Redaction: Although Nephi is the one writing on the plates, he begins with “I, Jacob.” Thus, this unit is one of Jacob’s actual sermons, quoted verbatim. Yet the only way it could be Jacob’s exact words is if Nephi is copying a text prepared by Jacob. There is no evidence that this is the case. As with all of the quoted sermons in the Book of Mormon, I assume that they are reconstructions by memory and perhaps from sketchy notes of the oral original.
Scripture: Jacob apparently recites his priesthood line of authority: being called of God, ordained, and “consecrated” by Nephi.” What, however, does consecration mean in this context? I hypothesize that the ordination and consecration were not two separate events but rather a single ordinance performed by Nephi, here simply referred to separately as the ordination and the event of the ordination.
But what priesthood was it, exactly, “after the manner of his holy order”? Joseph Fielding Smith notes the nontraditional predicament this group faced: “The Nephites were descendants of Joseph. Lehi discovered this when reading the brass plates. He was a descendant of Manasseh, and Ishmael, who accompanied him with his family, was of the tribe of Ephraim. Therefore there were no Levites who accompanied Lehi to the Western Hemisphere.” Without the inherited priesthood line, the Nephites had to operate under a different order—in Joseph Fielding Smith’s view, the Melchizedek Priesthood:
Under these conditions the Nephites officiated by virtue of the Melchizedek Priesthood from the days of Lehi to the days of the appearance of our Savior among them. It is true that Nephi “consecrated Jacob and Joseph” that they should be priests and teachers over the land of the Nephites, but the fact that plural terms priests and teachers were used indicates that this was not a reference to the definite office in the priesthood in either case, but it was a general assignment to teach, direct, and admonish the people. Otherwise the terms priest and teacher would have been given, in the singular. Additional light is thrown on this appointment showing that these two brothers of Nephi held the Melchizedek Priesthood, in the sixth chapter, second verse of II Nephi, where Jacob makes this explanation regarding the priesthood which he and Joseph held: “Behold, my beloved brethren, I, Jacob, having been called of God, and ordained after the manner of his holy order, and having been consecrated by my brother Nephi, unto whom ye look as a king or a protector, and on whom ye depend for safety, behold ye know that I have spoken unto you exceeding many things” (2 Ne. 6:1). This seems to be a confirmation of the ordinations that he and his brother Joseph received in the Melchizedek Priesthood. (emphasis Smith’s)
There is good reason to believe that Jacob’s and Joseph’s priesthood could be included under some concept of the Melchizedek Priesthood, but less reason to assume that we should understand it as the modern definition that is differentiated from the Aaronic Priesthood. Just as Joseph Fielding Smith points out that the brothers’ ordination as “priests and teachers” does not necessarily correspond to those offices in the Aaronic Priesthood as we understand them, we should not assume that the Melchizedek Priesthood at that time also reflects our modern understanding of its offices, or even the definition that we use for the Melchizedek Priesthood. For the Nephites, the distinction would be between a lineage-based priesthood and a non-lineage-based priesthood. This difference may not have had any implication of higher or lower priesthood but rather may have been simply a distinction about the source of the priesthood authority. Both types, the lineage-based Levitical priesthood and the non-lineage-based Melchizedek Priesthood, provided Yahweh’s authority to perform the proper acts of the Mosaic law. Under the Nephite version of the Melchizedek Priesthood, “priest and teacher” were appropriate divisions, the only ones mentioned for many years in the Book of Mormon.
The divisions and structure of the priesthood really do not matter. What does matter is that God granted the Nephites authority in a way separate from the lineage-based priesthood of the Levites. (See also commentary accompanying Alma 13:15.) They had the priesthood authority they needed.
Culture: Probably Jacob gave this sermon more than forty years after the departure from Jerusalem, a deduction from its placement in the text. At this point, Jacob notes that the people look to Nephi “as a king or a protector” (2 Ne. 6:2). This statement connotes a different relationship than Nephi’s statement in 2 Nephi 5:18. (See commentary on that verse.) With this early manifestation of a desire for a king, it is no surprise to find monarchy as the functioning political model over four generations later in Zarahemla with King Benjamin.
It is also important that we remember that Nephi was both a political and religious leader. As a king he was both the head of the government and the head of the religion. The kingship was by no means a secular position. Daniel C. Peterson, professor of Arabic at Brigham Young University, reminds us:
The priestly nature of Nephite kingship is, I think, evident.… God, says Benjamin, is the appointer of kings (Mosiah 2:4). Zeniffite ideology held that Nephi was chosen by God to lead his people (Mosiah 10:13). Thus the king represents God on the earth, and his actions, when he is righteous and inspired, are God’s actions.… It is not, therefore, inconsistent for the book of Mosiah, which repeatedly speaks of kings ordaining priests and teachers, to speak also of God as the appointer of teachers (see Mosiah 2:4). Likewise, an inspired king can be said to speak for and on behalf of God, and the distinction between them means very little in this respect (see Mosiah 2:31). God and the king are correlatives, mirroring each other in their respective spheres (Mosiah 2:19)—God rules the universe at large, macrocosmically, while the king rules subordinately and microcosmically over a limited portion of God’s universe.
Vocabulary: Jacob begins by addressing “my beloved brethren.” Even though there is no explicit mention of women, there is no reason to believe that they were excluded from this occasion or from most public occasions. The lack of explicit mention of women in the Book of Mormon strongly suggests a patriarchal society, but that does not mean the exclusion of women. It only means that the public domain would “belong” to men; hence, men were the appropriate references for public events.