{"id":34125,"date":"2015-10-16T04:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T09:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=34125"},"modified":"2015-10-07T08:35:16","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T13:35:16","slug":"reading-nephi-216-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/10\/reading-nephi-216-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Nephi – 2:16-24"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"068-068-the-liahona-full\"<\/a>I\u2019ve no desire to rob those who are physically large with a means of relating themselves to Nephi. But I can\u2019t for the life of me see how we connect \u201clarge in stature\u201d with physically large. [Note: later in the text we do get a direct connection between Nephi\u2019s stature and physical size, so perhaps that later connection colors things here; but for all we know, these were different words all together that both came out as \u2018stature\u2019 on Joseph\u2019s stone.] The contrast in this clause is with young\u2014which I suppose might be intuitively connected to physical size\u2014my children do this all the time (they can\u2019t quite understand that mommy is older since daddy is bigger). Just yesterday they nearly came to blows over whose foot was larger, which is apparently a genetic marker of natural aristocracy and right to rule. But it\u2019s the right to rule that matters\u2014and as soon as I convinced my children that there was no connection between foot size and ruling, they no longer cared about it.<\/p>\n

This helps us get at another interpretation of stature that I find far more plausible: status. In Biblical Hebrew qaton\u00a0<\/em>means small, young, or\u00a0insignificant, while\u00a0gadol<\/em> means large, great, or important.\u00a0Although young, Nephi already had a significant community status\u2014just what that is, I\u2019m not sure. Perhaps Nephi was like young Joseph Smith and was well respected in his family for his ability to find lost objects with a peepstone, or whatever the ancient analog might have been. Whatever it was, Nephi associates his status with his desires and abilities to find, not lost objects, but the mind of God.<\/p>\n

Here too I see another correlate with Joseph. Young and na\u00efve and utterly dumbstruck by James\u2019s counsel, Joseph seemed to unquestioningly believe that God would answer his inquiries. Nephi was young and na\u00efve and utterly dumbstruck by his community status and so likewise unquestioningly believed that God would answer his prayers. I\u2019m only being somewhat facetious. His confidence in his status, however, did not prevent him from seeking God humbly\u2014which, like Joseph, accounts in part for the answer he received.<\/p>\n

At any rate, Nephi leaves us precious little hint of the dialogue and drama of the family council underway. It\u2019s absence fairly well screams at us from off the page. Lehi\u2019s family had taken an initial departure and were now firmly planted in the Valley of Lemuel. How long? How much had been revealed to him by this time, and how much had he in turn revealed? I suspect that it is only here and only after some time (paralleling the circumstances of their departure from Jerusalem) that Lehi makes known that he plans to continue on journeying in the wilderness. That is, the rift Lehi has imposed between his family and the people and House of God in Jerusalem is now proposed to be made definite and final. This makes sense of the discussion at the end of chapter 2, as well as Laman and Lemuel\u2019s actions during their two returns to Jerusalem (it also helps make sense of the returns themselves). At any rate, something shook Nephi and his brothers up; something caused him to pray and to censure his brothers for not praying; something led Nephi to wrestle to convince his brothers to go along with their father. As written, this struggle makes absolutely no sense: they\u2019ve already left Jerusalem and settled three days south in the \u201cborders\u201d by the Red Sea. They\u2019re not praying and arguing over whether to leave. I suspect they\u2019re praying and arguing over whether to continue and make their exodus permanent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This episode first raises and seems to presage and perhaps even cement the rift between Nephi and his older brothers. Having become spiritual convinced of his father\u2019s correctness before God, Nephi presents what he takes as revelation to his brothers. Obviously Laman and Lemuel cannot accept it. Doing so would likewise be to accept the largeness of Nephi\u2019s stature. Nephi\u2019s move here places himself firmly as the spiritual heir of Lehi\u2019s prophethood.<\/p>\n

Once again, I am moved by what takes place between a father and his son in this passage. Lehi, as we saw in Chapter 1, translates his spiritual communication into verse. Nephi follows suit. I\u2019m reminded of Manley Hopkins and his son Gerard. And I\u2019m touched not only by the fact of Nephi following in his fathers poetic as well as prophetic footsteps, but likewise I\u2019m moved by the poetic verse itself. There are depths here, enough to anchor a young life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlessed art thou\u201d not simply because of your faith. Faith is a common, a cheap response to trial because it too often is a narrow, reduced phenomenon that does not touch the whole of our lives. Unlike the claim of faith\u2019s critics, faith is too often not <\/em>used as a crutch\u2014an instrument for aiding a person in moving. Rather, faith is an amnesiac. Elsewise, it\u2019s a shield against the pain of exploration and leads to arrogance. But as God declares here, these are not how faith operated for Nephi. His faith was mixed with searching. In the midst of trial, faith is not the ability to hunker down and wait<\/em>\u2014it\u2019s a motivation to search for the better. But also, Nephi sought humbly. Granted, Nephi\u2019s record as an older man thinking back challenges this assertion; but we can take it on faith that there was more humility in the actual young Nephi and his searching than in the older Nephi writing the account.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a beautiful parallel here as Nephi (and the Lord) riff on Lehi\u2019s poetic comparison between the immovable valley and the keeping of commandments. Dwelling in that valley leads to both prosperity and to being led\u2014perhaps even being led out of the valley on certain occasions, as Nephi is about to experience in his confrontation with Laban.<\/p>\n

There is a choice land, and one has to wonder why the adjective choice<\/em> is used. Perhaps God\u2019s variability in leading an exodus vs. staying with the prophets (who end up martyred or in prison or merely witness to the Babylonian destruction) has something to do with choice. I can\u2019t help but hear in this echoes of Leibniz\u2019s best of all possible worlds theodicy; which is inextricably tied up with choice.<\/p>\n

Note the reciprocal nature of verses 22 and 24. On the one hand, if Nephi\u2019s brothers rebel against him, they\u2019ll have no choice but to be subject to Nephi as a teacher and a \u201cruler;\u201d to be corrected and straightened out by Nephi. On the other hand, the posterity of Nephi\u2019s brother\u2019s will serve in this exact same role of teacher, straightening out Nephi\u2019s rebellious posterity as well.\u00a0Thus while we might interpret the warning that if they rebel, then they\u2019ll be cutoff rom the presence of God in a vengeful manner\u2014as in, God will wrathfully, actively cut them off\u2014there seems to be a deeper and more comprehensive message here. If we react to our enemies with animosity and attempt to oppress or persecute them, or should we otherwise leave the protection of the immovable valley of God\u2019s commandments, then we cut ourselves off from God\u2019s ability to lead and bless us, and thus subject ourselves to another, more difficult school of learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve no desire to rob those who are physically large with a means of relating themselves to Nephi. But I can\u2019t for the life of me see how we connect \u201clarge in stature\u201d with physically large. [Note: later in the text we do get a direct connection between Nephi\u2019s stature and physical size, so perhaps that later connection colors things here; but for all we know, these were different words all together that both came out as \u2018stature\u2019 on Joseph\u2019s stone.] The contrast in this clause is with young\u2014which I suppose might be intuitively connected to physical size\u2014my children do this all the time (they can\u2019t quite understand that mommy is older since daddy is bigger). Just yesterday they nearly came to blows over whose foot was larger, which is apparently a genetic marker of natural aristocracy and right to rule. But it\u2019s the right to rule that matters\u2014and as soon as I convinced my children that there was no connection between foot size and ruling, they no longer cared about it. This helps us get at another interpretation of stature that I find far more plausible: status. In Biblical Hebrew qaton\u00a0means small, young, or\u00a0insignificant, while\u00a0gadol means large, great, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34128,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34125\/revisions\/34128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}