Alma 43:9-12

Brant Gardner

Verses 5–8 gave the “designs” of Zerahemnah (see especially verse 8). Verse 9 contrasts those designs with the “design of the Nephites.” Where Zerahemnah wanted to subjugate the Nephites, the Nephites wanted only to preserve their lands and people. Mormon still remembers that the essential context for this war was chapters in the past, and so he gives yet another repetition of that context. In this case, the people who had been called Anti-Nephi-Lehies, and were now the people of Ammon, were a people who had covenanted not to take up arms. That meant that their relocation to Jershon put a large population into that land, a people who could not be called upon to defend the land. Verses 11 and 12 are part of the refreshing of the context by repeating information from Mormon’s text prior to his insertion of Alma’s counsel to his sons.

Book of Mormon Minute

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