Hugh Nibley
“The only trouble is that the stones don’t shine. What shall the man do next? He carries the stones up to the very top of ‘an exceedingly high mountain’—and that is as far as he can go. Of course God could have appeared to him in the plain, but the idea of the whole thing is that man himself must meet God halfway. So the brother of Jared toils up the mountain as he had toiled at the smelter until, as it were, he reaches the end of the line—he can go no further; he has done all that is in his power. From then on it is up to the Lord. Standing on the mountaintop, the brother of Jared holds up his pretty but worthless stones and asks the Lord to take over.” (An Approach to the Book of Mormon, p. 351)