Here Nephi points out a difference between his father’s vision and his own. Further, he explains why Lehi failed to notice what Nephi saw as its chief characteristic—its filthiness. All of the associations with water in the report of Lehi’s dream appear to be good or at least neutral (1 Ne. 8:13–14, 17, 19–20, 26). Why is the water now filthy? Nephi’s explanation that his father’s mind was “swallowed up in other things” is really a good explanation, but one that requires some background to understand. Modern readers can become confused at this apparent shift in the nature of the water. It was good, now it is filthy. Did Lehi and Nephi see the same thing?
The answer is that they did and they didn’t. They both saw symbols, but symbols are multi-vocal. They simultaneously carry multiple information, and the context in which we see them will determine which of those meanings we use. There is one vision, but two people seeing it, and the difference in the water is not in the vision, but in the one seeing the vision.
Lehi is a visionary man, one accustomed to revelation that comes in dreams and visions. The symbols he sees are interpreted by the long tradition of tree of life symbolism in the Middle East. (See commentary accompanying 1 Nephi 8:2–3.) In that tradition, water is associated with the benefits of the tree, and therefore Lehi’s understanding of the river was contextualized by its association with the tree and the force of cultural history that made that a beneficial association.
Nephi, on the other hand, is not a visionary man. He has problems with the symbols and asks to understand his father’s dream. This suggests that he was not as conversant as his father with the interpretive milieu of those symbols, and he needed fresh explanation. When he receives it, he is seeing the vision with a different set of eyes and in different contexts. When Nephi sees the river, he sees it in the context of the gulf separating the righteous from the wicked (1 Ne. 12:16, 15:26–29). This new context shifts Nephi’s focus on the nature of the river and it becomes filthy to accommodate the meaning in the new context. Thus Nephi is absolutely correct that his father’s mind was “caught up in other things.” It is the focus that determined which of the readings this symbol would have. This small discrepancy suggests that a vision, while cinematic, also requires focus on an aspect, just as a camera must focus on an object, to bring it to the reader’s awareness.