Wednesday, August 27, 2008

1 Nephi 7:1-7

Soon after their return from Jerusalem, their initial impressions of the plates of brass, and Lehi's bit of prophesying, the Lord speaks to them again and command them to return again to Jerusalem. This time they go back to get wives for the sons of Lehi. They went to the house of a man named Ishmael. He had five daughters and two sons. Just imagine what that would have been like. I wonder if they said something like, "Okay, ladies, let's go out to the wilderness and you have to be our wives and you had to have kids out there..." Well, Nephi does say that they convinced them to come using the words of the Lord. I don't think that anything else would have gotten them to do this.

On their way back, out favorite Laman and Lemuel rebel, with their girlfriends (I think that this characterization may be debatable. Somewhere I heard that they were, previous to leaving the first time, already something more. What do you think?) and two of the sons of Ishmael and "their families." Did that phrase refer to the two sons of Ishmael? Who were their wives? Or does it refer to Ishmael? Not sure. There are a lot of parts where the Book of Mormon is vague, and I believe it was deliberate. It shows that some things just aren't the point.

As you may have guessed, they wanted to go back and live out the rest of their life in Jerusalem. We will see tomorrow what Nephi says about that.

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