“Surely This Thing Leadeth into Captivity”
When his children and posterity requested that a king be anointed, the brother of Jared resisted because he recognized the potential for abuse and wickedness under kingly rule. This inspired concern and resistance to the reign of kings was also voiced by Samuel the prophet (see 1 Samuel 8:6-22) in the Old World, and by Mosiah in the New World as he introduced the system of judges (see Mosiah 29:13-32; see also Commentary 2:318-19). The concerns of the brother of Jared were fully realized as subsequent kings turned from the ways of righteousness and led their people into abominable practices of idolatry and other forms of wickedness that contributed to their spiritual decline and their ultimate extinction as a civilization.
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