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1 Nephi 18:8-10  

8 And it came to pass after we had all gone down into the ship, and had taken with us our provisions and things which had been commanded us, we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land.
9 And after we had been driven forth before the wind for the space of many days, behold, my brethren and the sons of Ishmael and also their wives began to make themselves merry, insomuch that they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness, yea, even that they did forget by what power they had been brought thither; yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness.
10 And I, Nephi, began to fear exceedingly lest the Lord should be angry with us, and smite us because of our iniquity, that we should be swallowed up in the depths of the sea; wherefore, I, Nephi, began to speak to them with much soberness; but behold they were angry with me, saying: We will not that our younger brother shall be a ruler over us.

Singing and dancing were part of ancient ceremonial rejoicing rituals. While such activities may not have been a problem at first, they soon got out of hand. Nephi seems to be saying that it got progressively worse, as he reports, “and to speak with much rudeness…yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness.” Ricks quotes Sjodahl to suggest that at least some of the dancing may have been legitimate. He wrote,

There is a French translation by Brasseur de Bourbourg of a Mexican tradition that runs as follows: “Here is the beginning of the accounts of the arrival of the Mexicans from the place named Aztlan. It was through the midst of the water that they made their way to this locality, being four tribes. And in coming they were rowing in their ships.” Bourbourg, who records this tradition in his Ancient Monuments of Mexico, explains that the word in the original language that he translated “rowing” actually is the native word for “dancing.” But because he could make no sense out of “dancing” in reference to ships he had translated it “rowing.”{1}

However the dancing aboard ship may have begun, its eventual rudeness convinced Nephi that it had to be stopped, and he stepped in with his usual determination to stop it.

Ricks suggests that their anger was more than frustration over their younger brother’s trying to ruin their party. But it was a deepseated, pent up resentment and a reminder that the angel had once told them, “Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you, and this because of your iniquities?” (1 Nephi 3:29) Ricks wrote,

Nephi had meant no offense, but the more clearly Laman and Lemuel realized that they were really headed for a new land the more they resented any reminder of the prophecy that their younger brother would one day rule over them (See also 2:22; 3:29; 16:37.)”{2}

The brothers did not simply toss him into the water, but rather they tied him up and exercised complete dominance over him. Probably they taunted him as they made him watch the frolics of their rudeness.

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FOOTNOTES

{1} Eldin Ricks, Book of Mormon Commentary, Volume 1, Comprising the Complete Text of The First Book of Nephi with Explanatory Notes (Salt Lake City, Deseret News Press, 1953), 218-19. His quote is from,
Janne M. Sjodahl, “Commentary on the First Book of Nephi” (unpublished manuscript), 430.
Italics in original.

{2} Eldin Ricks, Book of Mormon Commentary, Volume 1, Comprising the Complete Text of The First Book of Nephi with Explanatory Notes (Salt Lake City, Deseret News Press, 1953), 219.
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1 Nephi 18:7 

7 And now, my father had begat two sons in the wilderness; the elder was called Jacob and the younger Joseph.

This casual statement, seemingly inserted just to mention that there were younger brothers who also came on board the ship, also teaches us that Lehi and his family had succeeded in living relatively normal lives, even while away from home.
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1 Nephi 18:4-6 

4 And it came to pass that after I had finished the ship, according to the word of the Lord, my brethren beheld that it was good, and that the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine; wherefore, they did humble themselves again before the Lord.
5 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came unto my father, that we should arise and go down into the ship.
6 And it came to pass that on the morrow, after we had prepared all things, much fruits and meat from the wilderness, and honey in abundance, and provisions according to that which the Lord had commanded us, we did go down into the ship, with all our loading and our seeds, and whatsoever thing we had brought with us, every one according to his age; wherefore, we did all go down into the ship, with our wives and our children.

It is significant that Nephi, under whose direction the ship had been built, did not go aboard first and then welcome everyone else as they came on. Neither did each person just casually get on the ship when it was ready. Rather, as Eldin Ricks has pointed out, their going aboard the ship was a formal, even ceremonial event that not only gave honor to their parents but also acknowledged the older, wayward sons as having birthright superiority to Nephi and Sam. Ricks wrote:

It was a sacred moment and a breathlessly exciting one. After years of overland travel they were now actually going to brave the timeless challenge of the seas. It was their final great test of faith, and they were ready for the test. For reasons not apparent to one reared in a western tradition, they seem to have sought expression for the dignity and solemnity of the occasion by forming a ceremonial procession and filing aboard their ship according to the ancient patriarchal order. Nephi’s allusion to the detail marks the outcropping of a Hebrew custom at a point in the narrative where we least expected it.{1}
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FOOTNOTE

{1} Eldin Ricks, Book of Mormon Commentary, Volume 1, Comprising the Complete Text of The First Book of Nephi with Explanatory Notes (Salt Lake City, Deseret News Press, 1953), 217.
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1 Nephi 18:3 

3 And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things.

Nephi’s purpose is not to tell us all he knows, and as a corollary, his purpose in writing is not to produce an autobiography. He knows much more than he has any intention of telling us. When we read this verse, we cannot help but reflect upon how little we know of this great prophet and of his personal relationship with the God he loved so much. But even in not telling, he fulfills the purpose for which he said he was writing. Just as he related enough about his troubles and blessings that we can better understand our own, he described to us some of his earliest experiences with revelation. He explained his vision of the tree of life and the future history of his people. But after that, he stopped giving us many details about his visions and conversations with the Lord.

In a very real way, he told us all we need to know. As he led us to this mountain, he gave sufficient evidence that he is a true prophet. He bore testimony of the eternal divinity of the Savior. He demonstrated that the Lord keeps his promises to his children—and he told us how we must proceed from there. “Mountain” is code for sacred space. It is the place where one goes to meet God, and was symbolized by the ancient temple. His words, while autobiographical in their form, are invitational in their intent:

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1 Nephi 18:1-2 

1 And it came to pass that they did worship the Lord, and did go forth with me; and we did work timbers of curious workmanship. And the Lord did show me from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship.
2 Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men.

In the premortal world when we made covenants to come to the earth to do the Father’s will, he made a reciprocating covenant that he would remove any hindrance that would actually prevent us from fulfilling that covenant. He did not promise that it will not at times seem impossible for us to do, only that it will never actually be impossible. The whole of First Nephi has given us multiple examples that God keeps his covenants. Nephi’s account has led us through impossible challenges: times of hunger, pain, and inexplicable fatigue. Now we are about to go with him on a ship where the entire outcome of the voyage depends on God’s doing what he promised he would do—not just leading the ship to the Promised Land but also sustaining Nephi and making sure it is he who is in command.

Nephi did not build his ship according to the methods he might have learned during his travels along the shore of the Red Sea. Several have wondered what those innovations might have been. Brown and members of his group have suggested that,{1}

The plank ships at this time were built in what is known as the “clinker method:’ which is to suggest that the hull is constructed before the skeleton is. The planks were put together in overlapping form and nailed together or, frequently, they were put together with mortise and tenon, one on top of the other.

What finally took Columbus’s ships across the Atlantic was a deep tall hull that had to be built skeleton first. This was not done regularly at the time of Nephi.

Building the skeleton first would have meant that Nephi’s ship could have been taller and also deeper into the water. It could also have been multidecked, thus giving far more room below decks to house people and also to store food. This also means that the vessel did not need to be as long as it would if it had been narrow and hull construction only—clinker construction.

Is this what Nephi means when he says that he did not build it after the manner of men? The manner of men was building the hull first and then adding the skeleton. That Nephi turned it around and built the skeleton first and then added the hull would be the same innovation that would ultimately take the ships across the Atlantic in the age of the sail.

This might mean that Nephi made the ship round, which you can do using the skeleton construction first. That roundness might have meant that he could have shortened the ship considerably. And noting that he only had one large sail, as was conventional at the time, he would have needed to make a shorter vessel because a long ship can simply not be propelled by a single long sail. If this ship was built round and wide, it need not have been longer than 35 or 40 feet. We know that later on the Viking vessels are estimated to have had one foot per warrior designated on that vessel. That meant that for 40 people, you would need a vessel that was 20 feet long. That’s a pretty cramped style. And perhaps Nephi and his family would not have wanted to be this cramped. On the other hand, space is a modern luxury. We know that premodern peoples did not have the concerns about space that we do. And so we cannot imagine that they would have needed a very large vessel to take this utilitarian mission of traveling from one place to the next. ….{2}

There were several different ancient techniques for holding a ship together. Plank vessels were often sewn with ropes. The entire vessel itself would be waterproofed. That’s always the most difficult thing, but we have good evidence that in the Arabian Peninsula shipbuilders used a bitumen substance to create the water sealing that needed to cover all of the hull. And it was very effective. Bitumen could be found locally and in abundance in that region. It was mixed together with sap and other substances to create the glue. This would make the vessel quite seaworthy.{3}

The Hiltons suggested a different method. They wrote,

The earliest ships of record were put together by the sewing method. For example, the sun boat of Pharaoh Cheops, who built one of the great pyramids in Egypt, was a sewed boat. It recently has been discovered and reassembled at Giza just outside Cairo (see Figure 12-2). If sewed ships were “after the manner of men,” it is possible and we advance the theory that Nephi perhaps discovered how to build a nailed ship by direct revelation. We know he had ore and a smelter and tools, so why not hammer out some nails to fasten the planks to the ribs and make his craft truly sea-worthy.

While nails had been known and used at least 400 years before Nephi’s day, there is no indication they were used in ship-building. King David, about 1000 B.C., prepared among other supplies iron “nails” in abundance for Solomon to use in building the First Jerusalem Temple; specifically they were to be used “for the doors of the gates and for the joinings” of the temple (1 Ch. 22:3). But we do not know who got the inspiration to use them in a ship-building application. Perhaps Nephi?

Tim Serevin, who recently built a sewed-ocean-going dhow under Omani sponsorship, reports that the stitched vessel took three times as long to build as would have been required had he built a nailed ship. He had to go to the Laccadive Islands of India to find the only men left in the world who knew how to sew a boat. He also notes that the earliest texts make it abundantly clear that early ships were sewed.{4}
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FOOTNOTES

{1} For their discussion of ways Nephi might have built his ship 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), 77-95

{2} Kelly DeVries in S. Kent Brown and Peter Johnson, Journey of Faith, from Jerusalem to the Promised Land, 80-82.

{3} Kelly DeVries in S. Kent Brown and Peter Johnson, Journey of Faith, from Jerusalem to the Promised Land, 84.

{4} Lynn M. Hilton and Hope A. Hilton, Discovering Lehi (Springville, Ut., Cedar Fort, Incorporated, 1969), 114.
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1 Nephi 17:53

53 And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me: Stretch forth thine hand again unto thy brethren, and they shall not wither before thee, but I will shock them, saith the Lord, and this will I do, that they may know that I am the Lord their God.

It is often too easy for us to let the picturesque excitement of Nephi’s stories obscure the intent of his telling them. This is an excellent example. It would make a wonderful movie scene, and the movie would probably obscure its message even more. Nephi has been telling us all along that his purpose was to show that God has the power to clear the way so that his servants can accomplish their covenantal responsibilities. That principle is a major premise on which the entire book of First Nephi has been built. While Nephi demonstrates it perfectly, he does not stop to explain why it is so. To learn that, we have to recall Paul’s explanation of our premortal covenants with our Heavenly Father in the first chapter of Ephesians and other scriptures. The promise of invulnerability does not preclude our being subject to suffering in this world, but it does preclude the possibility that any external power will prevent us from fulfilling the covenants we made while we were in the Council in Heaven.

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1 Nephi 17:49-51 

49 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto them that they should murmur no more against their father; neither should they withhold their labor from me, for God had commanded me that I should build a ship.
50 And I said unto them: If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done.
51 And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship?

Once again, Nephi finds occasion to reiterate his central theme. This time it is by telling us how his brothers tried to prevent him from building a ship. He writes that he said many things to them, but the only thing he tells us he said is that, “God had commanded me that I should build a ship. And…If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them.”

In Nephi’s narrative, this is high adventure. However, in the pattern of the cosmic sacred narrative and Feast of Tabernacles temple drama, this is the final struggle before ultimate success. There is always a final struggle, but the sure promise of triumph alleviates neither the difficulty nor the dangers of that final struggle.
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1 Nephi 17:47-48 

47 Behold, my soul is rent with anguish because of you, and my heart is pained; I fear lest ye shall be cast off forever. Behold, I am full of the Spirit of God, insomuch that my frame has no strength.
48 And now it came to pass that when I had spoken these words they were angry with me, and were desirous to throw me into the depths of the sea; and as they came forth to lay their hands upon me I spake unto them, saying: In the name of the Almighty God, I command you that ye touch me not, for I am filled with the power of God, even unto the consuming of my flesh; and whoso shall lay his hands upon me shall wither even as a dried reed; and he shall be as naught before the power of God, for God shall smite him.

S. Kent Brown and his BYU group found a place where the brothers’ threat would have been more serious than just tossing him into the water. They report that there are cliffs there where the sea crashed against rocks that would have broken his body before the water drowned him and carried him away:

It was a refreshing and exciting ride across the rolling ocean surface with fish visible below us and the steep escarpment rising dramatically above the seashore.

As we came around a curve in the shoreline, Wadi Sayq opened to our view. It was magnificent; before us lay a beautiful alcove of teaming tropical plants framed by steep and jagged mountains with a small freshwater lagoon in the center. This place touched our hearts and imagination because it fit perfectly the description Nephi gave in his record (1 Nephi 17:5-7). On one side, steep cliffs that rose over two hundred feet had at their base sharp rocks with crashing waves. Behind them, a beautifully cone-shaped mountain rose majestically over the lagoon, inviting inspiration. The steep mountain cliffs on either side of the alcove had natural caves etched into them where, the locals informed us, bees stored honey.{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 17:43-46

42 And they did harden their hearts from time to time, and they did revile against Moses, and also against God; nevertheless, ye know that they were led forth by his matchless power into the land of promise.
43 And now, after all these things, the time has come that they have become wicked, yea, nearly unto ripeness; and I know not but they are at this day about to be destroyed; for I know that the day must surely come that they must be destroyed, save a few only, who shall be led away into captivity.
44 Wherefore, the Lord commanded my father that he should depart into the wilderness; and the Jews also sought to take away his life; yea, and ye also have sought to take away his life; wherefore, ye are murderers in your hearts and ye are like unto them.
45 Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. Ye have seen an angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words; wherefore, he has spoken unto you like unto the voice of thunder, which did cause the earth to shake as if it were to divide asunder.
46 And ye also know that by the power of his almighty word he can cause the earth that it shall pass away; yea, and ye know that by his word he can cause the rough places to be made smooth, and smooth places shall be broken up. O, then, why is it, that ye can be so hard in your hearts?

Nephi was reminding his brothers of the Feast of Tabernacles temple drama and its attendant ordinances and covenants, and he has now brought them to the place of the ceremonial battle between good and evil where the king was symbolically killed before being rescued from death and hell by Jehovah. But in Nephi’s version, there was no rescue for the king and his people; rather, their destruction is made sure by their own wickedness, and the only rescue he cites is God’s leading Lehi and his family from the doomed city. In the drama, Jehovah exercises his authority over the forces of nature to defeat Israel’s enemies and restores the king.{1} But when Nephi applied those principles to his brothers, he reminded them that it was they to whom God spoke with a voice “like unto the voice of thunder, which did cause the earth to shake as if it were to divide asunder.”

There is a psalm that echoes all of Nephi’s sentiments—both his own joy in the Lord and his fear for his brothers’ salvation. One cannot know whether he called on this psalm to express his feelings or whether part of it went through his mind as he spoke. The concept of righteousness had been the one with which they had first challenged him. He had used it in his response. The psalm is about the contrast between those who are and those who are not righteous. It says God will bless the one but not the other. It reads in part,

17 The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
18 The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit (Psalm 34:17-18).

Those last words were a concluding promise of the Feast of Tabernacles temple drama..{2} Nephi’s next words were a further echo of the promise of the psalm.

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FOOTNOTES

{1} For a discussion of the ancient Israelite temple drama see Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, “Part 1.”

{2} For a discussion of the that psalm as the basis for the Savior’s instruction to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 9 see Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, First edition, p. 884-91; Second edition, p. 620-25.
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1 Nephi 17:41 

41 And he did straiten them in the wilderness with his rod; for they hardened their hearts, even as ye have; and the Lord straitened them because of their iniquity. He sent fiery flying serpents among them; and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might be healed; and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished.

The event Nephi was describing is mentioned in the Old Testament,{1} but its meaning is not discussed there (Numbers 21:4-9). To learn its meaning we have to go to the Book of Mormon where we find that the serpent symbolized the Savior as the Messiah. It was a later Nephi who explained that it represented the Atonement of “the coming of the Messiah” (Helaman 8:13-16).

The Savior referred to that Old Testament event when he spoke with Nicodemus. If we read the story of Nicodemus as being the Savior’s teaching that great, good, and learned man about who he (Jesus/Jehovah/Messiah) really was, then we see his statement about Moses’s brass serpent as an explanation that Jesus is the Messiah of whom Moses testified (John 3:14-21).
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FOOTNOTE

{1} The brass serpent, but not the incident, is mentioned again but with a negative connotation. It was worshiped as a false god, and king Hezekiah had it destroyed (2 Kings 18:4)
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