Alma ends his prayer and then “clapped his hands” upon his companions. Probably we would describe this as a “laying on” of hands. James E. Talmage read the passage this way: “Alma so invoked the power of the Holy Ghost in behalf of his co-laborers: ‘He clapped his hands upon all them who were with him. And behold, as he clapped his hands upon them, they were filled with the Holy Spirit.’ The Savior gave authority to the twelve Nephite disciples, by touching them one by one; they were thus commissioned to bestow the Holy Ghost.” Unquestionably, the result was to confer the Spirit upon those who were taking up their missionary labors—a prophet’s blessing and not conferring of the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Linguistic: “Clapping” hands on implies much more energy than “laying” hands on. I speculate that “clap” results from some idiosyncrasy of translation, although it also appears in the expression “clapped hands with joy.” Continuing my speculation, I hypothesize that a clap is accompanied by a noise and a rush of air. A little-noted aspect of Mesoamerican people is their attention to sounds, which are frequently linked to deities. The roar of a jaguar, for instance, was associated with hills and rain. Another deity is specifically noted as making loud noises in the mountains. I noted a possible connection between the Mesoamerican understanding of the presence of God in thunder and earthquakes. (See commentary accompanying Mosiah 27:11.)
These elements suggest an interesting (still speculative) possibility. If Alma, a person of general Mesoamerican culture though Nephite religion, is sensitive to the symbolism of sound, the noise of the clap may have been a significant signal of the transfer of the Spirit. In both Hebrew and Greek, the word we translate as “spirit” was more properly “breath,” or “wind.” If Alma had swung his hands hard enough to produce a “clap” it would also have necessarily been accompanied by a rush of wind. Thus, a set of symbols would have underscored the divine aspects of the blessing he conferred upon them and the Spirit he was summoning to their aid.
Culture: The Zoramites certainly bear the name of the servant who accompanied Lehi’s family to the New World. Does that mean that they were of that lineage? Probably not, since they apparently were named for a more recent Zoram (Alma 30:59). Sherrie Mills Johnson, a sociologist, suggests that the phrase “many of them are our brethren” indicates that “the Zoramites were not a uniform ethnic group—that is, they could have been of mixed heritage, with some being Nephites (“brethren”) and some being Mulekites. The statement could also indicate that most were ethnic Zoramites but that some Nephite sympathizers (“brethren”) had dissented along with them.” I agree that the Zoramites were probably of mixed lineages. By this point in the Book of Mormon, the most common reference is to politics rather than lineages. Since Zoram’s followers were Nephite dissenters, they likely represented multiple lineages, not only Zoram’s kin.
Variant: Both the original and the printer’s manuscripts show verse 35 as “and many of them are our near brethren.” This adjective increases the connection between Alma and the Zoramites, highlighting the possibility that Alma had relatives among the Zoramites. Perhaps this is one reason he took his sons with him. This mission may have been more personal than most.