One of the more sobering moments in Helaman’s life comes in chapter 45, when his father, in his farewell speech, prophesied that the Nephite nation would dwindle in unbelief and eventually be destroyed. Helaman received a blessing, the interview, and then this prophecy from his father. Alma gave Helaman good news but ended with the bad news that the people would not remain faithful. Then he departed as if he were going to the city of Melek, and he was never heard of again. How old was Helaman when his father went missing in action?
Helaman was blessed and interviewed by his father in the nineteenth year of the reign of the judges (Alma 45:2). He was likely born only a few years before the commencement of the reign of the judges, since Alma was still a young man when he and the sons of Mosiah were stopped by the angel. And so one may figure that Helaman must have been about twenty-two at that time, in order to allow Shiblon and Corianto to have been old enough to have gone on the mission to Antionum and to go astray as Corianton did. So, it would seem that Helaman couldn’t have been much more than twenty-two at the time his father left him with a very daunting challenge.