Hugh Nibley
“’There could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains.…On the other hand there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.’ Perfect parallelism. And incidentally, when he says, ’O Jesus,’ (v. 18) any Moslem or Jew would say, ’Well, why not call on God directly? Why call on Jesus?’ Well, that’s the point of the whole thing. It was God he had offended. The last person in the world he wants to meet is God. He has offended God. What he wants is a kind person who will feel with him and know what he is going through. And, of course, that’s the Lord, that’s Christ. He descended below all things. He suffered all these things, so he knows. Alma appeals to the one he can appeal to. He’s scared; he doesn’t want to go to God. I’d sooner be extinct than have to face him [he feels]. But there is Jesus; he will get me out. He is the Savior-he knows. So he appeals to him, and then his work is really beginning.” (Teachings of the Book of Mormon, lecture 56, p. 458)