The Spirit responds to Nephi’s hesitation with reasons that Nephi can accept. Most important is the reminder that Yahweh himself had slain the wicked to protect his people. Whether this statement is a direct recollection of Nephi’s statement about Pharaoh or whether Nephi understood it more broadly, he clearly understood that Yahweh himself had sometimes killed but not murdered.
History: The injunction that one man should perish to preserve the many is supported by certain cases in biblical law. John W. Welch and Heidi Harkness Parker observe:
Second Samuel 20 is a pivotal example. King David sought the life of Sheba, a rebel guilty of treason. When Sheba took refuge in the city of Abel, Joab, the leader of David’s army, demanded that Sheba be released to him. The people of Abel beheaded Sheba instead, and Joab retreated. This episode became an important legal precedent justifying the killing of one person in order to preserve an entire group.
Another Old Testament case, preserved more fully in the Jewish oral tradition, involved Jehoiakim, the king of Judah who rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar went to Antioch and demanded that the great Jewish council surrender Jehoiakim or the nation would be destroyed. Jehoiakim protested, “Do they set aside one life in favor of another?” Unmoved, the council replied, “Did not your forefather do exactly that to Sheba ben Bichri?” Jehoiakim was released to Nebuchadnezzar, who took him to Babylon (see 2 Chr. 36:6), where presumably he was executed. Because Zedekiah became king less than four months later (see verses 9–10), at the time the Book of Mormon account begins (see 1 Ne. 1:4), Nephi was probably keenly aware of how the “one for many” principle was used to justify Jehoiakim’s death.