Come, Follow Me January 29-February 4: 1 Nephi 16-22
In 2024, the Maxwell Institute will offer a weekly series of short essays on the Book of Mormon, in support of the Church-wide Come, Follow Me study curriculum. Each week, the Maxwell Institute blog will feature a post by a member of the Institute faculty exploring an aspect of the week’s reading block. We hope these explorations will enrich your study and teaching of the Book of Mormon throughout the coming year.
The Consolation of Prophecy
by Kristian Heal
The journey of faith was not easy. Yes, the ball directed them to the “most fertile parts of the wilderness” (1 Nephi 16:14), but still, the travelers were “much fatigued … because of their sufferings and afflictions” (1 Nephi 16: 19-20). Yet, they pressed forward, traveling for as long as possible before exhaustion forced them to stop again. Not long into the journey, Ishmael dies, and we hear his daughter’s lament, “Our father is dead; yea, and we have wandered much in the wilderness, and we have suffered much affliction, hunger, thirst, and fatigue; and after all these sufferings we must perish in the wilderness with hunger” (1 Nephi 16:35). This was a people pushed to their extremities, often exhausted, often hungry, wading through affliction, bearing and raising children, eating raw meat, cold at night for the lack of fires, often filled with regret, often chastened by the Lord and his prophets until they repented and pressed forward once again. This was the life of this little company for eight long years in the wilderness (1 Nephi 17:4). Given the common hardship of this journey, it is interesting to see that it prompted two quite different responses.
Nephi’s older brothers were frequently reticent about this journey. It seemed to them more a journey of madness than faith. They were not made for the nomadic lifestyle. They didn’t like discomfort. Instead, they thought of home, the comfort of their possessions, the security of their wealth, and the uprightness of their neighbors in Jerusalem (1 Nephi 17:22). Had they stayed behind, not only would they not have suffered in the wilderness, but they could also have “enjoyed [their] possessions and the land of [their] inheritance.” Ultimately, their complaint sounds bracingly modern: If they had stayed, they “might have been happy” (1 Nephi 17:21).
Nephi focuses instead on the enabling grace of the Lord. His experience was that the Lord provides and strengthens the faithful (1 Nephi 17:1-3). “And thus we see,” he reassures his readers, “that the commandments of God must be fulfilled” (1 Nephi 17:3). We are more used to reading the locution “thus we see” in Mormon’s record (it is used 21 times in Alma and Helaman, and once, by Moroni, in Ether). Nephi only uses it here and in the preceding chapter, where, after telling how the ball gave directions for Nephi’s hunting expedition, he declares, “And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things” (1 Nephi 16:29). The phrase focuses our attention on an important and abiding message. Nephi was sustained in his journey by his faith that God would provide a way and by his understanding that God often uses small things to bring about great means. By noticing these small things and seeing the enabling power of the Lord, Nephi came to know that the Lord was leading them (1 Nephi 17:13-14).
These things may have sustained Nephi, but it has become clear to me that what consoled him was prophecy, which is why Isaiah becomes so important in the remainder of his writings. The brothers had no consolation, only regret and a fading image of how good their lives were and would still be if they had remained in Jerusalem. They labored under the crippling weight of nostalgia. Nephi did not look back to his old life for consolation; he looked forward with the prophets and with prophecy.
Nephi found comfort in two prophetic events. In addition to the prophecies and revelations he and his father received, he draws on a cloud of other prophetic witnesses to teach his family about these two events. Moses (1 Nephi 19:23), Zenock, Neum, Zenos (1 Nephi 19:10), and Isaiah (1 Nephi 19:23) all bear witness to the coming of Christ (1 Nephi 19:8-21) and the scattering and gathering of Israel that precedes the second coming of the Holy One of Israel (1 Nephi 20-22). All the prophecies in the Book of Mormon are oriented around these two events. In fact, it could be argued that the whole book is a repeated and reenacted recapitulation of these two events. We see this in a macro way in these chapters. For example, 1 Nephi 22:20-28 is a recapitulation of the preceding chapters, describing in just a few verses the prophecy of Christ’s coming (1 Nephi 22:20-21), the conditions that will prevail prior to the gathering (1 Nephi 22:22-23), and the gathering of Israel and the return of the Holy One of Israel to reign upon the earth (1 Nephi 22:24-28). This message is told repeatedly, all with the modern reader in mind. Each retelling adds something new, which can help the reader gain hope, increase in faith, grow in righteousness, and prepare to take part in the great work of gathering Israel and the welcome return of the Holy One of Israel.