A Scholarly Note on Bondage

Because Alma and his people had been humbled by the word of God rather than being compelled to be humble by their bondage as Limhi’s group had been, the Lord made the bondage of Alma and his people much easier to endure. The message for us is that it is better to repent sooner than later. The slower we are to hearken to the Lord, the slower he must be in responding to our needs. How reassuring it must have been to Alma’s people to experience the miracle of not feeling the burdens which were placed upon their backs. They could have no question in their minds about whose power it was that delivered them and led them back to the land of Zarahemla.

The question may be asked why Alma’s group was put into bondage since they had repented, had made covenants, and had served the Lord for some time. The answer seems to go back to Abinadi’s prophecy. When he first came to the Nephites in the land of Nephi, he warned that they would be brought into bondage if they did not repent (see Mosiah 11:21). This warning went unheeded until Abinadi returned two years later. His warning then proclaimed that they would be brought into bondage, and if they still refused to repent they would be destroyed (see Mosiah 12:2, 8). It was at this time that Alma was converted and began to teach the words of Abinadi secretly to those Nephites who would listen. Thus, even though Alma and his people had repented, it was still necessary that Abinadi’s first prophecy be fulfilled.

A great principle we can learn from this portion of the book of Mosiah (chapters 19–24) is that the longer we wait to repent and forsake our sins, the more serious the consequences will be. Elder Melvin J. Ballard reiterated this principle: “Every man and woman who is putting off until the next life the task of correcting and overcoming the weakness of the flesh are sentencing themselves to years of bondage, for no man or woman will come forth in the Resurrection until he has completed his work, until he has overcome, until he has done as much as he can do” (242).

Sadly, for many this bondage has already begun in this life. As with Limhi and his people, if we are slow to hearken to the counsel of the Lord, we only make our transformation to freedom more difficult and increase the degree of our bondage. (Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr., eds., Mosiah: Salvation Only through Christ [Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1991], 272)