Rhetorical: Limhi began this address by encouraging the faith of his people (verses 19 and 20). Limhi’s implication is that he expects that this people has sufficient faith to effect their salvation from their current distress. However, that brings into focus the contrast between their faith and their current situation. How is it that with their faith they are in such dire straits? The explanation lies not in their lack of faith, but their people’s past sins.
Limhi begins by asking rhetorical questions; “is not this grievous to be borne? And is not this, our affliction, great?” In verse 24 he explicitly affirms the correctness of their implicit answer; “Yea…great are the reasons which we have to mourn.” The afflictions are obvious. No one doubts them. What Limhi must do is make a separation between the causes of their afflictions and their faith. If it is their faith (or lack of faith) that has caused the afflictions, then their faith is insufficient to work the miracle of their extraction from the yoke of the Lamanites.
Limhi first makes it clear that the afflictions may not be laid at the Lord’s door – these are afflictions that come from iniquity. That iniquity forfeited the protection of the Lord and led to their current circumstances. While Limhi will recount those iniquities, he does so to publicly denounce them. They are a part of the past from which these people come, but they are not to be laid at the feet of this people, nor at the altar of this people’s faith. If Limhi can lead the public repentance for the iniquities with which they were associated, but perhaps not participants, then the separation between the affliction-through-iniquity and the current faith of the people will have been delineated.
Mosiah 7:25
25 For if this people had not fallen into transgression the Lord would not have suffered that this great evil should come upon them. But behold, they would not hearken unto his words; but there arose contentions among them, even so much that they did shed blood among themselves.
Historical: It is not clear to what event Limhi refers. The text indicates that there were contentions, and that those contentions led to bloodshed among themselves. This is not a description of attack from the Lamanites in the wars/skirmishes that we have read about, and will read more of. This is bloodshed inside the community. There are only two instances of internal bloodshed in our text. The first is in the original party of which Zeniff was a member that dissolved into internal feud and bloodshed. While that is the largest known number of people shed by internal conflict, it happened prior to the establishment of this colony, and would probably not be seen as a direct indictment of this particular people.
The other known incident is when those men who fled with Noah finally turned on him and caused him to die by fire. While that is only one man killed in an internal dispute, it is a great thing for a people to turn on their king, a negation of all of the social learning that goes into establishing the person of the king as one with rights and privileges. It is possible that this particular bloodshed refers to the death of Noah, and that it is particularly onerous because it is regicide, a murder of a person of higher “quality.” While we may not totally understand the ancient mentality, differing people could have differing values, and the loss of life could have an impact depending upon the presumed status of the individual. We have some indication of this concept in the military, where the death of a foot soldier is of less note than the death of a general. While the foot soldier’s family might significantly mourn, the status of the general creates a greater impact. Similarly in civilian society, we may hear of the death of a gang member, and not be nearly as shocked as at the assassination of a President. Noah’s position may have equaled in social guilt the loss of larger numbers of field workers.