Small Plates of Nephi would certainly have been the undoing of the whole Nephite experience and if the Lord was going to have anyone there to meet him 150 – 200 years from then, he needed to make some changes. So Mosiah becomes a deliverer.

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [1]


What this may mean is that the name Mosiah may have been a coronation name. It may be that his mother did not call him that when he was born, but he takes that name knowing that he will be a deliverer, that that will be one of his functions. That is just a possibility. He may have been named that from birth, they did give names that had what we call theophoric prefixes or suffixes where divine functions were a part of the names that were given. He may have had several names.

Many of the names in the Book of Mormon and in the Bible have significance in their meaning and sometimes, like Israel – the name Israel will be given to Jacob in a covenantal situation, so it is just a possibility, here, that the name Mosiah may be the same. Maybe that is why the book is called the Book of Mosiah; it is the book of their deliverance. If you look for that theme, it seems to come up over and over again. Benjamin delivers them from difficulty. Then, of course, Abinadi is not delivered, but in the process, Alma is converted and his people will be in captivity and they are then delivered. By the end of the Book of Mosiah, the people of Zeniff will be in Zarahemla, the people of Alma will be in Zarahemla. People will all finally be reunited in Zarahemla, so it is kind of their deliverance.

The Name “Benjamin”

Question No. 4, is the same kind of thing about Benjamin. Ben ya min means the Son of the Right Hand, and, of course, Benjamin is the name of one of the tribes of Israel. Benjamin could have been originally named that, but it is a little odd that the people who come from the tribes of Judah, Ephraim, and Manasseh would call someone Benjamin, somebody of a different tribe, unless it is somehow significant. The king named The Son of the Right Hand will talk at the end of this speech about taking upon ourselves a name, and if we do not remember that name, we will be found on the left hand of God. So he stands on the right hand as the king representing the side of God we want to be on.

(Student) The name of Mosiah, though, is passed on through many generations again, so they would not be deliverers too?

No but it becomes then, a name that is used. It can become a tradition.

(Student) Neal Maxwell says Mosiah means Title.

Title? I do not know, but it could have a lot of meanings. Yes, if you will find that quote I would appreciate it.

The Tower and Preparation for the Event

(Student) I was wondering how long it took to build the tower, to make preparations, and to write down the speech? How did they write it? On what? Did they have a sound system?

One thing we have to wonder is what did this tower look like? We know that in Mesoamerica they built towers, but they were stone, they were pyramids. It may be that there was a temple, there is a pyramid in Zarahemla, and that what he is doing is building a special kind of structure on that, on top of it. He is not erecting the whole thing which could take years, at least if OSHA is passing inspection on it, it is going to take a while to build, so we have to wonder, “Is this tower just a special platform, with maybe a canopy or something, that represents the throne of God?” because Benjamin talks about himself, “If you owe any thanks to me, then how ought you Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913)

[2]


thank the Heavenly King.” As the king of Judah in all of the ancient Israelite legal and political literature is clearly seen as the representative of God on earth, so Benjamin echoes that kind of language. If he is on a platform, he is up there in the heavens, on the throne, representing the throne of God and then putting people under covenant – not with him, but with God. It may not have been a long construction project. That is one possibility.

The text kind of leads us to believe that Benjamin calls all these people together. They all come; they pitch their tents. Then they look around and they say, wow! There are a lot of people here. Maybe he did not expect them to come. Accommodating the saints has always been a problem for us. We have never been able to build a tabernacle or a conference center big enough to get everyone who wants to come, and maybe Benjamin was a little surprised. He did everything he could and gee, there were just more than he could handle.

But it then gives the impression that just kind of at the drop of a hat they build the tower, and they have copies of this made. They cannot just go print – you know they cannot roll the press, they do not have printing presses, and this is not a long speech but it is something that would take a little while to copy out, especially if they are copying a couple thousand. That would be a big production, so we have to wonder if the narrative has simply collapsed all of that so they do not want to bore us with all of the preparations. “Let us get right to the heart of this.” It seems to me to make more sense to think that there were more elaborate preparations.

(Student) My only thought on that was, you get all these people together, and then you start thinking about the logistics. They need water, they need restrooms, and they are also away from their jobs that they had on a daily basis – their livelihood, so maybe it was not too long that they were there.

Right, but I think there could have been a long time of preparation before they come. I mean, King Benjamin, I think, has picked a day when he wants to conduct the most important ceremony of his kingship. He will crown his son king, he will give a new revelation to his people, he will put them all under covenant, and he could pick any day he wanted. One of the questions was, how long does Benjamin live after this? He makes it sound like he has one and a half feet in the grave already, and he is old and he is — you know? But then he lives for three years. So although I am sure he has been king, probably, as we said last time, maybe as long as 50 years, and he is ready to retire, or at least share the responsibilities of government, I also think this is not some kind of an emergency session. This is not something that he just calls and says, “We have got to hurry through this.”

New King and The Feast of Tabernacles

Normally, in ancient Israel, the actual installation of the new king would always occur on the Feast of Tabernacles, so they would wait until that day. That is when they would have all of the formalities, even if they began to reign because their predecessor had died, was killed in war or something; even if they had begun to reign in the middle of a year. There are plenty of reasons to think that Benjamin has waited for a particular day and maybe, I think, for the Day of Atonement. I am sorry, that is part of it, we will come to that in a minute, but for the Feast of Tabernacles.

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [3]


Does anyone know why the Feast of Tabernacles seems to be such a likely candidate for the day here? It has to do with those tents. Where are the people all sitting when they listen to him? In their tents, according to their families, and they have all had to pitch their tents or whatever they are, their shelters, their booths, with the opening facing the temple. If Benjamin’s got an audio-visual problem, if he has got a P.A. system problem, one of the ways to solve that would be to simply say, everybody leave your tents down at the KOA and then you can all come and gather and I can talk to you a lot easier. But they do not do that. These people all stay in their tents, which creates a huge problem. Those tents must be important for some reason, otherwise, this does not make any sense. On the feast – does anyone know what happens? Do any of you have Jewish friends who celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles? It is coming up; we have just had Rosh Hashanah -

(Student) Small booths, right?

Yes, or they set up a tent of some kind. In California where I went to high school there were a few Jewish students in my class – my class! – we had 1100 students in my class! It was a big school, so the Mormons and the Jews knew each other, all four of us, but I remember them coming one day in September complaining that their parents had made them sleep out in the tent all night. They explained what was going on and I thought that was kind of interesting, but they do it because it reminds them that their ancestors, their forbearers spent 40 years living in tents in the wilderness, that they wandered and that God protected them and finally delivered them. Again, this concept of deliverance is very closely tied with the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles and that God led them. He was their king, and so this is the king’s day as well, when the leadership of Israel is reestablished. So it may well be that Benjamin has picked this day, the Feast of Tabernacles, as the day when he will do this.

Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles

Tabernacles is mentioned once in the New Testament. Anybody remember where? In Jesus’ ministry he goes to Jerusalem on the Feast of Tabernacles; it is John chapter 7. He goes and gives a speech on the steps of the temple, and the reaction of the people in Jerusalem is what? We have got to kill this man. Why? He is acting like the king. What does the king do on the Feast of Tabernacles? According to the Talmud, he builds a platform to represent the throne of God, he speaks to the people, and he puts them under covenant. He renews the covenant doing what Joshua had done, which people think is also a Feast of Tabernacles renewal (maybe the first one), but it is a renewal of the Covenant of Sinai found in Joshua chapter 24. So we have Jesus who is, after all, the King of the Jews, and the King of Israel, not really coming out and saying it, but doing things that people recognize and say, “Oh, look at what he is saying.” This is a symbolic time. If that is the setting, all of these preparations would have been accommodated, planned for and so on.

The Acoustics

(Student) Say something about the P.A. system. I went to Chichen Itza, where you can hear all around. Another thing it reminds me of is when they talked about Adam Ondi-Ahman, where you can hear all around that valley.

In Missouri, the hillsides there?Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913)

[4]


(Student)Yes, You could hear forever throughout that whole area, you can hear what is being said.

There are natural theaters in which the sound just works perfectly, and the Mesoamerican plazas are all built with this – they know how to build a plaza so that you can stand up on one of those structures and in a very normal voice you can be heard throughout the entire square. So it means it is even a larger crowd, and those tents – I suppose they could hear somewhat but the tents are still interfering.

(Student) Do you think the people would stay in their tents to hear the talk, or be in the shade because it was so hot?

It certainly might have provided a little shade, but these are not Coleman tents. What have they brought? They have brought a few little posts and maybe a little piece of cloth to put over the top. I do not think these are very elaborate tents. These are not Bedouins. These people are farmers, they are domestics. The chances that they have a very good tent are not very high, but they are symbolic. Even today if you are Jewish, there are rabbinic rules that tell you what your booth has to consist of, and it has to have at least four little branches on it, and if it has got that, you are okay. Shade is – it is not functional, although I guess you might make it that way if you wanted.

Keep the Commandments and Prosper

(Student) I notice that four or five times they talk about “keep the commandments, you prosper in the land.” In these two chapters they talk about that, and in one they say “if you do not keep the commandments, you are not going to prosper,” and you do not address that in your …

I am sorry,

(Student) When I read the Book of Mormon, every time I come to “keep the commandments, you will prosper,” so I made a check.

We talked about that back in 2nd Nephi chapter 1, when Lehi gives his blessing to his sons and makes that the condition of owning the land. So yes, you see that theme again –

(Student) Sixty -two times they mention that in the Book of Mormon.

It is very, very prominent. It is not exclusively a phrase that appears in Deuteronomy but it appears far more in Deuteronomy than anywhere else, and Deuteronomy is the book of Moses speaking to Israel as they are just about to go into the Promised land. He tells them, “You must keep the commandments if you want to prosper in the land,” which means, “keep the land.” So all of the covenant renewal, every time Benjamin says to his people, “I put you under covenant to keep the commandments which God has given, which I have given, my son will give,” it has this formula, which is pervasive, always associated with it. I am glad you pointed that out. It is certainly the one thing that the king will promise, “If you keep these commandments, we will have peace and prosperity.”

(Student) Are these booths related to the canopies for marriage?

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [5]


I do not think so. But they would be married under a canopy, and that is I think, more like wearing a shawl and a cap to show you are under the protection of the Lord, and in reverence to him.

Any other questions?

Role and Stewardship of the King

(Student) Could you comment on Number 2 and Number 5?

Number 2. Did all the people belong to the king? In ancient Israel and in the – let us start with the ancient world. If you were a king in Babylonia, in Assyria, other places, the king viewed himself as owning all of the people. Everyone belonged to the king, so only the king had power, for example, to put someone to death, because if he wanted to spare his subject, he could. A lot of other things happened that way. There are many things that the king had extraordinary power over in the ancient world. They were very, very powerful.

What we have going on here in King Benjamin's speech ̶ talking about the people belonging to the king in verse 1 ̶ what will happen, of course, is that Benjamin will acknowledge that he really owns nothing. He is simply a trustee owning it for God. Because under biblical politics, what happens is, everything that kings normally did in the ancient world, Jehovah will do for his people. Instead of belonging to a mortal king, Israel sees themselves belonging to their heavenly king. Instead of being led into battle by their mortal kings as the Hittites were, the Israelites saw Jehovah as the Lord of Hosts. That means the Lord of the armies. He marches at the head of the army, and if they are not righteous, if the camp is not perfectly pure, then God's presence cannot be there. That is why we have, in Deuteronomy chapter 20, all the rules about the procedures followed by soldiers in the conduct of war so that God can march at the head of their army.

This is also why people in Israel saw themselves as, in a way, slaves or servants of God, but, of course in a more important sense, as sons and daughters of God, they would belong to him in a very close family setting. Benjamin, will, through the covenant they make, pronounce them now sons and daughters of Christ. I think that is what is happening here, to some extent, and I think that is new for Benjamin. One of my questions, maybe it is next week, talks about the democratization of Israelite religion by King Benjamin. Before Benjamin, at the very beginning, people would have thought of themselves belonging to the king in a master-servant kind of relationship.

By the way, this is one of the reasons that it says that Jews and ancient Israelites, and Nephites could not have slaves one of another. The reason that slavery was prohibited was because we all belong to God, and if we all belong to God, how can we belong to someone else? And, therefore, slavery was not allowed.

Before Benjamin, this idea of master-servant ̶ and Jesus will use this on the Sermon on the Mount, remember, when he says you cannot serve two masters ̶ in other words serve there does not just mean work for. It means you cannot be a slave to two masters. You cannot be owned by two people. Jesus sees us, and Paul certainly talks about himself as being a servant of Jesus Christ, consecrated and completely belonging to the master. What happens here with Benjamin is, first of all, he will take his ownership rights as king and relinquish them and say, “We all belong to God. I do not deserve any more than you, I am just a mortal. I am like you.” This is an Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913)

[6]


extraordinary thing for a king with that kind of power to say. The other kind of thing that shows up over and over again ̶ we will have time to mention a few of them ̶ is that when he calls this meeting, one of the things he says is that he will give them a name that will distinguish them above all people. We will talk more about what that new name is, but go down to question 12. Usually the new ruler would receive the coronation name, and what Benjamin is doing here, is giving all of his people a new name as a part of this coronation ceremony.

Usually, under Psalm 2, it was only the king who became the son of God or an adopted son of God, but here Benjamin will make all of the people sons and daughters of God. That sort of thing happens over and over again, if you are aware of where kingship began, and where they are finished with it at the end. Benjamin is incredibly generous and open with giving his people all of these rights and privileges, and, of course, I think he understands that we all do become kings and queens through the covenants that we make. This is not just a privilege that is going to belong to the royalty in Israel but to all people. So that is what I had in mind with the ownership.

Teaching Children in the Language of their Fathers

You wanted No. 5 as well? How important is it that we teach our children all the language of their fathers? You know Benjamin, here, he is the king. It says that he personally mentors, tutors his sons so that they will be able to read the scriptures in the Hebrew, the Egyptian, read the characters on the brass plates. I do not know, did that strike a bell with any of you? Benjamin thought it was awfully important. Is it important to us? Should we be doing more with instructing our children?

(Student) It reminds me of the scripture it says in the last days that good will be called evil and evil will be called good. If there is something good, they say “Oh that’s bad!” and they do not understand the true meaning of the words, and it is very evident if you are ever in court. In the courtroom scene the language, what the court interprets is different than what we do. What we interpret in our everyday language, it is different because we change the language down through the years.

Yes, language! We run into difficulties , lots of them if we do not communicate, especially generation to generation. Words will change their meaning, but we need to be conscious of that. Some people say we ought to take the King James Bible and just re-write it in modern vernacular. The Church is not about to do that for a lot of good reasons, but one of the things that we have to do, we cannot just say our kids will somehow pick this up. You have to teach them what these words mean, and there are a lot of strange words in the King James Bible that are not used by the teen-agers for better or worse. When we have a language that is peculiar to scripture, I think that those meanings are prevented from becoming secularized, that they are as a sacred text, as a sacred language, and I think it is a good thing that even if it is archaic, we keep the language of the traditional because it is different in a lot of ways. The Muslims do this, of course, to an extreme, where yes, the Koran is translated into other languages but really the only language to read the Koran in is Arabic. Part of the problem is you cannot really translate from one language to another completely. Something will always be lost in the translation, as hard as we try as translators. So just a few thoughts on language, so have your kids learn languages, for a lot of good reasons.

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [7]


Let us keep moving along. Question.

Stewardship and Warning

(Student) I would like to go back for a minute to the question of ownership. I believe that King Benjamin understood that he had a stewardship as ownership, and in verse 28 in chapter 2 he talks about “ridding my garments of your blood,” part of the purpose of the speech…

Is to give accountability…

(Student) Right, and it reminds me of the admonition in Ezekiel where the watchman is to raise his voice and if his voice is heeded then he saved his soul and the soul of those who listen and if they do not then he has done his part.

There is a great lesson here for all of us with stewardship responsibility, which is everyone. We talked about that earlier - if you were here - back in Jacob chapters 1 and 2, when in Jacob 2 he stands at the temple and delivers that speech where he, of course, calls the people to repentance for violating the laws of chastity and for seeking riches before the Kingdom of Heaven, and he is there shaking his garments. He says, “I shake them in front of you.” I suppose he even physically did that. So this is something that is clearly a part of the Nephite experience as well as what you have there in Ezekiel.

The Meaning of the Word “list”

(Student) Question 40; what does list mean?

Question 40. Yes, what does list mean? It does not mean make a list.

(Student) I was thinking about how we use it for a ship listing. Instead of warning us about obeying the evil spirit, he warns us about listing to obey it

Yes, what does that mean?

(Student) I thought of President Hinckley's talk about one little thing that can cause you to lean, and that you really need to be careful about those small decisions.

That is right. If you are just leaning, it means to lean in that direction. The scriptures talk about being upright, to walk uprightly. It means to be straight, to be - not kind of wobbly, and if you are listing to obey, you are off balance and you can be easily knocked over. There is a word! We do not use that anymore, but there is a word you could teach your children.

(Student) Boats and ships use that a lot, if it is listing it is not up straight.

Especially if they are taking on water, they have not been loaded properly, or the cargo shifts, then they list and the next thing is, they sink.

Ceremonial Meanings in the Coronation

So, number 38, do you have an answer for this one? No? A part of ancient coronations was to begin by taking this person who is going to become the new king, and he must be humiliated, and he is reduced in the coronation ceremony to the dust. He is brought down to the very depth of existence so that he is nobody. Then, in the coronation, he is brought up and exalted and elevated to his new station, so that everything he has as king he owes to God or to this process of

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [8]


becoming king. It is interesting that Benjamin begins by talking about all the people. You are just of the dust. He says, “I am of the dust too.” This is not Benjamin's coronation, but he is remembering that as a symbol of the king dying and being born again or being created as a new being, because in the ancient mind, a king is a different kind of person than ordinary human beings. There is kind of a death and resurrection part of coronation ceremonies, and Benjamin talks a lot about death and resurrection, but again, he is promising it not just the king.

In Egypt they buried all these pharaohs, and they wrapped them all up and mummified them, and so it was only the pharaohs who expected to really be able to go off into the west and meet Osiris. Ordinary people did not have that kind of expectation. Benjamin is saying, “We are all that way and we will all, through Jesus Christ, through his atonement (which comes mostly in chapter 3) all of these promises will be given to you.” But he begins with this abasement of the king and the people as well.

Ye Are Only in the Service of Your God

(Student) You were going to talk to us about 33.

Thirty-three, oh yes, I am glad you asked about that one. This is a scripture that we like to quote, right? “I tell you these things that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.” How do we normally view that word only? What force does it have semantically in a sentence? Would the sentence be any different to us if we took it out? I mean, just read it that way. I tell you these things - “Behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are in the service of your God.” Isn't that what we usually think? So why is the word only there?

(Student) Isn’t that like exclusively?

Very good. What can only mean? It can mean exclusively. So in other words, when you are serving your fellow beings, you may think you are serving your fellow beings, when in reality, you are not. You are serving God. Why? All of these fellow beings belong to God so if you are doing any good for them, you are really benefitting him, your heavenly king. Why does… you have a point?

(Student) You say merely.

Yes, merely is sometimes used. Exclusively means that you are serving only God because of maybe this ownership concept, but merely, I like that too, has another dimension to it. Benjamin will often say, “Therefore, of what have ye to boast?” Why is he saying that? Why does he want to be sure we know that we cannot boast?

The logic here goes something like this: If you serve other people, and by that you think this is a great thing, and you are a wonderful person, you have something coming because you have to realize that when you are serving your fellow beings, you only or merely serving God, and service to God renders you what? Even if you serve or thank God? He [King Benjamin] is including deeds of service and also the thank offerings in the temple. No matter how much you thank or serve him, “Yet will ye be unprofitable servants,” and why? Because he blesses you immediately. Your fellow beings may not bless you, they may not be in a position to do that or

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [9]


may not care, but God will, and if he blesses you immediately, then you are only further in his debt, because now you have to pay him back for the goods that he has given you.

So the word merely - or only here is a part of Benjamin's logic, and it begins back in verse 16, the verse before, “Behold I say unto you, because I have spent my days in your service I do not want to boast, for I have only been in the service of God.” Then this democratizing principle says, “Oh, by the way, folks, if you want to have the same blessings of all of these things that I am extending to you, the same principle applies to you. So even if you render service, you are serving God with the logical consequences that follow.” We will hold until next time, the question, then why on earth, should anybody serve? I mean Benjamin just made it look pretty hopeless, right? But I will leave it to you because in chapters 4 and 5 Benjamin will answer this question. But there are some steps you have to go through before you are ready to get to the answer that he will give. Does that make sense? Any others?

I did not come here to trifle with words

(Student) I just love this statement that he makes when he says, “I did not come here to trifle with words.”

Yes. He does not trifle. This is serious business. I think I ask you here once, don't I, in 5th verse, question 18, “Did Benjamin read his words, his text? Were his words written before or after he delivered it?” You can read Mosiah 2 verses 3 and 4 a couple of ways, but I believe that it makes the most sense that he had this all written out in advance, that he is delivering this text as a very specific protocol, and that the people in their tents have a copy that they are following along. Otherwise, I do not see how everyone could fall down at the right time and give the right response.

Coronation and Menorah Text

If you think of this as a general conference talk, you miss most of what is happening here because this is so many other things. There is a coronation going on here. The text breaks into segments. It stops for a while. They even will go home, or they break at the end of chapter 2 and he comes back and calls their attention again. They have had a bathroom break, you know, or something, so there is ceremony going on as we go through this. The text actually breaks into seven sections very naturally and literarily. For what it is worth, some very significant Jewish temple and coronation texts break into seven parts, and they are called menorah texts because the menorah has seven lights on it and in my wild imagination, I like to think of a menorah there in this temple. After all, the temple is still following the order of the Temple of Solomon; there must have been a menorah there. They could have brought it out, or something like it, and maybe at each one of the junctures in this speech, they light one of the seven lights and - I do not know, [My wife] Jeannie always says, “I sure hope you die first.” I say, “Why?” Because - no, no, I got that wrong. She says, “I want to die first.” I say, “Why?” “Because,” she says, “I want to be there when you meet Benjamin and ask him all these questions. Did you get it right? ” Maybe that is one of the questions we can ask, but -

(Student) Doesn't a real menorah have only six - but I thought just the menorah in the -

I will look. I thought they had candle stand with the …. (sound effects demonstrating six branches and a center).Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913)

[10]


(Student) When you bring them out, but I always thought that there were six and they did not want to, the one that is in the Holy of Holies…

Oh does not come out -

(Student) …that does not come out is six, and in order to keep that sacred they have added one to go and light the six.

I see. That could be a tradition. I would have to check, but I believe that they know of the seven lights. Maybe the seventh one, maybe the menorah, has only got six and the seventh one is that they relight the light in the Holy of Holies. That would work just as well.(N.B., For information on the temple menorah, see Exodus 25:31-40; The menorah in the temple had a center candle holder with six other branches. The Hanukah menorah has eight candles with an additional lead candle to light the others).

Transition from Mosaic Covenants to the Sacrament

(Student) This may be a question more appropriate for next week, but I will be gone so I really want to ask. There seems to be, when they make this covenant, almost like a baptismal covenant. But they do not get baptized. It almost seems partway between the Jewish law and the new law.

Wonderful. For one thing, what we have in the Bible is the Old Testament and then several hundred years of hiatus, and then the New Testament, and you do not see a community in transition. There was not a righteous community going through that transition like we have in the Book of Mormon. What we have in the Book of Mormon is a remarkable record of a group of righteous people who are getting progressively more and more prepared for the coming of the new law and seeing the Savior, and Benjamin is a big part of that in which he is half way. He is still doing the covenant renewal. He has still got all of the kingship, he has still got the law of Moses which they are living.

He makes it clear in chapter 3 that the law is taught to them in types and shadows so that they understand what to look forward to, but at the same time, it is not so much the baptismal covenant. We will get that in Mosiah 18, but what I see here, and there is a question about this for next week, is the sacrament, the sacrament prayers. The covenant that they make will be to keep the commandments that the new king will give, to remember the name by which they will be called and to take upon themselves the new name, and that is what we do in our sacrament prayers even today.

Of course we do that because that is the way Jesus will administer the sacrament in 3rd Nephi 18 as his covenant renewal, or covenant initiation with the new order, but Benjamin stands in preparation for that.

So Mosiah 5, 3rd Nephi 18, and then Moroni 4 to 5 if you want a very interesting exercise to compare, you can see the progression.

(Student) Please repeat.

Mosiah 5, and then with Christ it is 3rd Nephi 18, first part of that chapter, and then Moroni chapters 4 and 5, and we will get to these chapters in due course as we get there, but it is worth just asking, where do we get our sacrament prayers from? Most people say, “From the 20th

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [11]


Section of the Doctrine and Covenants,” but the 1831 earliest version that we have of the 20th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants – this is before it was printed in the Doctrine and Covenants — was known as the Articles and Covenants of the Church and the missionaries would go out with it, saying, “This is how our church operates.” This was their first Handbook of Instructions. When it got to the place in verses 77 and 79 where it says, “This is how you administer the sacrament,” it simply says, “And ye shall administer the sacrament as found in the Book of Mormon.” So we know that they used Moroni 4 and 5. That is where the sacrament prayers originally were. They were just incorporated by reference. Then, of course, it was spelled out, so that people would not have to wonder, “Which part of the Book of Mormon are they talking about?” But it is very clear what it is.

(Student) Do you feel that if the people in the old world had been more righteous, they would have seen this progression in covenants?

I think so, and I think there were some who were trying. I think people down at the Dead Sea community were certainly trying very hard to be righteous and to be prepared, and they are talking about restoration. There are a lot of things that go on there that I think even John the Baptist may have had contact with, and John the Baptist was a great one to prepare the way. It is not like this has been going on for a couple hundred years. John the Baptist is only 6 months older than Jesus, so it is not like there has been even a few years of that kind of preparation, much less then.

Interspersed with Ceremonies

(Student) Will you address No. 21?

Twenty-one. The speech is interspersed with these ceremonies. I have already mentioned that. Let me just show you. In chapter 2 verse 29 you have a clear break, “And now I would call your attention.” That is where he actually announces that, “I can no longer be your king. My son will now be the king,” and that has to be accompanied with a lot of regalia, maybe they have the shofar. They are blowing horns; they are doing something. There is a break or a segue into what will then be the next section.

Mosaic Sacrifices and Traditions

(Student) You mentioned in one of your earlier lectures how they were doing a lot of sacrifices of animals and so on…

The sacrifices occur earlier. This is question 15. You know what is special about the offering of the firstlings of their flocks. You know that the people come to this, and they bring their firstlings. There must have been a lot of animals sacrificed and, I suppose, we do not know how long they camped out and were there, but for the most part the animals would have been sacrificed and then that would have been the meal. Like in the Passover, they would take it home and eat it, but for the Feast of Tabernacles, you have the meat sacrificed; the priests get a part of it, usually the fat and some, but then the people enjoy this meal together. That is a part of the law of sacrifice.

(Student) They did that back then in Book of Mormon times? It does not talk very much about it.

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [12]


It does not talk a lot about it. I think we assume that when they say, “We kept the Law of Moses and we kept the statutes and the ordinances and the judgments and the commandments,” and we have that over and over again, that has to be referring to many things, including the law of sacrifice. When the voice appears and sounds from heaven out of the darkness in 3rd Nephi 8 saying, “I will have no more sacrifice by the shedding of blood,” that is when it ends, and it must have been continuing up until then.

Seven Sections of The Menorah Text

(Student) Question 21 Are those the seven sections of the menorah?

Yes. Those are the breaks, and each section is structured as a unique and well-organized literary unit. We will talk a little bit more about that next time.

(Student) In 5:1 and 5:2, is that a better break there? 5:1 is one of them and 5:2 another?

Oh we have a clear beginning at 5:1 but then I pointed out 5:2 because there you have the people answering.

(Student) So there are two of them?

No, I do not count that as—It is one place. If you want to see all the text all laid out, there are a couple of books on King Benjamin's speech where this is done, but there are two sections in chapter 2 with the coronation in the middle. There are 2 sections in chapter 3, there are 2 sections in chapter 4 and then chapter 5 is the seventh section. A couple more and then we are about out of time.

Does King Benjamin Have a Medical Condition

(Student) No. 9 Would you talk about his whole body trembling. Could this be Parkinsons?

I have wondered about that. What kind of illness -

(Student) That is why he wrote it earlier, because it took him forever to…

Maybe, but I doubt that a king would do the writing. He would have scribes.

(Student) Why would they put that in?

It just struck me that we may have some medical condition here, that he is old, and I do not think he is up there trembling because he is afraid of his people. Maybe he is just very weak, but it may also be that he has some kind of Parkinson’s disease or something that is not life threatening, but makes it hard for him to carry on as king.

Succession of Leadership

In question 11, in passing power before he died, was Benjamin a good estate planner - a good ruler? This again, I think, says something very important about the character of this man Benjamin. There are very few monarchs in the history of the world who are willing to step aside and have a smooth transition where their son or their successor will be appointed. What almost always happens is the king dies in power, and then he just lets the other people fight it out to you know, to kill each other, and civil wars happen.

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [13]


Succession in leadership in the Nephite world will be the most difficult political problem. We will see it over and over again. Every time you have — when Mosiah steps down as king, Alma the younger will become king; shortly after that you have a civil war where certain people want the king back in. When Alma leaves, he goes off and for some reason, he vanishes, never heard of again, and poor Helaman has to take over and there is a war immediately after. This is a time of weakness when people can step in and take over.

Benjamin has tried to bring unity and peace. He has fought to establish a unified people and he probably has a fairly precarious political situation to deal with, but he brings his son in, he puts people under covenant to keep his commandments. He makes for a smooth transition and it works. I do not know why it is not done more often. I mean I guess for some reasons, like in the case of Alma, when he leaves, maybe Alma was planning to do something like that but of course he was not the chief judge at that point anyway. We do not know the whys and wherefores of this kind of thing in all cases, but Benjamin at least I think was not only very shrewd, but very humble and wise in having his son take over while he could still be there to assure that he would be accepted and to assist with the transition. I imagine it was a good time. Father and son three years. There are only a couple of occasions in history where you have co-regencies like this, and they are in the Old Testament. This was a part of the Israelite tradition, and Benjamin I think spent a lot of time reading. He knew those records, and maybe that is where he got the idea from and followed the scriptures as a part of that.

Apply the Teachings

With all these details in mind, I hope that this understanding will help you as you read chapters 3, 4 and 5 to find things that you would like to put into practice in your life. I mean I do not tell you these background details to trifle with words. I hope that it will make the text more meaningful and richer to you so that you can appreciate the great example, the powerful lessons, the meaningful things that are happening, and that that will then translate into things that you can apply.

As we have been reading the Book of Mormon, our objective has always been to read a page a day and to find one thing on each page that you can apply in your life. With King Benjamin the challenge is to find one thing you can apply in your life in every verse. Because it is there and by looking at these details I hope that that will just accentuate that for you.

I think we have covered a lot of really good points, not all of them here, but many of them I think will make sense in the context of some of the general principles that we have talked about, so maybe we will do the same next week. Will this work okay if we do the same thing next week? You have the list of questions. How about if I call on some of you for answers to the questions?

(Student) I cannot make it next week.

No, give it your best shot. See if you can ponder and figure out some of these things. I think you will find that once the political part of this is taken care of in Mosiah 2, that what happens in chapters 3 and 4 and 5 are - this is where it really becomes deeply religious and covenantal and all wraps the atonement and pulls so many things altogether. I think you will love it.

One last little hint for you is that on the Jewish calendar, the day of Atonement was the - this is Yom Kippur, that is the first day of the week of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles is the end Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913)

[14]


of that week, so for them, the day of atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles are really all a part of one week’s celebration. It is kind of like for us New Year’s and Christmas.You know it is a whole season that is celebrated at one time. So we go from Tabernacles at the beginning and what is chapter 3 all about? Atonement. We will see how that all fits together. So watch for that as you are reading.

Thank you for being here tonight. Sister Parkinson, could you say the closing prayer.Transcribed by Carol H. JonesEdited by Rita L. Spencer

Mosiah 1-2, 20 Sept 2007 (file 070913) [15]

the name “mosiah” - edgemontscripturestudy.comedgemontscripturestudy.com/00 bom 1/bom 1cleaned...

Documents