The Americas Are a Choice Land

John W. Welch

2 Nephi 7:7 opens by saying "Wherefore this land is consecrated unto him whom God shall bring," and ends with, "unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever." I believe this refers to the whole land of America, the whole Western Hemisphere, the North and South American continents. This all is a chosen land, a choice land, a land that has been blessed by God since the beginning, and it all will remain a promised and choice land so long as the inhabitants "shall keep his commandments" (1:9). But they will be "brought down into captivity … if iniquity shall abound" (1:7), but their lands will be taken away if they "reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God"(1:10–11).

I believe one of the reasons that so many people have joined the Church in the Western Hemisphere is because these are the lands that were given to Joseph and the descendants of Joseph, the descendants of Lehi that are still here, and the people that left Europe and came to America, many of whom were descendants of Ephraim. In patriarchal blessings throughout North and South America, the descendants of Joseph, either Ephraim or Manasseh, are most consistently found or declared. The Book of Mormon is a record of Joseph, the son of Jacob (Ezekiel 37), and Lehi was of the tribe of Manasseh, a son of Joseph (Alma 10:3). So the Book of Mormon rings familiar in many ways to Lehi’s descendants.

Further Reading

Book of Mormon Central, "Where is the Land of Promise? (2 Nephi 1:5)," KnoWhy 497 (January 8, 2019).

John W. Welch Notes

References