1 Nephi 5:10-EoC

This selection of text for today contains more specific information about the brass plates. It seems that Lehi and his family knew about some of the things that were on them. When Nephi and his brothers returned from Jerusalem, they gave the plates to Lehi and he began to read them.

Nephi tells that his father found out that the plates contained the five books of Moses. They are probably the same books of Moses that we have in our Bible, but I'm curious to know how different they might have been, not having gone through an age of apostasy. Then it says that there came next a record of the Jews until the current king of the land of Judah, King Zedekiah. Additionally, there were the prophecies of the holy prophets, from the beginning to the present, which included some of the words of Jeremiah. We also have a lot of those words in the current Bible, too.

We also find that Lehi is a descendant of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt, and that Laban was, too. This is why he kept the records, because they have been passed from father to son. So, in a sense, Lehi also had a right to them, too. Lehi then prophecies that the words of the brass plates would go unto all the nations that would come out of his seed. This is true because, for example, because in Alma 22:12, a missionary named Aaron opened the scriptures unto a king to teach him all about the creation of the world and the gospel.

Nephi finished by saying that up to that point, they had obeyed every commandment of the Lord. He also talks about how precious the scriptures are and how good it is to read from them. Here is the quote from Verse 21, "And we had obtained the records which the Lord had commanded us, and searched them and found that they were desirable; yea, even of great worth unto us, insomuch that we could preserve the commandments of the Lord unto our children." Do we have this attitude about reading the scriptures of our day? Do we teach from the scriptures the commandments to our children?