[Clausewitz on War]
[Waters of Sebus]
Ammon and King Lamoni
367 You may ask why we are getting stuck on this trivial episode about the waters of Sebus, but it’s a very important part of the Book of Mormon, and a very important part of warfare. You don’t get into the big wars until later on, but we must mention Karl von Clausewitz (1783-1831). He wrote a great two-volume work, which for 150 years has been the bible of the military. It wasn’t published until 1833, so Joseph Smith is “saved by the bell” there, isn’t he? He couldn’t have used it, although the Book of Mormon reads exactly as if it had been written by someone who had been a diligent student of Clausewitz. The main thesis is a thesis of the Book of Mormon. It begins this way. His first famous dictum is that “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” That’s the way he puts it—war is just a continuation of politics. And what is politics after? It’s after power and gain. Whether it’s the princes, or whether it’s the industrial barons, they want power and they want gain. Of course, they get it that way. He goes into various wars. He was very active in the Napoleonic Wars.
367 The second rule is that “war is absolute.” When you have decided to fight, CEDUNT LEGES. As the Romans say, “Forget about the laws.” If you are going to follow a civilized discussion, you discuss. But when you decide to kick and scratch and gouge and shoot each other, it’s silly to talk about laws. He says it’s absurd to talk about laws of war or anything like that. War is absolute. When you are into it, you are into it all the way. You can’t just go partly. If you’re going to go partly, why don’t you continue discussion in that case? No, you throw the rule book aside. That’s important with him. He says, as in the world of mules, there are no rules for battle. There are no rules, he says; throw away the book.
368 The third point of Clausewitz: What is the object? It is the total destruction of the other side’s capacity to do anything at all—their total submission. So it’s total destruction. That’s what we have in the Book of Mormon. They begin with setting their hearts on riches, and they are already on the high road to destruction. That’s what the Book of Mormon tells us again and again. They set their hearts on riches; therefore, one thing was going to happen. We get more of this later. It builds up climactically until you get those terrible, terrible chapters in Mormon that are so modern, so frightening, and so relevant.
368 Alma 17:26-35; Alma 18:7 But how about this business at the waters of Sebus? It’s best to read very quickly a summary, and then we’ll see what it is. This is in Alma 17, as you know: All the Lamanites would drive their flocks to a particular watering place (Alma 17:26). And when they got there, “a certain number of Lamanites, who had been with their flocks to water, stood and scattered the ... [king’s] flocks.” That was a fine thing to do, and this was routine. This had been done many times. After the [flocks] of the king “scattered ... and fled many ways,” the servants lamented that as a matter of course, “now the king will slay us, as he has our brethren” (Alma 17:28). And they began to weep. Is everybody crazy here? What insanity is this, the king kills his own servants for losing a contest that had been acted out before? In fact, we are told in Alma 18:7 that “it was the practice of these Lamanites to stand by the waters of Sebus to scatter the flocks of the people keeping what they could for themselves, “it being a practice of plunder among them” (Alma 18:7). It looks like it was a regular custom. So it was no secret to anyone; this was not an ambush but something to be expected. But the king’s own flocks? How could they get away with that? Didn’t he have enough men to protect them if this happened regularly? Well, for one thing the Lamanites played the game for sport; it was more than meat that they were after, for “they delighted in the destruction of their brethren; and for this cause they stood to scatter the flocks of the king” (Alma 17:35). They thought it was great sport. The Arabs have a saying, “If we cease GHAZA, we will cease to live. A GHAZA is a raid’, our word raid is from the Arabic GHAZA. They must raid or life isn’t worth living. “Life is raiding.”
368,369 Alma 17:36; Alma 19:21 The fun of it was their main interest, but Ammon spoiled the fun when he “stood forth and began to cast stones at them with his sling.” They were outraged: “They began to be astonished . . . [and] angry” (Alma 17:36)—he wasn’t playing the game fair. So they came after him with clubs. Why only clubs? He had a sword. There is only one way you can wield a club; you cannot cut or thrust with it but have to raise it up over your head and thus expose your arms. (With both arms the strongest blow is possible.) Ammon took full advantage of the situation, slicing away at the arms raised against him. And yet, with his overwhelming advantage, Ammon “slew none save it were their leader with his sword” (Alma 17:38). He knocked six of them out with his sling and cut off the arms of others as they raised their clubs, but he only contended with the leader to death. After that, the winning party or team brought back the trophies to the king, “bearing the arms which had been smitten off by the sword of Ammon” (Alma 17:39). By now it should be clear that we are dealing with a sort of game; a regular practice, following certain rules. This becomes apparent when a few days later, the very men “who had stood at the waters of Sebus and scattered the flocks” (Alma 19:21) mingled freely and openly with the crowd of people [Lamanites] gathered at the palace. They were the ones that scattered the king’s flocks and got the king’s followers executed by law, according to the game. They gathered at the palace at a report that strange things were going on. Ammon was causing some stir inside the palace.
369 Alma 19:20,21 Some of the people said these things were happening because the king “slew his servants.” The king began to regret it now. That’s an interesting thing. The king saw nothing wrong whatever with killing his servants who lost flocks. He’s stunned later on when it suddenly occurs to him that this might have been a sin. Already people began to say that these things were happening because the king “slew his servants who had had their flocks scattered at the waters of Sebus” (Alma 19:20); and the very men who had scattered the king’s flocks loudly announced their presence by shouting abuses at Ammon when he came out for what he had done “to their brethren at the waters of Sebus” (Alma 19:21).
369 Alma 19:22 They were there to get revenge on Ammon right at the king’s palace. The brother of the head man (whom Ammon had killed with his sword) drew his own sword on the spot (he had a sword, too, you see) and made at Ammon (Alma 19:22). He attacked Ammon and was going to finish him off on the spot. So the men had swords but only used clubs. Isn’t that odd, and isn’t it odd that those same wicked Lamanites [not only] walked around right in front of the king’s palace where everybody recognized them, but nobody did anything about it? They were perfectly free to come and go. And no one held it against the winning team that they had stolen their flocks back (nothing wrong with that), but the losers were only angry with Ammon because he had thrown rocks at them and used his sword against men bearing only ceremonial clubs.
372 From the days of the Jaredites to the final battle at Cumorah, we find our Book of Mormon warriors observing the correct chivalric rules of battle—enemies agreeing to the time and place of the slaughter, chiefs challenging each other to single combat for the kingdom, and so on. I have written elsewhere of the martial formalities of the Battle Scroll observed in the Book of Mormon.
372 Clausewitz said you only go through those formalities just to fool a guy. You pretend to stop so you can catch him off guard, as Zerahemnah tried to catch Moroni off guard. We say it is human nature to fight and enjoy violence. As I said, animals and savages fight regularly, especially at mating seasons. But as we have learned from nature documentaries, they know how to stop. There’s no point in killing everybody. We still do this in maneuvers today. One round in ten or one round in fifty will have live ammunition in it. That will pay the price if anybody is too careless. Or decimation still happens in armies. In the Roman army when a unit had misbehaved and deserved court martial and execution, they couldn’t execute the unit. They would be weakening the forces. They would use decimation—take out every tenth person. That would pay the price that the whole unit was supposed to pay. Duels stopped with the drawing of blood. The Indians had a better way. They would go around in a battle and say, “I touch you with a stick and you’re dead.” Or they had maneuvers where they spattered them with paint to say “you have been hit.”
372 It’s common for warriors to rest during the noonday heat. The Crusaders had the European idea. At the battle of Morocco, they wanted to go in and slaughter the Moslems. But the Moslems wisely took off for lunch and rested. In that particular battle, the one that St. Louis was in, they all died of the heat. They all had heavy armor and underclothes on. They sat on their horses waiting for the charge of the Moslems. The Moslems sat inside the walls and said, “What are those crazy people doing? It’s lunch time.” Then the heat started to take its toll and they started dropping one by one. It was a very hot day, and Morocco isn’t a cool place. It was about 120 degrees, and they were sitting there in armor with heavy wool under it to pad the armor. They were sweating and sat very stiff, rigidly awaiting the oncoming enemy. The whole army was wiped out by the heat. It’s quite a story.
374 Alma 18:2 Chapter 17 is the one about the waters of Sebus. Notice that they delighted in playing the game. Then the king is impressed. He said, “Surely, this is more than a man. Behold, is not this the Great Spirit [the words Great Spirit are going to be repeated many times, and that will turn out to be very significant for us] who doth send such great punishments upon this people, because of their murders” (Alma 18:2). The people were beginning to think that what they had done was murder. The people of Ammon later on always described their killing in battle as murder. Why did he [the king] go on murdering? It could have been ritual murders, etc.
374 Alma 18:3-5 “He cannot be slain by the enemies of the king.” He was a superman. Was the king so weak? And what about his expertness? “And now, when the king heard these words, he said unto them: Now I know that it is the Great Spirit; and he has come down at this time to preserve your lives, that I might not slay you as I did your brethren.” See, he was about to slay them; he had every intention of putting them to death. It occurs to him for the first time with rather a shock that it must be wrong to kill the way he had been doing. In other words it was an established custom; it was the thing to do. Nobody thought of it as particularly wrong. “Now this is the Great Spirit of whom our fathers have spoken [there’s something required and deliberate about it]. Now this was the tradition of Lamoni, which he had received from his father, that there was a Great Spirit; . . . they supposed that whatsoever they did was right.” The Lamanites were following their customs and their rites. So King Lamoni says he “supposed that whatsoever they did was right [so do we; we suppose that whatsoever we do is right]; nevertheless, Lamoni began to fear exceedingly [now he had doubts], with fear lest he had done wrong in slaying his servants.” It is perfectly clear that he was doing it as a custom, as a required gesture, and now it suddenly occurs to him that it might be wrong to slay his servants. You would think anybody was crazy who didn’t know that was wrong. But he didn’t. It was customary, and people do these things.
374,375 Alma 18:6,7 “For he had slain many of them [it had been the custom all along] because their brethren had scattered their flocks at the place of water.” That was the established pattern. He didn’t send an army out to defend the flocks; he just let this go on. It was the custom; the next verse makes this clear. “Now it was the practice of these Lamanites to stand by the waters of Sebus to scatter the flocks of the people, that thereby they might drive away many that were scattered unto their own land, it being a practice of plunder among them.” We have these practices carried out. That’s what a raid is, and it was perfectly legitimate.
375,376 Alma 18:8 Lamoni asked, “Where is this man that has such great power? ... He is feeding thy horses.” Now this is very important—feeding the king’s horses. You never find in the Book of Mormon anybody riding a horse. You never find any horse but the king’s horses. So Ammon was making the king’s horses and chariots ready. As in Egypt just the king used them only for special ceremonial occasions. Only the king, nobody else used them.
377 Alma 18:9 “For there had been a great feast appointed at the land of Nephi, by the father of Lamoni, who was king over all the land.” Of course, that’s the great assembly. That’s the great feast which has to be held once a year. The king and everybody must come. If you don’t come, you will be cut off from the kingdom for three years. You receive another touch stick, the king’s arrow. If the HEROR touches you, then you must come to the presence of the king as quickly as possible, and you must bring something with you for the feast. No one comes up to the presence of the king empty handed. This is universal.
378,379 Alma 18:12,13 “And it came to pass that when Ammon had made ready the horses and the chariots for the king ... he saw that the countenance of the king was changed; therefore he was about to return out of his presence. And one of the king’s servants said unto him, Rabbannah, which is ... powerful or great king ...” They called him “Rabbanah ... or great king . . .”. Rabannah is not Hebrew, as I said; it’s Aramaic. It means “a great one, a great king, a great person, a great wise man.” But it means “a person of utter preeminence” with the nah ending. With the nah, it means “our lord.” Rob is great, and Rabannah would be “our great one.” Notice that these people were Ishmaelites, which is important. That’s why they didn’t use the Hebrew term for “great king,” which would be Melek. You get Meleks (kings) all through the Book of the Mormon—Amalickiah, Mulek, etc. But here it’s Rabannah, which is what the Ishmaelites would say. We are told that these people are descendants of Ishmael in this particular community, so they would say Rabannah, “great king.” They are rather removed here.
379 Alma 18:14-17 “What wilt thou that I should do for thee, O king? And the king answered him not for the space of an hour.” The king just sat there and stared at him. He was stunned at the sight of him. Could he be the Great Spirit? It is true that the Indians all expect this Great Spirit that came down to visit them. The Hopis do, the Navajos do, they all do. They ask, “Is this the the Great Spirit? Verse 17: “I say unto you, what is it, that thy marvelings are so great? Behold, I am a man, and am thy servant.” He still stares at him and says, “Who art thou? Art thou that Great Spirit, who knows all things?” Now here’s Ammon’s big chance to take advantage, as Cortez did. The king is going to believe anything he tells him now. But “Ammon answered and said unto him: I am not.” Here was Ammon’s chance to tell a big, fat lie and convert the king. But [he wouldn’t do it].
379,380 Alma 18:20-25 “Tell me by what power ye slew and smote off the arms of my brethren that scattered my flocks. ... Now, Ammon being wise, yet harmless .. .” He’s not going to lie, but now he plays a trick [by saying], will you believe everything I tell you? The king said, I will believe everything you tell me because he was ready to take it. “And thus he was caught with guile.” Ammon said, now I can preach to him and he will believe me. So he began, “Believest thou that there is a God?” God is an epithet, you see. [Ammon] would have used Eloah or Eli. He said, “I do not know what that meaneth.” It was an unfamiliar word. “And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit?” Now, that’s the epithet they all used, the Great Spirit. “And he said, Yea. And Ammon said: “This is God,” [like saying], “This is Allah.” Do I believe in the Great Spirit? Yes. We are going to have this repeated a number of times in the rest of the book here, where the Great Spirit which they believed in is made absolutely identical with the God we believe in. So if an Indian asked me, “do you believe in the Great Spirit?” I would say, “yes, I do believe in the Great Spirit.” It’s the same thing. If an Arab asked me, “Do you believe in Allah?” there’s no other word [he could use] for God. So I would say, “Of course, I believe in Allah. I think I know more about him than you do.” “I know more about the Great Spirit than you do. Do you want to hear more?” That’s the approach that Ammon is using here. He gets him to say, yes, I believe in the Great Spirit. Then he says, well, so do I; now I’ll tell you who he is. He said, “This is God.”
380 Alma 18:26 “And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit? And he said, Yea. And Ammon said: This is God. And Ammon said unto him again: Believest thou that this Great Spirit, who is God, created all things which are in heaven and in the earth?” Well, the Indian believed that already. These are all the basic questions. “And he said: Yea, I believe that he created all things which are in the earth; but I do not know the heavens.” Well, who does? This is the cosmological aspect of it. Then Ammon explains to him more; he is going to teach him more about it. “The heavens is a place where God dwells and all his holy angels.” And King Lamoni, speaking with the innocence of a child, said, “Is it above the earth? And Ammon said: Yea, and he looketh down upon all the children of men; and he knows all the thoughts and intents of the heart; for by his hand were they all created from the beginning.” Most people think this is a primitive superstition—that heaven is a place where God dwells with all his angels. We smile at the expression.
381 Alma 18:33-39: “And king Lamoni said: I believe all these things which thou hast spoken. Art thou sent from God?” It’s very interesting that he doesn’t give him a direct answer. He’s still careful not to give a false impression or to take advantage of Lamoni’s gullibility. He could have exploited that a lot. Lamoni is willing to believe anything he will tell him, but he wants to tell him only the truth. He could have made great capital out of his gullibility and trustworthiness. “And king Lamoni said: I believe all these things which thou hast spoken. Art thou sent from God? Ammon said unto him: I am a man [so don’t get any ideas that I am superhuman or an angel or anything like that]; and man in the beginning was created after the image of God, and I am called by his Holy Spirit [he hasn’t talked to God face to face] to teach these things unto this people, that they may be brought to a knowledge of that which is just and true; [Then he meets him halfway here:] And a portion of that Spirit dwelleth in me, which giveth me knowledge, and also power according to my faith and desires which are in God.” As we said before, faith is not the power; it plugs into the power. It gives you access to the power. My faith gets me the power, but it is not the power. It amounts to it, if it comes to that. He began with the story of the [creation] and the fall “and rehearsed and laid before him the records and the holy scriptures [the project to follow this through would have been impossible without the scriptures] of the people, which had been spoken by the prophets, even down to the time that their father, Lehi, left Jerusalem, ... the journeyings of their fathers in the wilderness ... and he expounded unto them all the records and scriptures from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem down to the present time [verse 38].... For he expounded unto them the plan of redemption, which was prepared from the foundation of the world [see, he takes the gospel back to the preexistence, and he calls it the plan, you notice]; and he also made known unto them concerning the coming of Christ.”
381 Alma 18:41 “And he began to cry unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, have mercy. .. . And now, when he had said this, he fell unto the earth, as if he were dead. And it came to pass that his servants took him and carried him in unto his wife, and laid him upon a bed; and he lay as if he were dead for the space of two days and two nights; and his wife, and his sons, and his daughters mourned over him, after the manner of the Lamanites, greatly lamenting his loss.”