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1 Nephi 17:22 

22. And we know that the people who were in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people; for they kept the statutes and judgments of the Lord, and all his commandments, according to the law of Moses; wherefore, we know that they are a righteous people; and our father hath judged them, and hath led us away because we would hearken unto his words; yea, and our brother is like unto him. And after this manner of language did my brethren murmur and complain against us.

This can be read two ways, but we suspect Nephi had only one in mind. The first way is to read it with disdain. The evil brothers were misusing the word “righteous” and were giving the people in Jerusalem credit they could not possibly deserve.

The second, and we think the more correct, is that the brothers knew exactly what they were saying, that their argument was not only sound in their thinking, but technically correct; and that it was because of the technical correctness of their argument that Nephi chose to include this incident as part of his story. The English word “righteous” is translated from the Hebrew zedek. In the Old Testament and in the Book of Mormon, “righteousness” usually means priesthood and temple correctness, that is doing the precisely right thing at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, with the right authority, saying the right words, and dressed the right way.

If Nephi’s brothers had accepted Josiah’s religious innovations, and were using the word “righteous” to mean simply following the prescribed pattern in religious ritual, then their argument would seem sound enough. They said, “And we know that the people who were in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people; for they kept the statutes and judgments of the Lord, and all his commandments, according to the law of Moses; wherefore, we know that they are a righteous people.” Nephi’s reply does not challenge his brothers’ argument, only their definition of “righteousness.”

Rather than discussing whether the king, High Priest, and their followers at Jerusalem were doing the temple sacrifices, festivals in a form that seemed to follow the rules of the Law of Moses, Nephi asked about the Canaanites who were in the land before the Israelites came. He asks if they were righteous. To us that is a relevant question, and may imply that the apostate religions of the Canaanites looked from the outside very much like the religion from which they had apostatized. We can know from the discoveries of the ancient libraries of Ras Shamra that some of the Canaanite religious practices were similar to those of the Israelites.{1}

It appears that Nephi acknowledges his brothers’ contention that the people at Jerusalem seem righteous because they have perpetuated some of the works required by the Law of Moses. But by this acknowledgment he does not concede either the validity or correctness of those works or of his brothers’ conclusion that they were truly righteous as he and his father would define the word. Rather, he insists on the correct definition of “righteousness.” Nephi achieves that by recounting the story of Moses’s deliverance from Egypt (1 Nephi 17: 23-40). Nephi’s statement to his brothers may be read as simply a quick review of their ancient history, but it would seem relevant if we understood it to be his reminding them of the Feast of Tabernacles temple drama and of the covenants they made during those ceremonies.
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FOOTNOTE

{1} For a discussion of the libraries of Ugarit and what they teach us about the Canaanite religion, see, “Part 1, The Modern Re-discovery of the Ancient Israelite Feast of Tabernacles Temple Drama in the Old Testament,” in Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord.
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1 Nephi 17:18-21 

18 And thus my brethren did complain against me….
21 Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy.

Nephi was ever the optimist. His optimism is the testimony that he threads though his entire story, assuring us again and again that he understood what he was supposed to do and that he was always disappointed when his brothers tried to change either the method or the outcome. Now their argument (which had, no doubt been an underlying motive for their earlier determination to kill their father) came to full blossom: “we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy.”

That argument would have struck Nephi to the heart. He knew that the “happiness” their property would have brought them would have been turned by the Babylonians into enslavement or death. But he also know that the happiness they were determined to exchange for their temporary satisfaction was only an ephemeral lure for emptiness, sorrow, and eternal aloneness. His knowledge that they sought such fleeting happiness probably hurt his soul as much as their refusal to assist him in building the boat.
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1 Nephi 17:15-16 

15 Wherefore, I, Nephi, did strive to keep the commandments of the Lord, and I did exhort my brethren to faithfulness and diligence.
16 And it came to pass that I did make tools of the ore which I did molten out of the rock.

Nephi did not have to ask the Lord for instructions about how to smelt ore or how to form it into the appropriate tools. It is apparent that he already understood those techniques. What he did not know was where to find the iron ore. The fact that he reports that he simply smelted “the rock” indicates that he did, in fact, simply pick up the iron ore off the ground, just as one would pick up other rocks.

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1 Nephi 17:11 

11 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make a bellows wherewith to blow the fire, of the skins of beasts; and after I had made a bellows, that I might have wherewith to blow the fire, I did smite two stones together that I might make fire.

The Hiltons gave us an interesting insight about the bellows Nephi might have made to smelt the iron ore. They wrote,

The idea for a bellows was certainly not Nephi’s own invention. His contemporary, Jeremiah, mentions bellows in his own writings (Jer. 6:29).

We were excited when we discovered an old skin bellows in a blacksmith’s shop in Oman. It is very probable Nephi used a similar one. It is called keer in Arabic. The bellows was hanging, blackened and neglected, on the wall of the shop. The blacksmith told us that this bellows had been used by his father, his father’s father, and so on back for many generations (an estimated six hundred years). We had never seen a bellows like this before; it did not work in accordion fashion, pressed together like a European bellows, but was worked on the ground by a pump-like motion. The neck of the tanned goatskin was tied around a wooden coupling tube that fit into an iron pipe which would, naturally, have been placed under the fire. This reminded us of a clay pipe, dated 1,000 B.C., that we had seen in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, a device that had also been used to carry air from a bellows to the fire. The four legs of the skin of this bellows of Oman had been folded back and tied off carefully. The entire back end of the goat skin was open, the skin fastened to two parallel sticks so that it looked like a woman’s large knitting bag that can snap shut. The blacksmith showed us how to grasp these two sticks in one hand, holding them open while he pulled the skin up, drawing in air, then closing them as he pushed the skin bag down, forcing the air out the neck pipe. We were impressed that it worked well, and we wondered how such bellows differed, if any, from Nephi’s.{1}
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FOOTNOTE

{1} Lynn M. Hilton and Hope A. Hilton, Discovering Lehi (Springville, Ut., Cedar Fort, Incorporated, 1969), 159.
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1 Nephi 17:8-10 

8 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters.
9 And I said: Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?
10 And it came to pass that the Lord told me whither I should go to find ore, that I might make tools.

During S Kent Brown’s BYU exploration of the area that Lehi called Bountiful, he discovered not just a possible source of iron from which Nephi could have constructed his tools but a remarkable deposit of iron ore that would have enabled Nephi to pick the ore off the surface of the ground and smelt it with great ease. They report:

The unique part of the iron ore discovery that we made was that the iron is actually mixed in with carbonate, which is used naturally as a flux to lower the melting point of iron. The iron ore is highly concentrated and so not only would it have been easy for Nephi to see and collect, it would have been easy for him to make a tool from these raw materials.

The iron ore in only these two areas is right on the surface of the ground. We have veins of iron ore coming up through the metamorphic rock right to the surface of the ground. And so collecting it would have been no problem at all. Nephi could have collected enough iron ore in a matter of a few minutes to make all the tools he would want. And it is right by the coast. You load it into a boat, carry it wherever you want it, and process it.{1}
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FOOTNOTE

{1} S. Kent Brown and Peter Johnson, Journey of Faith, from Jerusalem to the Promised Land (Provo, Utah, The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, BYU, 2006), 64. Statements by Ron Harris and Revell Phillips.
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1 Nephi 17:7 

7. And it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had been in the land of Bountiful for the space of many days, the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord.

There is much one can learn from this seemingly incidental part of Nephi’s story. Its importance is emphasized by similar circumstances being repeated over and over again throughout the scriptures and sacred history. There are many examples of prophets finding seclusion on a mountain in order to speak with God. Not everyone has immediate access to the quietude of a mountain, but that is not the point. The point is this: When the Spirit says “stop what you are doing and go to the mountain” or “go for a walk” or “go to your room” or “sit quietly and listen,” then one should obey.

We take the sacrament weekly as a token of the covenant that we will do our part to have the Spirit always be with us, but we sometimes get too busy to listen when he is there. That is like walking in the mountains with a friend but ceaselessly talking about a football game, or about politics, or about philosophy all the way going and coming—and never really having been on the mountain at all.

We often get on our knees and expect the Lord to answer our questions just then, while we are taking the minute to talk at him. We grunt and groan inside, trying to get as “spiritual” as we can for the experience. Nothing happens and we go away disappointed, or we let our own enthusiasm get in the way of our listening and go away convinced that the Lord shares that enthusiasm and that he approves of whatever it was we tried to convince him to sanction. Then when it doesn’t work out, we respond incredulously, “But I prayed!” Or else we kneel down with our hearts so full of sorrow, or disappointment or fear that those feelings take up all the space in our heart and soul and we go away thinking that we have had “a stupor of thought,” so that must be God’s answer. Shakespeare expressed the problem clearly when he had King Claudius say,

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.{1}

Real prayer is not a routine, night and morning recital of our usual shopping list. It is a quiet conversation, but the time for such quietude is sometimes hard to come by. There is an ancient Jewish tradition according to which Satan and one of his henchmen watched as Adam and Eve left the Garden. Satan tells his subordinate how to frustrate God’s plans— simply fill up human life with so much trivia that people will be too busy to listen to the Spirit. It concludes, “Cast men into great distractions and pains in life, so that their men should be preoccupied with life, and not have time to attend on the Holy Spirit.”{2}

That is why a quiet prayer is so important. Prayer is a togetherness. It is walking in a mountain with a friend. Sometimes stopping to talk. Sometimes just needing to talk and talk and know that you are being listened to. Sometimes filling one’s mind by listening to what he has to say. Sometimes filling one’s whole soul by just knowing that you and he are together.

Our world tends to crowd out such prayer, and the needs of just living can make that forever so. But when the Spirit whispers, “Arise, and get thee into the mountain,” it is time to go and to walk with a Friend.
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FOOTNOTES

{1} Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3.

{2} Roger Aubrey Bullard, The Hypostasis of the Archons (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1970), 29, lines 7-11.
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1 Nephi 17:5-6

5 And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish. And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters.
6 And it came to pass that we did pitch our tents by the seashore; and notwithstanding we had suffered many afflictions and much difficulty, yea, even so much that we cannot write them all, we were exceedingly rejoiced when we came to the seashore; and we called the place Bountiful, because of its much fruit.

Brown and his associates give us this description of the richness of this little spot of fertile land tucked away at the edge of that great desert.

The steep mountain cliffs on either side of the alcove had natural caves etched into them where, the locals informed us, bees stored honey. The abundance of date palms, edible plants, grapes, melons, and fish further testified to why Lehi called this place Bountiful and why local herdsmen have been coming to this place for millennia. Our first view of Wadi Sayq revealed a place that would have been a great joy and blessing to Lehi’s family after their long and wearying journey through the parched and threatening heat of the Arabian desert.{1}
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FOOTNOTE

{1} S. Kent Brown and Peter Johnson, Journey of Faith, from Jerusalem to the Promised Land (Provo, Utah, The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, BYU, 2006), 136-37.
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1 Nephi 17:4  

4 And we did sojourn for the space of many years, yea, even eight years in the wilderness.

If we read this verse only in its immediate context, it might suggest that they remained in the desert between Nahom and Bountiful for a full eight years. However, that reading would not take into account the fact that Nephi had always used the word “wilderness” to describe the area through which they traveled.{1} So we may safely understand him to say that it had taken them eight years to travel from Jerusalem to Bountiful.

Nephi’s story began during the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, that is, in 598 B. C.{2} It is reasonable to assume that they left not long after that. Zedekiah reigned only eleven years, until 587 B.C. when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem. The city apparently had not yet been destroyed when Lehi’s party arrived at Nahom. At least it appears so, for their knowing nothing of the Babylonian invasion probably accounts for why the boys were so intent on returning to their homes and property. However, they may have learned of it soon after the older sons’ rebellion.

Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem began “on the tenth day of the tenth month of Zedekiah’s ninth year.”{3} In Babylon, preparations for that campaign would have taken some time, as would the army’s march toward Jerusalem. It is possible that the reason Lehi and his party left Nahom when they did, with apparently little or no resistence from the brothers who had been dissenters, was because they had learned of Nebuchadnezzar’s attack on Jerusalem

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FOOTNOTES

{1} Nephi begins his story by writing that Lehi “left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness” (1 Nephi 2:4).

{2} Here, I am using the dates given in the LDS Bible dictionary, under “chronology.”

{3} The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 1:569.
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1 Nephi 17:1-3  

1 And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth. And we did travel and wade through much affliction in the wilderness; and our women did bear children in the wilderness.
2 And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like unto the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings.
3 And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness.

Here is another “incidental proof” that Joseph Smith could not be the author of the Book of Mormon. In back country New York, Joseph had no access to this information, but the author was very precise in the details of his description of this geography. After Ishmael’s burial at Nahom the travelers made a sharp turn toward the east— into the desert and away from the Red Sea. Their destination, which Lehi and his people called “Bountiful,” is directly east of Nahom. However to get there, the party had to cross the deep, unforgiving, trackless sand of the Arabian desert.{1}

This desert was an horrendous place, where strangers were not welcome and where, we learn later, Lehi and his party were prohibited by the Lord from even building a fire so the light or the smoke would not be seen and expose their hiding places. Notwithstanding the difficulty of this leg of the journey, it is not the place in his story where Nephi calls attention to their hardships. Indeed, he gives this desert crossing only three verses, and those are a celebration of the goodness of God. He speaks of an unidentified sense of urgency, or else of their confidence in the Lord.

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FOOTNOTE

{1} For descriptions and photos of the Arabian desert through which they passed, see, S. Kent Brown and Peter Johnson, Journey of Faith, from Jerusalem to the Promised Land (Provo, Utah, The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, BYU, 2006), 124-29.
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1 Nephi 16:36-37

36 And thus they did murmur against my father, and also against me; and they were desirous to return again to Jerusalem.
37 And Laman said unto Lemuel and also unto the sons of Ishmael: Behold, let us slay our father, and also our brother Nephi, who has taken it upon him to be our ruler and our teacher, who are his elder brethren.

Laman’s motives may have been more complex than a simple desire to return to Jerusalem. He was the oldest son—his was the legal birthright. As long as his father lived, Laman had to obey him, and could not claim his rightful inheritance. His father listened to Nephi, and between them they had determined to go on this seemingly absurd journey. Ishmael was now dead, so his sons could also inherit if they were to return to the city and their estates. If Lehi and Nephi were dead, then Laman and the others could return and claim the wealth of which they had been deprived. The rationale seemed simple enough, and there were none to challenge either its execution or its intended outcome.

Laman’s argument took into account all the miraculous things they had experienced, but claimed they were performed by “cunning arts,” and therefore were of no real consequence. However, the Lord had promised Lehi and Nephi that they would have the power to fulfill their assignments, just as he made that promise to each of us.{1} Now, as Lehi’s sons and sons-in-law plot his assassination, the Lord himself asserted his power to fulfill his covenants with his prophets and to help them fulfill theirs.
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FOOTNOTE

{1} For a discussion of the “covenant of invulnerability” see Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, first edition, 285-89; second edition, 201-04.
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