Come, Follow Me April 22-28: Mosiah 1-4
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.
King Benjamin's Address: Beginnings
By Jeffrey G. Cannon
In her 2024 New Year’s message, Queen Margarethe II of Denmark announced she would step down and hand over the crown to her son, who would become King Frederik X. A similar scene, including an aging monarch, a royal transition, and a new beginning, introduces the book of Mosiah. At the beginning of this book, we meet King Benjamin, who is likewise preparing to abdicate in favor of his son Mosiah. As part of his preparations, Benjamin charges his heir to “make a proclamation throughout all this land among all this people...that thereby they may be gathered together” so he could address them (Mosiah 1:10). This week’s reading covers two significant sections of Benjamin’s address. First, in chapter 2, he discusses service and obedience. Second, he recounts the words of an angel, who foretells the ministry of Jesus Christ, in chapter 3.
When the angel appears to Benjamin, he says he has “come to declare unto you [Benjamin] the glad tidings of great joy” because “the Lord hath heard thy prayers, and hath judged of thy righteousness” (Mosiah 3:3–4). The declaration of the joyful news came as a result of Benjamin’s righteousness. It seems significant, then, that in recounting his experience with the angel, Benjamin places it after an exhortation to his people to “consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God” in chapter 2 (Mosiah 2:41). Benjamin seems to have included the information in chapter 2 as instructions to his people how they might receive this joy—the glad tidings of Christ’s prophesied coming—themselves.
For Benjamin, service to others is fundamental to righteousness. He has made service a hallmark of his reign as a servant-king. After cataloging some of his service to the Nephites, he demurs, thinking his listeners may think he is boasting (Mosiah 2:12–15). Instead, he explains, he is trying to teach them an important lesson. This is the point at which he delivers what is possibly his most memorable teaching:
And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God. (Mosiah 2:17)
Benjamin’s people have not always served each other. At least, they don’t seem to have served each other without regard for certain ongoing distinctions.
Although Benjamin refers to them as a single people, when he tasked Mosiah to gather his subjects together, he designated both “the people of Zarahemla, and the people of Mosiah who dwell in the land” (Mosiah 1:10). It appears that even after the many years since Benjamin’s father Mosiah discovered the people of Zarahemla (Omni 1:12–22), the two groups had not yet coalesced into a single people. [1]
As the Book of Mosiah begins, Benjamin and his people are living in a time of peace, but this has not always been the case. Before they were discovered by Mosiah’s party, the people of Zarahemla, or the Mulekites, “had had many wars and serious contentions” (Omni 1:17). Internal contentions among the newly-combined Nephites and Mulekites also arose during Benjamin’s reign. At least some of the contentions arose from “false Christs, . . . false prophets, and false preachers and teachers among the people.” However, Benjamin had been able to pacify them “with the assistance of the holy prophets who were among his people” (Words of Mormon 1:12, 15–16).
As Benjamin begins his speech in chapter 2, he rejects the notion of differences between individuals. By using himself as an example, he denies any ontological separation between king and people and argues for the equality of all human beings. Rather than addressing them as his subjects, he calls them “My brethren,” not differentiating between his fellow descendants of Nephi and the Mulekites (Mosiah 2:9). He continues his denial of any fundamental differences between them and himself: “I have not commanded you to come up hither that ye should fear me, or that ye should think that I of myself am more than a mortal man. But I am like yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind” (Mosiah 2:10). As “a mortal man,” like his people, Benjamin explains their common duty to serve one another as a form of worship. He asks, “if I, whom ye call your king, do labor to serve you, then ought not ye to labor to serve one another?” (Mosiah 2:18).
The answer is, of course, yes.
[1] Grant Hardy, ed., The Annotated Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), 230n10–12.