[Formulaic Language Structure of the Book of Mormon]
Formal Rules of Warfare
166 What does the word paradox come from? What does it mean? We use the word a lot. It has a double meaning. Para means “by the side, off side, off course, on the side.” It’s like paramilitary or paramedics. They are not all the way—they are para. And doxa is a Greek word that means appearance. So a paradox is a thing that is not as it appears. You would expect it to be different. Doxa is connected with dogma the same way. Doxa is appearance or expectation. So it’s not exactly what you think it would be.
166 Alma 54:13 There’s something wrong here. How does the smartest man of all the Nephites write the silliest letter of all the Nephites, an idiotic letter? He is bound to defeat his purpose in writing it. That is a paradox, but it can be explained, namely by the letter that Ammoron writes back to him. He writes back the same sort of thing. They both want to deal. It’s very much in the interest of each one to exchange prisoners. Moroni needs them badly, and Ammoron is tired of feeding a lot of Nephite women and children which they conquered in the cities. That’s not getting them anywhere, so they both want to exchange. But the deal falls through completely when Ammoron replies in the same terms. When he saw the epistle he was angry too. Remember, Moroni said, “I am in my anger.” So they engage in this stichomythia. We were talking about that last time.
166 Alma 54:16 This gives the case of the Lamanites. They have a case, too, supposedly. Alma 54:16: “I am the brother of Amalickiah whom ye have murdered. Behold, I will avenge his blood upon you, yea, and I will come upon you with my armies for I fear not your threatenings.” Well, that’s exactly what Moroni had said to him—we’re not afraid of your threatenings. I’ll come upon you with my armies, and you will become extinct. “For behold, your fathers did wrong their brethren, insomuch that they did rob them of their right to the government when it rightly belonged unto them.” Laman and Lemuel were robbed [according to Ammoron] because they were the older brothers. Then he makes a reasonable suggestion, just exactly as Moroni does. If you’ll do what I want you to, then we can settle this very nicely. “If ye will lay down your arms, and subject yourselves to be governed by those to whom the government doth rightly belong, then will I cause that my people shall lay down their weapons and shall be at war no more.” That’s a nice way to end the war—just give us that. Well, that’s exactly the proposition that Moroni put forth. “Behold, ye have breathed out many threatenings against me [and he did] and my people; but behold we fear not your threatenings.”
166 This is just routine; this is the sort of thing you would expect. I will grant the exchange of prisoners gladly, but if you won’t agree to our terms “we will wage a war which shall be eternal.” That’s the policy of the Moslems, to wage an eternal war until all the world has submitted. Islam means submission. Then it’s DAR AL-HARB. They are in a state of rebellion and must be subdued, so the war never stops. That’s the Roman doctrine of AGER HOSTICUS and AGER PACATUS. The empire of peace is the PAX ROMANA. Everybody [must] settle down; the world has to be that way. They can’t trust anybody else. It’s dangerous to have people out there who are not taking orders from you. That’s what imperialism is IMPAR is the unequal one, the one who dominates the whole thing.
167 Alma 54:21 : “And ... God whom ye say we have rejected, behold, we know not such a being.... And if it so be that there is a devil and a hell, behold will he not send you there to dwell with my brother whom ye have murdered, whom ye have hinted that he hath gone to such a place? But behold these things matter not. I am Ammoron, and a descendant of Zoram, whom your fathers pressed and brought out of Jerusalem.” Now he gets heated up. Remember, toward the end of his letter Moroni said, “I am in my anger.” He says here, “And behold now, I am a bold Lamanite; behold, this war hath been waged to avenge their wrongs, and to maintain and to obtain their rights to the government.” So the Lamanites really thought they had a case. You always do in a war. He presents his case here and ends up saying they’re angry. We say it’s a paradox that they should write such stuff, but this is really a formality.
167 We haven’t talked about the language of the Book of Mormon, but it is formulaic. You notice it follows in formula. We used to make fun of the many times “it came to pass” is repeated. Well, in Egyptian you have to begin a sentence like that. There are some writings, like the story of the two brothers or the story of the foredoomed prince, in which every sentence begins with the formula “it came to pass” or “it came to pass after many days.” Every sentence begins that way, and it was required. In classical Arabic you can’t begin a sentence cold and just say, “He went to town.” You have to say, “Behold, he went to town,” or “verily, he went to town,” or begin with and. You have to begin with something to soften people up. In Arabic, JNNA, behold is the most common word. In Hebrew it is HINNEH, “it came to pass.” You must put it in at the beginning of a sentence if you are going to begin with a noun. You can’t say, “The man was rich.” You have to say, “Behold, the man was rich,” or “the man, he was the one who was rich.” They have these formalities which you must follow. The whole ancient world, medieval world, and modern world are bound up in these, not just customs, but strict rules—rigid forms and formalities.
167,168 Incidentally, this is Moroni writing to Ammoron. Why are there so many words in the Book of Mormon with mor in them? Well, that’s a favorite Egyptian word, MOR, [along with] AMON. The Egyptians used it a lot because it means beloved, good, everything nice and desirable. MORIAMON means “beloved of Amon.”. So this military behavior is the most rigidly formalized of all. In the Book of Mormon everything is so formal, but we are just as formal. For one thing it’s a great saving of effort, isn’t it? It’s a great advantage to have the grooves already marked and stay in the grooves. But there is a danger to that. The military is a good example there again. We have it here, especially in the case of the two thousand young men. Military behavior is the most rigid, the most formalized, and the most traditional. It must be, and it is here. Remember, we have had this in the Book of Mormon before. When Moroni is besieging a city, he invites the people to come out. They are comfortably ensconced inside the fortified city. He invites them to come out and fight in the open field. Well, they would be idiots to do so. But by the rules of war he is required to do that, so he does it. Sometimes they do.
168 Then again, they would make their agreements on the field. They would agree, as in the battle of Cumorah, for example. The chiefs of the other side agree on the time and the place of the battle. Well, why aren’t you a smart general and catch the other fellow off guard when he is not expecting you? That’s the best thing to do, a surprise. But that’s playing naughty—you don’t do that.
168 But these unbreakable rules, traditions, and iron discipline have to be, because nothing is more dangerous and unpredictable than an armed band. You give them a lot of weapons and everyone has the curse of Nimrod on him. It’s up to him to decide who shall live and who shall die. Only God can decide that. But if you give me a gun, I can decide who will live and who will die. What power that gives me! Nimrod had that power, but God gives it to no man. We’ve seen that before. It’s forbidden to shed blood. So this iron discipline is necessary. Soldiers are necessarily hot headed; that’s what they get paid for.
169 Not only are armies unpredictable, but remember what Clausewitz said. “Of all human activities, none is so completely under the control of pure chance as war.” Nobody can decide in the end. That being the case, what are we to do about this uncertainty? One rule is: Whoever goes to war doesn’t know what he is doing.” That’s literally true. If you go to war you don’t know what you are doing, because war more than anything else is under the domain of chance. You never can tell how it is going to turn out.
170 We have the same thing. We believe the Ten Commandments apply only to the good guys, the people we like. They don’t apply to the people we don’t like. Thou shalt not murder and thou shalt not lie. Well, if you don’t like the person that’s different [laughter]. That’s what King Solomon did; he wanted to plunder Sheba. When she came up she had some riddles for him, and he had some riddles for her. They exchanged riddles and she won. She made a monkey of him. That’s the Shulamite in the Old Testament. This is the tradition..
170,171 Since war is all chance you may lose. So why not settle it a different way? It’s all a war of wits anyway. The smartest chieftain usually wins the battle, so why not play the game of chess. That’s why chess was invented on the steppes of Asia by the constantly raiding tribes. Central Asia is a land that has no natural boundaries, so everybody is always raiding everybody else and trying to determine who is infringing on who else’s tribal boundaries. This is especially so in Arabia, as we see in that great work, the epic of the Bam Hilal. It’s very much like the Book of Mormon in these war scenes. There were no boundaries, so they were always raiding each other. Well, that’s very expensive, because when you win you’re supposed to exterminate the other side. They did that. Genghis Khan started out doing that, but he found that was very wasteful. Why not have the other side just submit to him and add to his army? That’s what happened. So he rolled up a tremendous force and was able to conquer everything. He was the greatest conqueror of them all because of that. So these people said, “Well, let’s play a game of chess instead, and the winner take all.” The winner does. The king is checkmate. SHAH MAT means he is dead. MAT in all Semitic languages means dead. The SHAH MAT means the chief is dead, so you take the army. You pick up everything. You pick up the pieces; you don’t wipe them off the board. You want to keep as many on the board as you can. You want to spare as much as you can because, as the Book of Mormon shows us and as Liddell Hart tells us, wars in the end go back to personal conflicts. Remember when Amalickiah was dead in his tent, the people woke up New Year’s Day, and the war was over as far as they were concerned. Moroni let them go home. He doesn’t bind people down or exploit them because it’s a purely defensive war he is fighting. There is such a thing.
172 Alma 55:1: “When Moroni had received this epistle he was more angry, because he knew that Ammoron had a perfect knowledge of his fraud.” After all, what would you expect? Notice, it was a personal thing. He was mad at Ammoron; he wasn’t mad at anybody else. He knew that Ammoron knew this was just P.R. as far as he was concerned. He said, “I will not exchange prisoners.” The deal falls through, of course. This is the point. It would have been to the advantage of both of them, but it was a personal huff on both sides. This happens quite often. “I will seek death among them until they shall sue for peace.” That’s the way he is feeling. Ammoron wouldn’t sue for peace either. Each one was trying to be more stubborn than the other. “We’ll show him.” So everything fails when you lose your temper. But, as I said, this was required by custom to go through this idiotic routine. But our routines are just as idiotic. We do the same sort of thing. “[They were looking for a descendant of Laman and found] one of the servants of the king who was murdered by Amalickiah.” Remember when Amalickiah wanted to marry the queen in the manner of Richard III? One of those servants was in [Moroni’s] employ. He knew what was going on, and he came over and told the Nephites. The Nephites were guarded in the city of Gid. That’s where they were kept prisoner. [Moroni] wanted these prisoners back. How are they going to get them back? Well, use the old wine trick. [The descendant of Laman and his men] said, we have escaped from the Nephites, and we have taken their wine. Don’t worry, they are not going to refuse that wine. Guard service is the most boring thing in the world. Nothing must happen if you do your duty. They can’t escape, and everything is quiet. So you are just bored, and it goes on day after day after day. The chance for a little party is not to be turned down. “They received him with joy,” because he had wine.
172,173 Alma 55:10 He does a little psychology on them in verse 10. “But Laman said unto them: Let us keep of our wine till we go against the Nephites to battle.” Here they were just drooling for this wine. They were going to get it now no matter what. “For, said they: We are weary, therefore let us take of the wine, and by and by we shall receive wine for our rations, which will strengthen us to go against the Nephites.” We’ll get plenty for [fighting] the Nephites
173 Alma 55:18,19 Now here you have good old Moroni, the sport. He plays by the rules all the way through, so we can be sure that these insulting letters were by the rules too. Verse 18: “But had they awakened the Lamanites, behold they were drunken and the Nephites could have slain them. But behold, this was not the desire of Moroni; he did not delight in murder or bloodshed ... and for this cause he might not bring upon him injustice, he would not fall upon the Lamanites and destroy them in their drunkenness.” He does not want to be guilty of injustice. They were drunk and asleep. You can’t kill people like that; it isn’t right. That’s Moroni—he always wants to do the right thing.
173 Alma 55:22-24 “Now behold this was done in the night-time [wouldn’t you know], so that when the Lamanites awoke in the morning they beheld that they were surrounded by the Nephites without, and that their prisoners were armed within.” Thus they saw that they were overpowered when they came to. Their chief captains demanded their weapons of war, and they brought them forth and cast them at the feet of the Nephites, pleading for mercy.” This is what Moroni desired; he wanted to take more prisoners for exchange. Verse 24: “Now behold, this was the desire of Moroni. He took them prisoners of war.” The Nephites joined the army of Moroni, and this was a great strength to his army. There were a lot of prisoners there, and he also got more prisoners for exchange.
173,174 Alma 55:27 He set the Lamanites whom he had taken prisoner to labor in strengthening the fortifications of the camp. He had to excuse himself for that; it was justified because of the pressures of time. Notice verse 27: “And it came to pass that they did, notwithstanding all the intrigues of the Lamanites, keep and protect all the prisoners whom they had taken.” They protected them as well as keeping them. The Nephites began to be victorious. Many times the Lamanites attempted their tricks. They tried the wine trick, but the Nephites were onto that. You adapt very quickly when they try to pull it a second time. Remember the well-known maxim: “If he fools you the first time, he’s a rascal. If he fools you the second time, you’re the rascal.” They could not be taken with snares anymore, and no poison. The Lamanites had fortified the city of Morianton and made it exceedingly strong. This is a stalemate, and you can’t allow a stalemate.
174 Alma 56:1,3 So they couldn’t have this dangerous stalemate here. Alma 56:1: “And now it came to pass in the commencement of the thirtieth year, ... Moroni received an epistle from Helaman, stating the affairs of the people in that quarter of the land.” He tells the story of his two thousand sons here now. They have another kind of discipline. Verse 3: “... the sons of those men whom Ammon brought down out of the land of Nephi—now ye have known that these were descendants of Laman.” These two thousand sons were good Lamanite boys. They kept their genealogies, as the ancients did, and they were descendants of Laman among the Lamanites. We read of descendants of Zoram and descendants of Ishmael, etc. They saw that their parents were about to break the covenant and go to war to help the Nephites because they needed their help so badly. Notice in verse 8 Helaman said, “But I would not suffer them that they should break this covenant which they had made.” He established integrity. He wouldn’t let their parents break their oaths, and [the sons] are not going to break any oaths of theirs. They weren’t required to take an oath, but they took one spontaneously. They kept it because they knew Helaman was one they could trust.
175 Alma 56:16 Verse 16 illustrates another point of Clausewitz. “Yea, and they were depressed in body as well as in spirit, for they had fought valiantly by day and toiled by night to maintain their cities [they had to work by night to make up the fortifications that had been cut down, and they had to fight all day]; and thus they had suffered great afflictions of every kind.” Notice that Clausewitz says spirit is not the same as morale. Their [spirits were] low, but they were determined to go on fighting. This little force gave them great hopes. Their morale was high. Their spirits were low. They were exhausted, but they weren’t going to give up. That’s the difference between morale and spirit here. Spirit is first in a long battle. The Lamanites were compelled by the orders of Ammoron not to come out against Judea. He told them to lie low and not do anything against Judea. [The Nephites] were favored of the Lord. Here again is a case of chance. Ammoron was foolish not to have commanded them to attack then, but he didn’t. Chance plays a great part. This saved our necks. They might have destroyed our little army if they had attacked then. Then was the right time for him to do it, but he didn’t do it. Hurray for us! As Clausewitz says, war is a game of chance.
175,176 Alma 56:21 “Now we were desirous that the Lamanites should come upon us; for we were not desirous to make an attack upon them in their strongholds.” Well, Clausewitz again. The defense position is always the strongest. We wanted them to attack us; we didn’t want to attack them. Though you would think that war until Clausewitz’s time was always attack. Then they did reconnaissance to find out what the situation was. “Therefore we were desirous, if they should pass by us, to fall upon them in their rear, and thus bring them up in the rear at the same time they were met in the front [they were in a quandary]. They durst not pass by us with their whole army.” Good old Ammoron is boxed in now. He has the strongest army, but there are minor forces on every side he could move in. You can analyze it here.
175 Alma 56:27-29 “There was brought unto us many provisions from the fathers of those my two thousand sons.” He didn’t know what to do, so they were waiting. In the meantime they were receiving reinforcements and provisions. They wanted that more than anything else. Then two thousand more men were sent from Zarahemla to join them. When the Lamanites saw their forces increasing, they began to get very nervous. They began to be fearful and said, we’ve got to put a stop to this. This gave Helaman an idea how they were going to break the deadlock. Verse 29: “They began to be fearful, and began to sally forth [trying to stop these supplies from coming in] ... to put an end to our receiving provisions and strength. ... Antipus ordered that I should march forth with my little sons.” Calling them little sons is interesting, isn’t it.
176 Alma 56:34-36 They are going to act as if they were carrying provisions, that this is just a provisional force, not military or anything like that. They start marching along the coast like that, so he knows they will come out and try to stop them. That’s what they are going to do. Then he can try that old trick and have somebody follow them. Verse 34: “And now, in the city Antiparah were stationed the strongest army of the Lamanites.” It was too strong to be taken, like the city of Mulek here. So they saw this band going along the coast with provisions in verse 36. They were too good to lose; they couldn’t let them get away. So they chased us [Helaman’s group], and we ran away in front of them, always northward. “And thus we did lead away the most powerful army of the Lamanites.” They thought it was really a pushover, an easy thing to get this out of the way. They saw the army of Antipus pursuing them, but they kept right on after us [Helaman’s group]. That would be the best thing to do. Then it was night, and they didn’t overtake us. Before dawn the Lamanites were pursuing them again. They were not strong enough to contend with them. “I would not suffer that my little sons should fall into their hands; therefore we did continue our march, and we took our march into the wilderness.” It’s a running away. Nobody dared turn either direction. The two thousand, the big Lamanite army, and Antipus’s littler army that was chasing them were all going in a beeline up the coast. Nobody dared turn to the right or the left—they just kept going.
165 Alma 56:40,45 : “Thus we did flee all that day into the wilderness, even until it was dark.” That kept on the third day of the seventh month. Then he said, how about it, kids, have you had enough running away? They would do anything rather than run away anymore, because they hadn’t come out for that. They’d had enough of that. “Therefore what say ye, my sons, will ye go against them to battle?” He really unleashed them. In verse 56 it says they fought with such miraculous strength they did frighten the enemies. The seasoned Lamanite soldiers had never seen anything like this.. They fought with such miraculous strength that they frightened the Lamanite soldiers. So they delivered themselves up and said, we give up; we can’t fight this. Helaman tells why they didn’t [fall]. He talks about them. Verse 45: “Never had I seen so great courage. ... Father, behold our God is with us, and he will not suffer that we should fall. ... We would not slay our brethren if they would let us alone.” There’s no rancor here. Good old sporting Helaman is even more strict on this than Moroni is. They had never fought before. “And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers.” They told me what their situation was.
176,177 A terrible battle had commenced. When they came up behind, the battle between Antipus and the Lamanites had already begun. The enemy was already engaged, so they’re attacked from the rear now. The army of Antipus was exhausted and just about to give in, and Antipus had already fallen. They began to fall and give way, and the Lamanites were pursuing with great vigor. That was just the time for Helaman’s force to strike from the side. That’s exactly what you do. Then was the time to hit with that. It hit with a thunderbolt, and that made all the difference. It’s the timing. You always have to hold something in reserve.
177 So they delivered them up as prisoners of war. This was Moroni’s policy. He surrounded them “insomuch that they were compelled to deliver up their weapons of war and also themselves as prisoners of war.” Not one of the two thousand had fallen. They fought with such miraculous strength it frightened the enemy. There was no place for the prisoners. What could they do? So they sent them to the land of Zarahemla.
177 Alma 57:1,4: “And now it came to pass that I received an epistle from Ammoron [he wanted to make another prisoner exchange here; they were not getting anywhere with prisoner exchanges], the king, stating that if I would deliver up those prisoners,” which they had lost in that battle.... They would only deliver them up on exchange of a Nephite family. Ammoron refused. “But the people of Antiparah did leave the city, and fled to their other cities.” Verse 4 is the turning point of the war. From now on everything starts to slow down and go downward. There’s a psychological point when you can tell which way it is going to go. That will sometimes come quite early and sometimes quite late.
177 Alma 57:4 : “And thus the city of Antiparah fell into our hands.” In the twenty and ninth year, they received a supply of provisions and then six thousand men, “besides sixty of the sons of the Ammonites who had come to join their brethren, my little band of two thousand.” They wanted to get the city of Cumeni, so they surrounded Cumeni by night, a little before [the Lamanites] were to receive a supply of provisions. They camped around the city and slept upon their swords. What kind of a trick would they pull on them now? How could you bring them out? He couldn’t conquer this very strong, independent city, so he used another very good trick. [The Nephites] camped so close to them, right under their noses. They couldn’t let that go on. In the first place, it would cut off their supplies. In the second place, they could be easily handled. We can’t let them camp right in front of the gates here [the Lamanites said], so they had to come out. That’s all they wanted, and they dragged them into the usual traps.