Another expression that must have seemed strange to Joseph Smith as he translated the Book of Mormon was Lehi's statement to Lemuel, "O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord." (1 Nephi 2:10.) Surely everything in the background of Joseph Smith would have caused him to think of a mountain, not a valley, as being "firm and steadfast, and immovable." Yet, as Dr. Nibley has indicated, the use of this construction in referring to a valley is authentic to the Middle East, in which this event is supposed to have occurred:
As to this valley, firm and steadfast, who, west of Suez, would ever think of such an image? We, of course, know all about everlasting hills and immovable mountains . . . but who ever heard of a steadfast valley? The Arabs to be sure. For them the valley, and not the mountain, is the symbol of permanence. It is not the mountain of refuge to which they flee, but the valley of refuge. The great depressions that run for hundreds of miles across the Arabian peninsula pass for the most part through plains devoid of mountains. It is in these ancient riverbeds alone that water, vegetation, and animal life are to be found when all else is desolation. They alone offer men and animals escape from their enemies and deliverance from death by hunger and thirst. The qualities of firmness and steadfastness, of reliable protection, refreshment, and sure refuge when all else fails, which other nations attribute naturally to mountains, the Arabs attribute to valleys. (Ibid., pp. 223-24.)