2 Nephi 1:21-23

Brant Gardner

If this were a written speech, a good editor would trim it significantly. It is quite repetitive. Lehi spoke of the promise of the land, and then evoked it again. Lehi spoke of his sons arising from the dust, and now does it again. This was not, however, a discourse governed by literary rules, but rather oral ones. In oral discourse, repetition reinforces meaning because the listeners hear the same message repeated in slightly different contexts. That we have this in written form suggests that Nephi did not edit for literary concerns.

This does not mean that there is not literary value, but only that it develops the art orally. It is a well-constructed discourse precisely in the way the repetition is used. Thus, Lehi begins a section with the introduction of the theme of arising from the sleep of hell, and then describes that condition and the way to resolve it.

In the verse which concludes this section, Lehi emphasizes the theme by noting that he does not desire to be “brought down with grief and sorrow.” The idea that he might be “brought down” echoes the imagery he has been using of being laid in the grave. That is a point he emphasizes by making this a genuine possibility rather than simply a moral point.

As he began this section, he exhorted his sons to awake and arise, and to shake off the chains that bound them. These are the precise verbal images that he uses to close that section of his discourse.

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