A reader
wrote in to express a disagreement regarding the story in the Book of Mormon
about Nephi killing Laban and getting away with it. Since the answer to his
short question could not equally be short, we have taken this entire post to
try and do it justice.
“I find
the slaying of Laban by Nephi an impossible event. Why would a God-fearing man
kill another, especially one that was unconscious and helpless, and more
importantly, how could a single man kill one of great prominence on the city
streets of Jerusalem and escape without notice? Surely someone would have seen
him and raised a cry.” Fisher B.
Response: The story of Samual ibn Adiyt, a most famous Jewish
poet of Arabia in ancient times, won undying fame in the East by allowing his
son to be cruelly put to death before his eyes rather than give up some costly
armor that had been entrusted to his care by a friend. No doubt, taken in part
from the real life history of Samuel Ibn Naghrillah
(HaNagid) of Mérida (993 A.D.), a shop keeper and merchant in Córdoba,
later removed to Granada where he rose in the Court to assistant vizier of
state to the Berber king Habbus al-Muzaffar, and his son Joseph--all reminds us that eastern and western standards are not the same. It might
surprise us to know that the callousness of Americans in many matters of
personal relationships would shock Arabs, as many things they do shock us.
Yet, in the scriptural record, no
one seems more disturbed by Labab’s death, than Nephi himself, who takes great
pains to explain his position (1 Nephi 4:10-18). First he was "constrained
by the Spirit" to kill Laban, but he said in his heart that he had never
shed human blood and became sick at the thought: "I shrunk and would that
I might not slay him" (1 Nephi 4:10). The Spirit spoke again, and to its
promptings Nephi adds his own reasons: "I also knew that he had sought to
take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of
the Lord; and he also had taken away our property" (1 Nephi 4:11). But
this was still not enough; the Spirit spoke again, explaining the Lord's
reasons and assuring Nephi that he would be in the right; to which Nephi offers
more arguments of his own, remembering the promise that his people would
prosper only by keeping the commandments of the Lord, "and I also thought
that they could not keep the commandments . . . save they should have the
law" (1 Nephi 4:15), which the dangerous and criminal Laban alone kept them
from having. "And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my
hands for this cause. . . . Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit"
(1 Nephi 4:17-18).
Streets in ancient cities were seldom as
one might expect today. They were narrow, often with numerous turns, and dark,
even in the daytime. Envision these Old Jerusalem streets late at night, with
everyone inside (they didn’t have city lights then, only torches, and little
was done at night) without the modern lights seen here
Your suggestion that the story of Laban's death is absurd,
if not impossible, since Nephi could not have killed him and made his escape.
Those unfamiliar with night patrols in the military, or with the condition of
streets anciently, may not realize that lighting of city streets, except for
festivals, is a blessing unknown to ages other than our own.
Streets of even the biggest towns were perfectly dark at
night, and very dangerous. To move about late at night without lamp bearers and
armed guards was to risk almost certain assault. In the famous trial of
Alcibiades, a general in the Peloponnesian War, for the mutilation of the Hermae (Hermes), a quadrangular memorial
stone sculpture set in city streets to mark boundaries, is the testimony of one
witness who, all alone, beheld by moonlight the midnight depredations of a
drunken band in the heart of downtown Athens—obviously, city streets of the
greatest city in the western world were unlighted, deserted, and dangerous at
night.
Top: London
and New York city streets in 1800s; Bottom: City streets today. Most anything
can be done amid darkness in streets of the past and even some of today
From the Greek and Roman comedy and from the poets we learn
how heavily barred and closely guarded the doors of private houses had to be at
night, and archaeology has shown us eastern cities in which apparently not a
single house window opened onto the public street, as few do even today at
ground level. East and West, the people simply shut themselves in at night as
if in a besieged fortress. Even in Shakespeare's day we see the comical terror
of the night watch passing through the streets at hours when all honest people
are behind doors. In a word, the streets of any ancient city after sundown were
a perfect setting for the committing of deeds of violence without fear of
detection.
It was very late when Nephi came upon Laban (1 Nephi 4:5,
22); the streets were deserted and dark. Laban was wearing armor, so the only
chance of dispatching him quickly, painlessly, and safely was to cut off his
head—the conventional treatment of criminals in the East, where beheading has
always been by the sword, and where an executioner would be fined for failing
to decapitate his victim at one clean stroke.
Nephi drew the sharp, heavy weapon and stood over Laban for
a long time, debating his course (1 Nephi 4:9-18). He was an expert hunter and
a powerful man: with due care such a one could do a quick and efficient job and
avoid getting much blood on himself. But why should he worry about that? There
was not one chance in a thousand of meeting any honest citizen, and in the dark
no one would notice the blood anyway. What they would notice would be the armor
that Nephi put on, and which, like the sword, could easily be wiped clean.
The donning of the armor was the natural and the sensible
thing for Nephi to do—there is no greater safety in an enemy camp than to don
the insignia of a high military official (and not hang around too long), and
Nephi had no intention of delaying his departure. No one dares challenge leaders
too closely (least of all a grim and hot-tempered Laban); their business is at
all times secretive and important, and their uniform gives them complete
freedom to come and to go unquestioned.
Nephi tells us that he was "led by the Spirit" (1
Nephi 4:6). He was not taking impossible chances, but being in a tight place he
followed the surest formula of those who have successfully carried off ticklish
assignments. His audacity and speed were rewarded, and he was clear of the town
before anything was discovered. In his whole exploit there is nothing in the
least improbable.
How Nephi disguised himself in the clothes of Laban and
tricked Laban's servant into admitting him to the treasury is an authentic bit
of Oriental romance, and of history as well. When Zoram, the servant,
discovered that it was not his master with whom he had been discussing the
highly secret doings of the elders as they walked to the outskirts of the city,
he was seized with terror—in such a situation there was only one thing Nephi
could possibly have done, both to spare Zoram and to avoid giving alarm;
something no westerner could have envisioned doing.
Nephi, a powerful man, held the terrified Zoram in a
vice-like grip long enough to swear a solemn oath in his ear, "as the Lord
liveth, and as I live" (1 Nephi 4:32), that he would not harm him if he
would listen. Zoram immediately relaxed, and Nephi swore another oath to him
that he would be a free man if he would join the party: "Therefore, if
thou wilt go down into the wilderness to my father thou shalt have place with
us" (1 Nephi 4:34). What generally astonishes the western reader is the
miraculous effect of Nephi's oath on Zoram, who upon hearing a few conventional
words promptly becomes tractable, while as for the brothers, as soon as Zoram
"made an oath unto us . . . that he would tarry with us from that time
forth . . . our fears did cease concerning him" (1 Nephi 4:35, 37).
The reaction of both parties makes sense when one realizes
that the oath is the one thing that is most sacred and inviolable among the
desert people: "Hardly will an Arab break this oath, even if his life be
in jeopardy," for "there is nothing stronger, and nothing more sacred
than the oath among the nomads," and even among the city Arabs, if it be
exacted under special conditions. Yet, not every oath will do: to be most
binding and solemn an oath should be by the life of something, even if it be
but a blade of grass; the only oath more awful than "by my life" or
(less commonly) "by the life of my head," is the wa hayat Allah, "by the life of God," or "as the
Lord liveth," the Arabic equivalent of the ancient Hebrew hai Elohim.
The one and only way that Nephi could have pacified the
struggling Zoram in an instant was to utter the one oath that no man would
dream of breaking, the most solemn of all oaths to the Semite: "as the
Lord liveth, and as I live" (1 Nephi 4:32).
Commanded by the Lord, guided by the Spirit, and using his own
intelligence, Nephi carried out the command, knowing the Lord would “provide
means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded,” was not
only a possible event, but one quite probable, and was accomplished as Nephi tells it.
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