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1 But behold, I, Jacob, would speak unto you that are pure in heart. Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down justice upon those who seek your destruction.
The first crime was pride (demonstrated through the wearing of costly apparel) that caused the to believe themselves superior to their fellow villagers. The second involved polygyny, with women being taken away captive. Now that Jacob has made a shift in the audience he is addresses, he calls this part of the audience the "pure in heart." There are three types of people Jacob may be including in the "pure of heart." the first would be the women and the children, whom he has just described as being of broken hearts (Jacob 2:35, the immediately preceding verse). The second type might be those who are being derided for not being as good as the wealthy (Jacob 2: 13). The third would be any who are righteous but not included in the two persecuted groups. While any or all of these three might be meant understanding this group most strictly is important because Jacob tells us that they are in danger of "destruction." The first piece of information in discerning those whom Jacob is addressing as "pure in heart" is that they are threatened with destruction. The fact that this entire audience has assembled to hear Jacob at the temple, and that they have come expecting to hear the "pleasing word of God" (Jacob 2:8) and that they have until now been obedient (Jacob 2:4) rather eliminates the righteous men option. For all that they are falling into error (and Jacob specifically notes that they are beginning to be proud - Jacob 2:5), they are still sufficiently righteous to want to listen to "the pleasing word of God." The second piece of information about those who would seek to destroy the pure in heart is that the only solution Jacob can offer is prayer! Of course it is always a worthy suggestion that one might pray, but is there no other recourse against imminent destruction? Where is law? One again we must turn to reasonable speculation based on the anthropological hints provided in Nephi and Jacob's text. The most important datum to remember is that Nephi was selected King, and orchestrated a peaceful selection of the next King. Even though kingship would be embued with the divine, it appears to have functioned secularly as well. Thus we may be certain that there was a type of government available, and that there were both laws and means of enforcing those laws. When Jacob is describing a destruction, he does not appear to be speaking rhetorically (though he will use the theme of destruction rhetorically in verse 3). Rather, this is a threat of sufficient weight that he begs those threatened to invoke the protection of God. What Jacob does not do is tell anyone that something illegal has occurred, or that the sanction of the local government has been called into play. To put it bluntly, if the "pure in heart" are being threatened with destruction, where are the police? In any internal strife we would expect that the established modes of legal sanction would be called into play. Therefore, if those threatened with destruction were the poor who were thought to be lesser than the rich, then we would expect the rich to be told that the poor would be protected. The very fact that social division in a relatively small village is so destructive that it becomes the reason for Jacob's condemnation of the pride of the rich tells us that Jacob would use all available power to prevent such discord let alone any threat of physical violence - of destruction. The only place where we have a conflict that can lead to destruction where Jacob cannot use the authority of government is outside of he bounds of the village. There is no regional government this point in time with each village and city being fairly autonomous, although smaller hamlets might choose to affiliate with a nearby village. In this social structure, the village of Nephi has no legal authority over other villages. We can then set the scenario that Jacob is describing. The reason the "pure in heart" must pray for deliverance is that there is no legal recourse for them. Perhaps war might have been an option, but if the women who are sent to be wives in these foreign villages are going due to negotiations entered into a part of the trading exercise, then there would also be little legal or moral support for war, since those who were receiving the women would be doing so in good faith, and according to their culture. This scenario highlights the women as the "pure in heart" who are in danger, and explains why the only recourse is prayer, but it does not adequately explain the "destruction." While a real threat, Jacob is probably exaggerating the physical danger. It is very unlikely that anyone incurring a second wife would do so specifically to endanger her. In the context of trade, either the relationships to the trading partner or the very expense of receiving the bride mitigate against destroying her. Thus the "destruction" appears to refer to the removal of the women from their village, and probably from their religion (there is no indication of any other village of Nephite religion). It is a social destruction, not a physical one.
2 O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever.
Let us look upon the situation as it might have been. Jacob is addressing a mixed crowd, among whom are both the men who have become wealthy traders, and the women whom they have "traded" away (probably more for the creation of alliances than as merchandise, but the effect is the same for the women). These women will be sent "away into captivity" where they will be in a new culture with not only different marriage rules, but a different religion. As believers who are being sent away from their community of belief Jacob enjoins them to pray, and to feel the love of God. His last comment is the most poignant, for he tells them that if they remain steadfast, they may feel that love forever - even though they are away from that community of belief!
3 But, wo, wo, unto you that are not pure in heart, that are filthy this day before God; for except ye repent the land is cursed for your sakes; and the Lamanites, which are not filthy like unto you, nevertheless they are cursed with a sore cursing, shall scourge you even unto destruction.
He first contrasts the cleanliness of the pure in heart to the filthiness of the "not pure in heart." This contrast is implicit rather than explicit. His next contrast is between Lamanite and Nephite. Jacob clearly understands the categorical use of the term Lamanite as indicative of the opposite of Nephite, where the standard social determination is that Nephite = good and Lamanite = bad. Jacob turns this cultural definition upside down, and declares (that in this one thing) that the Lamanites are superior to the Nephites. He gives a reversal of expected usage, now applying filthiness to the Nephites, an thereby implying a cleanliness for the Lamanites, a complete reversal of standard expectations. His final literary parallel is to place the future "destruction" of the Nephites as a mirror of the "destruction" of the pure in heart. Just as these pure women will be destroyed by an outside force, so will these Nephite men be destroyed by the outside Lamanites (unless they repent).
4 And the time speedily cometh, that except ye repent they shall possess the land of your inheritance, and the Lord God will lead away the righteous out from among you.
5 Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father—that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.
Clearly I don't believe so, but that still leaves this verse begging explication. I suggest that the reason is found in the multiple meanings of Lamanite, according to Jacob himself. Jacob tells us that although there was a collective term Nephite and Lamanite, there were still tribal name (Jacob 1:13). Of course this applies to the Lamanite as well. I suggest that the "Lamanites our brethren" was a specific designation Jacob uses to refer to the specific set of people who followed Jacob's brother. This would be in contrast to a generic Lamanite term that would be used similarly to the way Jews use the term "gentile." Therefore, Jacob would be saying that his brother and his followers did obey the command of Lehi while the Nephites (both literal and collective) had not. Because Jacob is commending them for obeying a command from Lehi this can pertain only to those who would have received that commandment. Of the generic Lamanites there would have been just as few as of the literal Nephites. They may also have founded a village, but they cannot account for the larger numbers of people in the land that fall under the collective term Lamanite. Those others who were already in the land would have been under no such mandate, not knowing Lehi, nor caring about the commands of the foreign visitor. Jacob's tactic is to make a very personal statement, contrasting the supposed unrighteous people of one of Lehi's sons with the supposed righteous people of Nephi. This very intimate parallel depends upon both the familiar connection and the reversal of unrighteousness/righteousness between the Lamanite and Nephite peoples. There is certainly no love between Lamanite and Nephite, no doubt not the least reason being to armed conflicts between the two groups (though it is not clear in Nephi's description in 2 Nephi 5: whether Nephi uses the term as the collective or the personal meaning). Nevertheless, Jacob cites a very specific reason why the genetic Lamanites are hated; "... whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins." This matches very well with the original description of the Lamanites after the split between the siblings. In this context, however, what is most interesting is that this reason for "hate" is used as a literary synonym for unrighteousness. In Jacob's sets of parallels, he must contrast extremes. The Nephites certainly consider themselves as righteous, and Jacob will explicitly say that the Lamanites are more righteous than the Nephites. The only evidence that they should be thought of as unrighteous comes in the designation of "filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skin." However these external signs might otherwise be read they clearly have an attached meaning of unrighteousness - a meaning Jacob counts on to make his point.
6 And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people.
One should not necessarily read into this very specific promise a wholesale promise of destruction for a people living polygamy, as we have already discussed the very specific temporal nature of this commandment to the Lehites. Similarly, the nature of the fulfillment of this prophecy suggests that it, too, was tied to a specific time and place.
7 Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator?
8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.
9 Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers. Jacob 3:10 10 Wherefore, ye shall remember your children, how that ye have grieved their hearts because of the example that ye have set before them; and also, remember that ye may, because of your filthiness, bring your children unto destruction, and their sins be heaped upon your heads at the last day.
The reference to skin and filthiness is a reference to unrighteousness (symbolic for however much it might have had a physical antecedent). This filthiness of the Lamanite fathers is placed in the past, with the current Lamanites in a more righteous position. This is contrasted to the current "filthiness" of the Nephite men, even though their fathers were clean and "white." The imagery flowing through Jacob's discourse continues to rely upon a reading of filthiness and skin of darkness as terms connoting unrighteousness. Whatever physical changes may have come upon the literal Lamanites after their separation from the literal Nephites, the physical signs were turned into linguistically connoting symbols marking their position of unrighteousness before the Lord, an unrighteousness that derived from their attempts to kill Nephi, and perhaps a subsequent abandonment of many of the teachings of the Law of Moses (although this is not clearly known for this time period).
11 O my brethren, hearken unto my words; arouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may awake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell that ye may not become angels to the devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death.
12 And now I, Jacob, spake many more things unto the people of Nephi, warning them against fornication and lasciviousness, and every kind of sin, telling them the awful consequences of them.
Arguing for the continuation proposal, Jacob specifically mentions various sins that he discussed, and forbade them "telling them the awful consequences of them." This matches thematically with the rest of the speech, and suggests that he simply gave them "more of the same." The second possibility is that Jacob actually concluded his sermon at the temple on that occasion with our current verse 11. This verse would then be a brief recognition that he did speak to them on other occasions, and that on other occasions he also remonstrated them, calling them to repentance. While both are plausible, I opt for the second as the more logical choice. Jacob will not shy away from citing long texts as Zenos' allegory of the olive tree will attest. It would be rather odd for Jacob to provide the text of a sermon, and then stop short of the conclusion. Nephi appeared to have done this in 2 Nephi 32 but the suggestion there was that he saw his death approaching and gave up recording the sermon to record his departing testimony. There is no apparent reason for Jacob declining to finish his sermon. Combined with the certainty that he continued to teach his people even though other sermons are not included, this verse appears to refer to something other than the specific sermon. As a final argument the sermon is so well laid out with paralleling opposites, that tacking on other sins would seem to diminish the art of the speech.
13 And a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, which now began to be numerous, cannot be written upon these plates; but many of their proceedings are written upon the larger plates, and their wars, and their contentions, and the reigns of their kings.
Jacob gives us four pieces of important historical information in these verses: population increases, wars, contentions, and multiple kings. Population increases: When Jacob notes that his people began to be numerous, he must be speaking about a time subsequent to Nephi's death. Therefore we understand that his village is growing. If it began with around 300 households, how many more would be added? Let's suppose that 1/3 of the households have children who mature to marrying age during the time Jacob is keeping the plates (at least a 30 year period perhaps at least 20 years by this point). The marriage pattern of the Nephites appears to be patrilocal, that is, we expect that the women go to the place of the men (this is one of the inferences from the women being sent to another village as polygamous wives). If we presume half male and half female, and they marry each other so that there is no net gain in the number of people, we still have a probable gain of 50 households. In the Mesoamerican pattern the new household would be added into the cluster of the parents, a process that works for probably the oldest children, those who stand to inherit position. Others would be moving out of the central spaces and into the rural areas that support the center village. This scenario does not seem sufficient to cause Jacob to remark that his people began to be numerous. Of course Jacob may simply be using a figure of speech to indicate that the people grew as a normal population would, but later figures for the Nephite polity suggest a higher growth rate. It is most likely, at the very least, that just as Nephite women were being sent to other villages, women from other villages were being brought into the village of Nephi. If for no other reason that the avoidance of incest taboos, this would appear to be necessary. Additionally, just as I suggested that early in Lehite history a hamlet would have joined with the Lehites, it would be an understandable pattern if an emerging trading power began to attract more dependant hamlets as its wealth grew. With the description of the trading wealth and probable reasons for a trade advantage there would be sufficient incentive for other proximate villages to turn to the village of Nephi for their political and cultural center. I suggest that by the end of Jacob's life we may be conservatively looking at a village of 450 to 500 households, with perhaps some dependant hamlets. Remember that households will translate in to a greater number of adults, say slightly over two per household (father, mother, and at times and adult child prior to marriage) Therefore we are easily looking at a population over a 1,000. It would not be surprising, however, that the prosperity of the village would have attracted more people to the Nephite community, and even double that number would be reasonable. Wars: Jacob doesn't spend time on wars, just as Nephi did not spend time on them. Nevertheless, with a village having only perhaps 40 to 50 years of existence, it would seem that warfare was a fairly frequent occurrence. Just as clearly, we must see the Nephites as ether victors or at least able to establish a draw in those conflicts. They were not conquered in the wars, or surely we would have evidence of that. The wars also suggest that the increase in population that Jacob notes is even more difficult to sustain without an influx of outside people. Even in Mesoamerican wars that were fought more for captives than immediate killing, there would nevertheless be deaths in the battles, and what captives were taken would be just as dead to the remaining population after their removal to the capturing village or city. For years Mesoamericanists depicted the Maya as a nation of peaceful star-gazing, priests. Recent work underlines the continuous nature of Maya warfare. While the data come from a period later than the Book of Mormon, those data are nevertheless coming from an area that drank deeply from their cultural roots in the same area as that proposed for the Book of Mormon. With the evidence of such constant warfare in the Book of Mormon, warfare that begins very early in the life of the Nephite people, it appears that even at this early time this part of the world existed in a constant state of anticipation or participation in warfare. However, there is an interesting suggestion that wars might actually have benefited the people of Nephi. In discussing the effects of a series of wars between two major Maya polities, Schele and Matthews suggest: " One result of the competition for territory, resources, and tribute was a cataclysmic series of wars between the competing alliances led by Tikal and Kalak'mul that began in the sixth century. In the archaeology, kingdoms that won wars during these conflicts show enormous growth in population, in wealth at all social levels, in access to foreign goods, and in extensive building programs. Losers usually show the reverse, but being a winner or loser was rarely permanent. Reversals of fortunes and the resulting change in economic status were commonplace. (Schele, Linda, and Peter Matthews. The Code of Kings. Scribner. 1998, p.20). If this later pattern were to be imputed forward in time, the victory in wars would have increased the prestige of the Nephites, and brought with it an increase in wealth through tribute as well as trade. Note that the wealth through tribute occurs at all social levels, so that in and of itself is no explanation for the social divisions among the Nephites. The last piece of information is that the attached peoples also become more numerous. It is possible that the victories in wars expanded the population significantly beyond the number of households I was suggesting. The dampening data on population for this time period is archaeological. Even though the "Nephis" might be called "kings" it is doubtful that there was a much of a state at this time period, and certainly none is known archaeologically. Joyce Marcus suggest that populations around 1000-2000 people (with about 5 people per household, making the 400 household level a very large community in this time period) were perhaps the largest sizes that could be sustained prior to the development of the state (Marcus, Joyce. "The Size of the Early Mesoamerican Village." In: The Early Mesoamerican Village. ed. Kent V. Flannery. Academic Press, 1976, p. 89). Contentions: Why does Jacob note both war and contentions? We might be tempted to lump them into the same category, but I suspect that Jacob is telling us more than two words for the same thing. Wars are external affairs. I suggest that contentions are internal affairs, divisions of opinion, culture, or politics that provided occasions of discord in the community. The very fact that this summary comes on the heels of a community discord strengthens this position. We may understand the forces leading to such internal contentions better if we picture this incipient Nephite nation as a conglomerate people, built on the basis of a small core of Old World people with desirable talents, and the influx of large numbers of "others" who would bring with them very different cultural (and religious) expectations. The presence of these competing ideas is the kindling for social contentions. Multiple kings: The last piece of information is Jacob's restatement that he has seen multiple kings. As suggested earlier this too is probably an artifact of a society engaged in Mesoamerican warfare. Schele and Freidel note: " There were many hazards o challenge kings - wars, intrigues, and natural catastrophes. A king was literally at risk all his life; and more than one king ended his rule, not by dying of peaceful old age but by being taken captive in a war he was too old to fight. (Schele, Linda, and David Freidel. A Forest of Kings. New York, William Morrow and Company, Inc. 1990, p. 60).
14 These plates are called the plates of Jacob, and they were made by the hand of Nephi. And I make an end of speaking these words.
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| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1999 |
Jacob
3:1
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