Thirty years ago, I laid out Zenos’s words in a possible poetic form. I called this his poem Hearing Mercy. Alma wanted his audience to find mercy, and Zenos tells us how he found the mercy of God by crying unto the Lord for many things and then being heard. A number of words come up over and over again in this very tightly woven refrain. Zenos uses 43 words once and only once in this poem, but when he wants to emphasize a few words, he uses them repeatedly.
The words “afflictions” and “Son” appear 2x, the latter curing the former.
The words “because,” “enemies,” “prayer,” and “turned” are each used 3x, achieving antithetical balance.
“O God,” “cry” (past, present, and future), “hear” and “heard” each appear 4x, and “merciful” predominates 6x, all affirming that God will always be there with mercy whenever we cry in prayer unto Him wherever we may be.
“I,” “my,” “me” and “mine” appear a total of 33x, while “thou,” “thee,” “thy” and “thine” appear 30x, conveying the need for an even match. Worship is not all about me, and it is not all about the Lord. It is a bringing together of us individually with the one true Lord (O Lord is used only once in Zenos’s expression of gratitude for havng heard mercy). This was one of the most important messages that Alma would have wanted these Zoramites to hear and understand.
Written probably long before 600 BC, and preserved on the Plates of Brass, Zenos’s plaintive but jubilant cry features several archaic qualities. Zenos’s poem is a classic. It is very beautiful poetry judged by ancient standards.
The overall thought flows progressively from the most remote wilderness, through Zenos’s field and into his house, and then into his most intimate closet. It then moves, in reverse, from the personal domestic setting of children, to the public assembly, and back out to the condition of being cast out into the wilderness where the poem began. Everything here affirms that a person can pray in the wilderness or wherever need be, and all because of God’s Son, no circumstance is beyond the joy of hearing mercy.
Thou art merciful, O God,
for thou hast heard my prayer,
even when I was in the wilderness;
Yea, thou wast merciful,
when I prayed concerning those who were mine enemies,
and thou didst turn them to me.
Yea, O God, thou wast merciful unto me
when I did cry unto thee in my field;
When I did cry unto thee in my prayer,
and thou didst hear me.
And again, O God, when I did turn to my house,
thou didst hear me in my prayer.
And when I did turn unto my closet, O Lord,
and prayed unto thee, thou didst hear me.
Yea, thou art merciful unto thy children
when they cry unto thee
to be heard of thee and not of men,
and thou wilt hear them.
Yea, O God, thou hast been merciful unto me,
and heard my cries in the midst of thy congregations.
Yea, thou hast also heard me when I have been cast out
and have been despised by mine enemies;
Yea, thou didst hear my cries,
and wast angry with mine enemies,
and thou didst visit them in thine anger
with speedy destruction.
And thou didst hear me
because of mine afflictions and mine sincerity;
And it is because of thy Son
that thou hast been thus merciful unto me,
Therefore, I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions,
for in thee is my joy;
for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me,
because of thy Son.
John W. Welch, ed., “Hearing Mercy,” BYU Studies, 33 no. 1 (Winter 1991).