-First and foremost in this attempt is the ingredient of (like the previous two attempts) faithful obedience: “Let us go… let us be faithful in keeping the commandments…”
1
AND it came to pass that I spake unto my brethren, saying: Let us go up
again unto Jerusalem, and let us be afaithful
in keeping the commandments of the Lord; for behold he is mightier than all the
earth, then why not bmightier
than Laban and his fifty, yea, or even than his tens of thousands?
-The emphasis has moved from "I will go and do,(3:7)" to we will not leave until "we
have accomplished,
(3:15)" to the Lord is
"mightier than Laban and his fifty" and "the
Lord is able to deliver us,"
(1 Nephi 4:1-3).
-Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: Recurrence in Book of Mormon
Narratives, p.45
“let us”
-by this
time I think I would have been fed up and frustrated with the stubbornness of
my brothers and given up trying to pull them along. But Nephi continues to invite them and really
work at bringing them to be obedient to the Lord’s commandment. We should be as
patient in our work with the “Laman and Lemuels” of the kingdom. The Lord is with us in any case.
I think one of the lessons God is trying to impress upon
us in the scriptures, since He shows us by experience after experience, is that
He is more powerful than vast numbers of trained mean and that when we align
ourselves to His purposes we can not fail.
Besides being our support, He wants us to recognize that it is His hand
that delivers his children and not their own strength. Notice the similarities in all the
situations:
-unarmed
children of Israel versus Pharaoh’s army
-grossly
outnumbered Gideon versus the Midianites
-young
Nephi versus Laban and his “fifty”
-Joshua
destroying Jericho with trumpets and shouting
-Elisha: they that be with us are more than they that
be with them
-Fierce
weather intervening against militias and mobs sword to destroy Zion’s
camp.
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