Insights from Lehi’s Contemporaries:
Solon and Jeremiah
58 The Book of Mormon tells us “for whom the bell tolls. “Lehi and his great contemporaries started a lot of chain reactions. We don’t mention them just because they were interesting curiosities, or anything like that, but because we are still living on their capital.
62 Mosiah, in chapter 29, gives a long sermon to his people on this subject [men sinking into slavery under a single lord]. His sons refuse to become kings. He says if you make a man king, you can’t replace him. Remember the case of King Noah; it’s going to be awfully tough. “Now is the time to be observant of all these things. If ye have suffered the melancholy consequences of your own incompetence, do not attribute this evil fortune to the gods. You have yourselves raised up these men to power over you and have reduced yourself by this course to a wretched state of servitude. Each man among you individually [this is the way it goes; this is your free enterprise] walketh with the tread of a fox, but collectively you are a set of simpletons. You don’t act together at all, but for yourself you’re all out to get it.” Now this is the fatal thing. Rhetoric is the secret of the whole thing. We get it in the Book of Mormon too: “For ye look to the tongue and play of a man’s speech and regard not the deed which is done before your eyes [the skillful rhetoric, the skillful speech].” This reminds us that the Book of Mormon has characters that are concerned with this philosophical rationalism and atheism, such as Nehor and Korihor, who are also men of great ambition. There’s a whole string of them in the Book of Mormon who are very skillful in speech and do the same sort of thing. The people “look to the tongue and play of a man’s speech.” Remember, he was “skillful in many words,” we are told; he led all the people, and they just loved him. King Noah was extremely popular that way.
62 But what about the religion? This man has had experience. This is a theme you get in all the Greek tragedies. Remember, the Book of Mormon is a tragic book; it is “a voice from the dust.” It’s very sad, as you know. It begins on a note of destruction and ends on a note of destruction. It begins with lone survivors in the wilderness and ends with a lone survivor. There’s nothing more sad than survival; it’s a dirty word. “Thus all men of mortal mold, good and bad, think by straining every nerve to win a fair name, each man for himself by his own unaided efforts, until something befall him from without. Then straightway cometh pain. Until then, like gaping fools, we amuse ourselves with empty dreams. He who is worn by cruel disease [this is the American dream too; I can give you many cases] pondereth how one day he will be whole [our constant preoccupation with medicine and cures, miracle and otherwise].
64 1 Nephi 7:14 Let’s go on to somebody who’s going to tell the same story exactly, but should be required reading for anyone who intends to study the Book of Mormon. If we put nothing else on the reading list, this is number one, two, three, four, and five. Of course, it’s Jeremiah. As we read 1 Nephi 7:14, it appears that Jeremiah must have been a close personal friend of Lehi (he mentions him personally). “For behold, the Spirit of the Lord ceaseth soon to strive with them; for behold, they have rejected the prophets, and Jeremiah have they cast into prison [this is contemporary; it’s Nephi speaking to his people]. And they have sought to take away the life of my father, insomuch that they have driven him out of the land.” So they imprisoned Jeremiah, and they drove Lehi out of the land, who belonged to the party of Jeremiah. Now, we have very good contemporary sources which we will soon mention here that put us right into the scene—discovered between 1935 and 1938. No one believed him, as you will see from the book of Jeremiah, they didn’t want to believe him. They knew he was right, as he said, but they didn’t want to believe him. He had no large following at all, but he had some who were faithful to him, including prophets in the city and in the country (a faithful band). One of those was certainly Lehi. Being a very influential man and being of the party of Jeremiah, Lehi would have known Jeremiah (they were certainly contemporary). Jeremiah tells us about the situation in Jerusalem
68 1 Nephi 22:23 These are the four things men are after. The Book of Mormon tells us there are four things that everyone is after. First Nephi says it, and the younger prophet Nephi says the very same thing. The four things everybody seeks for in the Book of Mormon are: wealth, power, popularity, and the lusts of the flesh (plenty of sex and all the rest of it). This was Lehi’s world, this was Jeremiah’s world, and this was Solon’s world. And there were these very developed societies with everything relatively peaceful at times. But there was great tension between Egypt in the West (in which Israel is putting its trust) and Babylon in the East (the great Asiatic power).
68 Mosiah 4:11 This takes us back to Mosiah 4:11: “I would that ye should remember ... the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you.” Then you “shall always rejoice [there’s nothing to worry about].” But it keeps everything churned up if people are after the power, the gain, and the celebrity.
72 So this is the Jerusalem of Jeremiah. There’s a lot more, of course. This is the second longest book in the Bible (52 chapters). Isaiah is 66 chapters. In Jeremiah you will find the story of what was going on. But what you find in the Book of Mormon is not a rehash or a paraphrase of Jeremiah at all. It’s a much fuller picture of the specifics of what was going on. You get a marvelous picture of what was happening. We’ll talk about that next time and his getting out.