From Zeniff to Limhi, we observe a classic cycle of prosperity, wickedness, and repentance. Under King Zeniff, who led a colony of Nephites from Zarahemla back to the land of Nephi, the people prospered. He caused them to labor with their hands for their support, and in the midst of their enemies they enjoyed a measure of peace (Mosiah 9:8–9; 10:4–5). When the Lamanites eventually attacked them, the “strength of the Lord” was with the Nephites so that they slew the much more numerous Lamanites by a ratio of over ten to one (Mosiah 9:17–19; 10:10, 20). At those times, Zeniff and his people put their trust in God and “did cry mightily to the Lord that he would deliver us out of the hands of our enemies” (Mosiah 9:17; 10:19).
Under King Noah, the “strength of the Lord” was no longer with the Nephites. The colony fragmented and soon became subject to the Lamanites (Mosiah 11:16–17; 19:2–15). King Limhi, Noah’s son, restored a measure of peace among his people (Mosiah 19:27), but when the Lamanites again attacked them they were unable to deliver themselves (Mosiah 21:2–12). Even when they “did cry mightily to God… that he would deliver them out of their afflictions,” they were not delivered (Mosiah 21:14–15). Only gradually, “by degrees,” did they begin to prosper again in the land (Mosiah 21:16). Eventually, Ammon rescued them and they migrated in an exodus back to Zarahemla (Mosiah 22:1–11).
A similar thing happened to Alma and his people, who had broken off from the people of King Noah. After they had repented and undergone baptism, after they had covenanted to bear one another’s burdens, and after they had established themselves in the land of Helam and begun to prosper, the Lamanites discovered them and put them into bondage (Mosiah 18:7–10; 23:20–39). If God was a just God who had accepted their repentance, and if he was pleased with the covenant they had made, how could he still let this happen? If we ourselves had taken all the necessary steps to make such a course correction, wouldn’t we expect the Lord to again bless us and not subject us to further sorrows?
Lest we be among those who “understand not the dealings of the Lord,” let’s review the covenant he made with his people Israel in the beginning. Every covenant of the Lord contains blessings and curses. If those with whom he covenants keep his commandments, which are the law of the covenant, blessings follow; if they don’t, curses. Deuteronomy 28 delineates many of the blessings the Lord promised his people Israel if they would keep his commandments. Likewise, the curses if they didn’t. Among these curses are his people’s bondage to enemies and their powerlessness to deliver themselves (Deuteronomy 28:25, 48).
Because Alma and King Limhi and their peoples endured these very things—even long after they had repented of wrongdoing—it means that they were still suffering the penalties of the covenant they had once broken. Though they had been living righteously for some time, and the Lord had forgiven them their transgressions, the curses of the covenant still followed them and their offspring.
This also means that covenant blessings and curses operate independently of people’s current spiritual disposition. In other words, they can accrue to people today as a result of what they or their forebears did yesterday. Thus, the Lord speaks of “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me” (Deuteronomy 5:9). However, this doesn’t mean that children are guilty of their parents’ sins, as Ezekiel makes clear (Ezekiel 18:19–20). Rather, it implies that children may inherit the results of their parents’ transgressions, that there are consequences of parents’ actions that children may have to deal with in their lives.
We should thus draw a distinction between sin and iniquity. Broadly speaking, sin is something we do wrong, of which we can repent and be forgiven through the merits of Christ’s atonement. Iniquity, on the other hand, is the effect of sin, which may be cumulative and which may continue down the generations until a descendant or descendants reverse it.
Dysfunctional patterns, for example, are regularly passed on from parents to children until someone takes ownership of the “iniquity,” repents of it, and begins to live by the laws of God. Although Abraham was born into dysfunctional circumstances, he aspired to return to the “blessings of the fathers” (Abraham 1:1–2, 5–7; emphasis added). His father Terah, and his whole society, were idolaters and a famine—a curse—prevailed in the land (Joshua 24:2; Abraham 2:1).
Ultimately, Abraham reversed his cursed condition by serving the Lord, who blessed him with his own promised land (Genesis 17:1–8; Abraham 1:16). From then on, the blessings of the fathers came upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who loved God. A similar pattern of blessings or curses accruing from parents to children appears in D&C 98:28–37.
The same principle of blessings and curses operating independently of people’s current disposition may apply in an opposite sense. The prosperity Latter-day Saints have inherited today, for example, may go back several generations to their pioneer ancestors. Those converts to the restored gospel, like Abraham, gave their all to serve God and rid themselves of the iniquities of their fathers.
Some of their descendants today, meanwhile, may throw away their sacred heritage, not realizing that the blessings they currently enjoy have accrued from their forebears and could be reversed into curses at any time. The original prosperity of King Noah’s people, and their initial victory over the Lamanites, may fall into that inherited category (Mosiah 11:18–19).
Alma and King Limhi and their peoples took ownership of their cursed condition by covenanting with the Lord to serve him and keep his commandments (Mosiah 18:10; 21:31–32). From then on, they exercised patience, confident the Lord would deliver them from their enemies in his own due time—that he would reverse their curse and turn it into a blessing. Like the Woman Zion or Jerusalem of the last days, they would eventually come full term, their iniquity would be “expiated,” and after their exodus out of Babylon they would be born a new nation of God’s people called Zion (cf. Isaiah 40:2; 48:20–21; 66:7–11).
The Nephites who completed this cycle under Alma and King Limhi became the nucleus of the church in Zarahemla (Mosiah 25:19–24). They were living witnesses of the power of God unto deliverance (Mosiah 25:10). They had experienced both the curse and the blessing and could inspire many among the Nephites to serve the Lord and keep his commandments.