While a complete religious and literary analysis of Alma’s great introspective ode remains to be written, any careful reader comes away from this text inspired, sobered, instructed, happy, reminded, and fulfilled. In a manner that many readers can relate with, Alma expresses a devout wish, recognizes his limitations and God’s realities, poses introspective questions to himself, and most of all finds glorious joy in doing what God has commanded, remembering what God has done, sharing joy with others, and praying for their ultimate blessing.
But there is more going on here than that. Like a Bach fugue where every note has its place, every word in Alma’s composition is measured and counted. And like the text of a psalm that lends itself easily to singing, the opening lines of Alma 29 have been set unforgettably to music in one of the most successful musical settings ever given to any passage in the Book of Mormon.
While Alma 29 was certainly written as a part of the mourning and burials of the fallen soldiers who bravely defended the land of Jershon (see Alma 30:2), Alma’s words also made an exquisite sabbatical text. These words set the tone for the forty-ninth year, and also for the following fiftieth year, a jubilee year.
Whatever one calls Alma’s wonderful composition—a hymn, a psalm, a soliloquy, a high priestly benediction—it was the result of Alma’s fourteen years of service and struggle, his great joy at his reunion with the sons of Mosiah, but also his lamentation at the devastation of the war that has just ended.
It begins on a very high plane of confidence, recalling the voice of the Angel that had converted Alma and his four best friends. Alma must have still been pinching himself, realizing that his friends were still alive. For fourteen years, they had had no communication. They all could have been dead. They were thrown in jail. They were almost killed on several occasions. I suppose he had almost given up on ever seeing his friends again. What joy he would have had at their return!
And, notice again, that the word joy occurs in this chapter seven times (29:5, 9, 10, 13, 14, 14, 16). This is the third set in which the word joy is mentioned seven times. The number seven also has special significance in celebrating their 14 years apart. Ammon’s 7 mentions of the word joy plus Alma’s 7 equals 14.
The 49th year is also a sabbatical year, 7 x 7. So, the High Priest Alma is writing this at the beginning of the 49th year. This leads us to wonder if that year wasn’t recognized as the final sabbatical year before the Jubilee, which would be the 50th year from the time of King Benjamin’s speech, there having been 33 years from Benjamin’s Speech to the death of Mosiah and then these 16 years more. And notice that Alma 30:5 says that the 16th year of the Reign of Judges there was a year of peace, with no disturbances, and then that the 17th year was a year of “continual peace” (30:5). This is what the Sabbath and Sabbatical years were all about. Rest. Everything is peaceful. Even the land you let lie fallow. And what do you do the whole time? You celebrate, you rejoice. You remember the past. You praise God. You thank him for all the things that he has done. Just as Alma does in Alma 29.
Moreover, the Hebrew word jubel (????) means a trumpet. Alma 29:1 begins, “O that I were an angel and could speak with the voice of a jubel.” This is the word that the word Jubilee comes from. And at the beginning of each ritual year, there would also be a celebration of the Day of Atonement, a time for repentance as well as forgiveness leading to joy. And that theme follows next in Alma 29:2, as Alma wished that he could declare with a voice of thunder the need for repentance, the plan of redemption, that all would repent and come unto God, that there would be no more sorrow, and only happiness, on the face of all the earth. There could not be a better beginning for a Jubilee text than Alma 29:1–2, especially in the mind and heart of the High Priest over all the land.
When Alma, as the High Priest, begins this text with his wish to be able to “speak with the trump of God” (29:1), he invokes many high and holy contexts, for the blowing of the trumpets in ancient Israel was connected with many religious and political occasions. The “day of Yahweh” was a day for the sounding horns in joy over His victories. Horns would announce the commencement of an important feast-day, as required on the beginning of the New Year (Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 29:1), or the commencement of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:9). Accompanying shouts for joy could occur in association with a royal jubilation, or when an individual experienced personal salvation, or to celebrate the making of a covenant by taking an oath, or in everyday life.
Alma 29 also ends with a high tone of personal reassurance, remembrance, praise and blessing, especially for those four brothers. I wonder if maybe this text might not be best understood as a high priestly prayer, a prayer of benediction in their behalf. All of this would fit perfectly, if this text was prepared in connection with a great sabbatical and jubilee moment.
In any event, it is hard to imagine any other person better suited to have composed this wonderful scripture, which also has some psalmodic qualities. For instance, Nephi’s psalm in 2 Nephi 4 was provoked, inspired, or brought about by the death of Lehi. Many psalms are expressions of lament. Likewise, it may have been the cumulation of Nephite and Lamanite deaths that made Alma so reflective and sober. Nephi, when he wrote his psalm was very vulnerable and going out into uncharted territory. I think Alma is also open here in recognizing his own vulnerability. With this writing, Alma began to reveal more about his worries, the fears that people had, the concerns about all the deaths. He could easily have kept this writing to himself, but we can be very grateful that he chose to keep it among his records and to share it with future generations, to let them know the deepest desires of his heart.