Episode 3: And Thus Begins the Worst Family Vacation Ever (1Ne. 2-4)

This is a photograph of Laman and Lemuel.  Lemuel's
saying, "Are we there yet?"

There's been a lot of speculation on whether or not Lehi and Jeremiah knew each other.  Jeremiah was a well known guy (and he wrote the second longest book in the Old Testament): a man of influence in addition to his being a prophet of the Lord.  Lehi appears to likewise have been a man of some influence (or, at the very least, of some affluence, which often brings influence with it)--so it's not too much of a stretch that the two might have known each other.

What's interesting are the parallels in their ministries.  Jeremiah mentions that there were numerous prophets throughout the land.  He also mentions how some of these prophets were sent by God, and some of them...not so much (Hananiah is an example).  We know from Nephi's account that there was at least one attempt on Lehi's life by those who were uncomfortable with dissenting voices amongst the people (1 Ne. 2:13).  Jeremiah was given no better treatment (see Jer. 18:18).  However, this is where the parallel roads in these two prophets' paths now begin to diverge.

Jeremiah longed to get out of town and never come back.  In Jer. 9:2 he sounds almost nostalgic as he fantasizes leaving Jerusalem and living a much simpler life in the country.  And there were some groups in Jerusalem who did, in fact, do this at this time.

This guy is how I picture what the
Rechabites looked like.  (He looks
so happy, doesn't he?)

The Rechabites were one: they wanted to live as close to how things were before the Fall of Adam as possible--thus, they didn't even eat wheat since this was what Adam had to reap "by the sweat of [his] brow" after he had been driven from the Garden of Eden.


Another example are the Essenes (for whom we can thank for the Dead Sea Scrolls).

The Essenes lived in "lavish" homes
built from rock like those seen in the
ruins pictured above.  They may not
have built fancy, but they sure built
sturdy.

The Dead Sea Scrolls give us a glimpse
into how important it was for desert
communities (like Lehi's) to keep records.

And even six hundred years later we read of a prophet in the wilderness named John (called "the Baptist"), who maintained this same, simple, "country life" of living on locusts and honey (I assume he dipped the locusts in the honey, because that's the only way I can imagine eating a giant grasshopper. Wait, who am I kidding?  I wouldn't eat one even if it was dipped in honey!)

I kid you not, I came across a picture
of a "locust taco" while looking for
a picture of a locust. I was tempted to
use that image instead, but it was
just too disturbing.

But Jeremiah didn't have the luxury of skipping town.  He was stuck "going down with the ship," while it was Lehi who was the one commanded to leave Jerusalem.  I wonder if Jeremiah knew of Lehi's trip, prompting him to bemoan his own fate in those opening verses of chapter nine...



Hugh Nibley has a compelling argument for the possible route taken by Lehi and his family.  There are other theories out there, but his is the one I'm most familiar with and with which I most agree.

This is the Red Sea, along which they
travelled during the outset of their
journey (1 Ne. 2:5).

According to Nibley, the first place that Lehi & Co. set up camp was in the Arabah.  (There was no Del Taco there, but it worked).

Wadi Arabah: this is likely what Nephi
was referring to when he mentions the
"wilderness" in 1 Ne. 2:4.

Nephi also makes an interesting declaration in verse 15 of chapter 2: "And my father dwelt in a tent." This wasn't only pithy: this was significant.  They were no longer the cosmopolitan city dwellers.  They had now taken up the life of the bedouin.  Things had changed and they would never be the same.

Bedouin tent

Tension continued to build between the two oldest sons--Laman and Lemuel--and the rest of the family.  It makes sense, though, that they would doubt their father: Christ himself said that "no prophet is accepted in his own country"--this is certainly true for many prophets' families.  If I told my kids I was a prophet, they would die laughing.  (I can barely get them to clean up their room!  A trip into the desert to establish a splinter colony of God's covenant people...? Yeah, not happening).  Nephi is quick to point out that he was able to get past any initial doubt by going out and praying to know for himself whether or not what his dad was talking about was true.  Is this not an example for all of us in making the transition from our parents' testimonies to gaining our own?  We can either gripe and moan and follow blindly like Laman and Lemuel ("I don't wanna go to seminary!"), or we can know for ourselves like Nephi (becoming agents to "act for [our]selves, and not to be acted upon" [2 Ne. 2:26]).

The foundations of his testimony laid, it was now time for Nephi's training as the future leader of the family to begin.  His first mission: they were commanded to go back and get a set of records--the brass plates.  (Cue "Mission Impossible" theme music).

It's important to notice Nephi's language in referring to their trips to and from Jerusalem (1 Ne. 3:10).  He says "go up to Jerusalem" when heading towards the city, and "go down from Jerusalem" when leaving the city.  Jerusalem sits on a high plateau (it was originally a military stronghold for the Jebusites), and because of this, it was common for people to say they were going "up" when going to Jerusalem, and going "down" when leaving.

Here you can see the path to Jerusalem is up a long slope.
You can also see the city wall around "old" Jerusalem:
everything else (all those apartments and high-rises) were
just more desert during Nephi's time.

You'll notice that in the process of trying to obtain the plates, they failed on the first two attempts.  In these attempts, they tried to rely solely on their own reasoning and tactics (and notice also how at first the lot fell on Laman to get the plates from Laban; he was the firstborn and was supposed to be the one leading and setting an example--not Nephi).

This is a "cavity in a rock,"
like what Nephi and his brothers
had to hide in while Laban's goons
were hunting for them.

Finally, on the third try, when Nephi put himself completely into the hands of God, they were successful.

There was just one snag, however: Nephi had to kill a man.

Nevertheless, the Lord is always preparing the way for his children to accomplish what he commands them to do (1 Ne. 3:7).  This is part of the reason that I think God sent an angel to intervene when Laman and Lemuel were beating their younger brothers with sticks: not only to save Nephi's life (being chased by the guards of Laban after having all their property seized over an erroneous charge of "robbery" was apparently Laman and Lemuel's breaking point), but to also further solidify Nephi's faith in God and confidence in their mission.  Seeing an angel must have made it so that in just a short time later, when Nephi would be told by the Spirit to cut off a guy's head, he would actually be able to do it.

Intense, right?

The streets of Jerusalem at night.  They didn't have nice
electric streetlights, like what you see here.  In such poor
lighting, it would have been fairly easy for Nephi to dress
up in Laban's clothes and trick Laban's servant into
 thinking that Nephi was his master, Laban.

But even after all the scummy things Laban did to them, Nephi hesitated when the prompting came to kill the man.  I would do the same!  I can barely stand up for myself when McDonald's gets my order wrong, let alone decapitating a corrupt government official who just stole all my family's fortune and then sent his guards to kill me and my brothers.

Anyway, we know the story.  It's at this point, where Nephi hovers in indecision, standing over Laban's sleeping, drunken form, that the Spirit makes the first mention of a great nation coming from Nephi's lineage.  The pieces must have begun to come together for him: his dad's talk of a promised land, needing to obtain a set of records that preserves their heritage and their genealogy and their language--something much bigger was in the works here.  Nephi lifted that sword over his head and took a man's life.

Definitely no turning back now.

(For further reading, check out these two articles: one is from the New Era (Jan. 2008) and discusses the possible routes taking by Lehi and his family [https://www.lds.org/new-era/2008/01/was-lehi-here?lang=eng] and the other is found on the website for the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship [http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=15&num=2&id=419]