“Do We Not All Depend Upon the Same Being”

This is a masterful argument. Benjamin has just stated that one of the effects of truly living the gospel will be that they learn to impart of their substance to the needy. He has also reminded them of the ways in which they have justified withholding that substance. To understand what Benjamin is doing here, we need to remember this set of information:

1. Benjamin has previously invoked the master/servant concept to describe the people’s relationship to God (see Mosiah 3:14-25).
2. Benjamin has used that relationship as a model for current social interactions (Mosiah 2:18).
3. The needy are the ones for whom food and raiment are the particular “substance” they need.
4. The wealthy, who are the focus of the economic disparities among his people, are the ones for whom “substance” is gold and silver and “all the riches.”
5. The term “beggar” is a word with powerful connotations, including both economic and social subservience to a higher class/power.

Benjamin is adroitly blending multiple concepts to make an important point. First, he has described a wealthier class who is reluctant to share with the lower class (imputing their condition to their own devices, making them unworthy of assistance). Thus we have two problems, one of class and one of need. The “beggars” are those of the lower class who need food and raiment, and who “beg” that of the higher class who has gold and silver and “all the riches.”

To combat this socio-economic disparity that is clearly dividing his people, Benjamin invokes another hierarchy of higher and lower status, with God being the higher status. In Benjamin’s argument, he places God above the wealthy. He specifically makes the wealthy beggars before God, as He is the source of their riches (“Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?”).

Thus Benjamin is attempting to combat the class disparity by placing the wealthy in a dependent class, and showing that the same laws of charity apply to them, and have been fulfilled by a merciful God. Thus a group so blessed should show the same charity to a lower class as God has to them.