2 Nephi 1:24-27

Brant Gardner

Nephi is writing this discourse. He began by having Lehi address Laman and Lemuel, but then the discourse turned more to all of the sons. Now, Nephi closes the general section of Lehi’s discourse and returns to an emphasis on Laman and Lemuel. It should be noted that when we examine this discourse in Nephi’s writings, Nephi wrote this down years after the fact. We do not know if he, or anyone else, recorded Lehi’s words when they were given. No one at the time had a recorder, no one took shorthand. It does not diminish the truthfulness of what Lehi said if Nephi wrote it as he remembered it and it was remembered as a less than verbatim account of what Lehi said.

In this section, Lehi not only addresses Laman and Lemuel, but calls them out for their anger against Nephi. The specifics that Lehi mentions will be the very things that cause the dissolution of the family and the division into what would become Lamanites and Nephites.

The specifics of this section could point to a very particular way in which Nephi remembered what his father said, for his father reiterates the themes that Nephi built in the book of 1 Nephi, that he would be the teacher and ruler over his brothers, and that the brothers rebelled against that idea. Lehi declares that Jehovah is on Nephi’s side in this internecine dispute.

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