1 Nephi 8:13

13  And as I cast my eyes round about, that perhaps I might discover my family also, I beheld a ^ariver of water; and it ran along, and it was near the tree of which I was partaking the fruit.

      “river of water”

            = what is the meaning associated with this symbol?  We know that it is not a pure river but is polluted.  Perhaps it designates the currents of the telestial world, the "blood and sins of this generation".  Water is a vital life giving substance, however, so it is not the actual water/river that represents wickedness but rather the element of pollution that has contaminated the water and is usurping the normal flow and channel of an essential substance.  What is essential to life is now used to transport and proliferated wickedness.  In many ways this is true of mortality and elements withing mortality.  Take technology, for instance:  It is a feature that results from an understanding of harnesses of truth (scientific and eternal) and provides a great service to mankind.  It can, however, be used to spread great wickedness.  It can enslave and destroy men and spread the work of Lucifer.  Beyond technology, this is true in many domains of the mortal existence.  That which God created for the benefit and the blessing of his children in mortality can be corrupted and used as a force to destroy the spirits and the eternal potential of man.

            -rivers of various forms of water are often used to signify purity or goodness (fountain of all righteousness, living water, well of water springing up to everlasting life, etc.).  Why the negative connotation here?  Why is a river the symbol used to represent danger and wickedness?  Could it have special significance:  water is generally a sign of cleanliness and purity.  Water can become polluted and when it is, it is not that the water itself is bad but the foreign elements mixed into the water.  These adulterations stifle life in the water and make unfit something that was once beautiful.  It makes water dangerous because the pollutants spread so fast (a pollution on the ground will not prove so devastating because the ground is not fluid but solid).

            -why does filthy water run near the tree of life?

     “perhaps I might discover my family”

            -why was he alone, why was his family not originally with him?

     “ran along… it was near the tree.”

            -the dangerous river is so curiously close to the tree!  I suppose that this representation speaks truly of Lucifer’s nearness to the truth that attracts those who may not be so strictly committed to reaching the tree (because error or wickedness is not always so black, obvious or ugly  -it is so near to the truth and therefore we think “surely it can’t be wrong or dangerous).