Samuel Pronounces a Traditional Warning or Lamentation Oracle

There is yet another a prophetic device known as a “warning or lamentation oracle,” and Samuel used it too. It is not the strident “Wo!” as in the Wo oracle, but rather a lamenting desire that some person or some circumstance could be different. There are six prophetic laments in 13:29–39 alone:

1. "O ye wicked …"
2. "O that I had repented …"
3. "O that we had remembered …"
4. "O that we had repented …"
5. "O Lord, …"
6. "O ye people …"

“O”is a sure operative word in the traditional psalms and oracles of lamentation. Latter-day Saint scholar S. Kent Brown wrote a superb article entitled “The Prophetic Laments of Samuel the Lamanite” on the places throughout Samuel’s speech where beautiful, typical, ancient Hebrew prophetic lamentation can be identified.

Further Reading

S. Kent Brown. “The Prophetic Laments of Samuel the Lamanite,” in From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998), 128–145.