Nephi Chastises His Brethren and Praises the Lord

John W. Welch

We have 24 verses in which Nephi took Laman and Lemuel’s arguments apart, and did so in very powerful ways, which ended with them being overwrought by the realization of how wrong they had been. They, of course, tried to grab him to throw him into the sea, but Nephi was so filled with the Spirit that they are shocked by what they feel. You may want to study those 24 verses in more detail, and see how he responded. Hint, the way I see it, he responded to argument 1, then to argument 2, then to argument 3.

And then in the middle (verses 36 to 40), Nephi proclaims a spontaneous hymn of praise about God being in control of all of things:

A: "Behold, the Lord hath created the earth that it should be inhabited" (v. 36)–meaning we should go and inhabit some far-away place.

"He hath created his children that they should possess it" (v. 36)—he will give us a land of possession.

B: "He raiseth up a righteous nation" (v. 37)—us.

"And destroyeth the nations of the wicked" (v. 37)—the nations that are being destroyed and conquered at that time, including Jerusalem.

B: "He leadeth away the righteous into precious lands" (v. 38)—us.

"And the wicked he destroyeth, and curseth the land unto them for their sakes" (v. 38)—the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

A: "He ruleth high in the heavens, for it is his throne, and this earth is his footstool." (v. 39)—meaning God deals with us lowly creatures on earth, but He still reigns in heaven.

"And he loveth those who will have him to be their God" (v. 40) —referring back to us, His children whom He loves.

This is beautiful parallelistic poetry. Indeed, Nephi uses it wisely, probably knowing that "a soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools pureth out foolishness" (Proverbs 15:1–2).

And notice that Nephi’s testimonial hymn has an overall A-B-B-A structure. It begins and ends with praising the Lord, and the two middle verses are about how the righteous and the wicked will be treated. So, this very elegant little chiastic hymn stands at the middle of Nephi’s response to his brothers, and its inverted structure helps to reverse the direction this very troublesome situation was headed in.

Nephi then continues, answering again argument 3 in verse 41, answering argument 2 in verse 42, and answering argument 1 in verse 44. So, altogether, he goes through arguments 1, 2, 3—gives his central hymn—and then answers arguments 3, 2, 1 in reverse order. Persuasive and eloquently done, he persuasively answers all of the questions twice-fold.

Further Reading

Book of Mormon Central, "Why Is the Presence of Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon Significant? (Mosiah 5:10–12)," KnoWhy 166 (August 16, 2016).

John W. Welch Notes

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