Why Did the People of Zarahemla Rejoice?

Somewhere close to the beginning of the second century B.C., Abinadom, the next to the last of the Jacob lineage prophets and record keepers, recorded that he had lived through many wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites, and that he was a warrior, using his sword to kill Lamanites in defense of his people, the Nephites.
    According to Hugh Nibley, the name Abinadom is a typical Canaanite appellation (Abinetchem) meaning “my father is friendly, gentle, loving,” with “Netem” meaning “sweet or agreeable,” in Egyptian; and overall means “my father is benevolent or sweet.”
    On the other hand, other linguists point out that the name could be translated as Hebrew “nwd” meaning “to wander, show grief,” rendering the name “my father of grieving or wandering,” which matches Jacob’s closing remark when he stated “Our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren” (Jacob 7:26).

It is interesting that Abinadom’s son, Amaleki, writes almost solely of Mosiah departing into the wilderness and their wandering until they found the people of Zarahemla (Omni 1:12). He began Mosiah’s trek with: “And it came to pass that he did according as the Lord had commanded him. And they departed out of the land into the wilderness, as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord; and they were led by many preachings and prophesyings. And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness, until they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla” (Omni 1:13), and later introduced the people they had discovered with: “the people of Zarahemla came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon. And they journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters, into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth” (Omni 1:15-16).
    While Abinadom may not have been a spiritual man, he was aware of the revelations of the Lord to his people, but evidently knew of none that had been given in his lifetime or that of his father, Chemish, who recorded almost nothing on the small plates. Obviously, these disastrous wars with the Lamanites of which Abinadom briefly mentions, were one of the causes that led to the removal of the righteous portion of the Nephites from the land of Nephi to that of Zarahemla.

Joseph giving 116 pages to Martin Harris, who later lost them

Unfortunately, we do not have the first writings of Mosiah. It is claimed that the first two chapters of Mosiah I were among the 116 pages lost by Martin Harris. It is also interesting to note that Mormon, upon finding the small plates after abridging the large plates down to the king of Benjamin, included the small plates with the large plates. He briefly wrote a transition statement between the two, now appearing as the Words of Mormon 1:12-18).
    In any event, when Mosiah was told by the Lord to flee the city of Nephi somewhere around or just after 200 B.C., the wars with the Lamanites that Omni (Omni 1:3), and Abinadom (Omni 1;10) mentioned and the subsequent fall from righteousness of the Nephites, no doubt led to “the more wicked part of the Nephites [being] destroyed” (Omni 1:5). Two generations later, we see these wars are still raging as Abinadom briefly mentions, finally leading to the Lord telling Mosiah to “flee out of the land of Nephi, and as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord should also depart out of the land with him, into the wilderness” (Omni 1:12).
    Now in the wilderness, “They were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness, until they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla” (Omni 1:13). Obviously, this was no accidental encounter, but one the Lord had planned and led Mosiah and the more righteous Nephites to this meeting with the people of Zarahemla, i.e., the descendants of Mulek, youngest son of Zedekiah, and those from Jerusalem who spirited Mulek out of the city and into the desert during the Babylonian siege of the city.
    At this point, we learn that the people of Zarahemla, who had come out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon, and who were nearly twice the number (Mosiah 25:2) as Mosiah and the Nephites, rejoiced greatly as did their leader, Zarahemla, when they learned who Mosiah and his people were and that they brought with them the ancient records of their ancestors (Omni 1:14).

Mulekites rejoice over the arrival of Mosiah and the records he brought

It is almost surprising that those of Zarahemla, not withstanding their superior numbers over those of the Nephites, appointed Mosiah to be their king (Omni 1:19).
    This begs the question, “why did the people of Zarahemla rejoice over this encounter?” and also “why did they agree to be subject to Mosiah and the Nephites?”
    To understand this, we need to know something about the people and the times involved. First of all, the people of Israel during the last millennium B.C. lived under the Davidic Covenant, one in which the Lord promised King David that his dynasty would last forever—that he would always have a descendant on the throne (2 Samuel 7:11-17; Psalms 89:10-37). Now while the Davidic Covenant is hardly mentioned in literature of the last two centuries or more, and gets little attention in the Book of Mormon, throughout the history of Israel, a Davidic king had always been on the throne in Judah.
    How odd it is for Lehi, Nephi, Sam and Zoram, coming out of Jerusalem at the time, knowledgeable of God’s dealing with the chosen House of Israel, having nothing to say on this subject. That is like us stating our history of the twentieth century and ignoring man’s landing on the moon, or the world-wide wars that lasted half a century.
    Yet, there is mention of the Law of Moses, the Mosaic Covenant, and the Abrahamic Covenant in the Book of Mormon; but almost nothing regarding king David and he Lord’s covenant with him. Not even when we learn that the people of Zarahemla were from Jerusalem and Mulek was the son of king Zedekiah.
    Still, many of the inhabitants of Judah in that period believed the Davidic Covenant, like that of Abraham, was unconditional and inviolable.  When God had told David, “Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16), it meant that he would never abandon David’s heirs or David’s capital city Jerusalem, period.

Laman and Lemuel would not accept Nephi’s words that the great city of Jerusalem would be destroyed 

 

In fact, when Laman and Lemuel were told by Lehi and Nephi that the city of Jerusalem was to be destroyed, they stated emphatically that they did not believe that the great city of Jerusalem could be destroyed (1 Nephi 2:13). It was ingrained within them that this Davidic Covenant was forever. They knew and understood Isaiah’s statement: “For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake (Isaiah 37:35), and they knew the following verse that crystallized that point in their minds, “the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand, and when they [Israelites] arose early in the morning, behold, they [Assyrians] were all dead corpses” (Isaiah 37:36, inserts added).
    This is the cornerstone of the biblical view of kingship (found in 2 Samuel 7), which asserts the legitimacy of the House of David as the only divinely sanctioned royal dynasty in Israel and Jerusalem. However, Lehi knew otherwise and as history has shown, Zedekiah was the last Davidic king to sit on the throne of Judah. The fact that this covenant was conditional seems clear from the wordage in Psalms: “If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore” (Psalms 132:12).
    Now, the Mulekites brought no records with them when they left Jerusalem in their haste to flee the Babylonians. They had evidently also lost knowledge of God and his dealings, at least in the sense of denying His involvement in their lives (Omni 1:17), but they knew that Mulek, their first leader, had been a son of King Zedekiah. They most likely understood the Davidic Covenant that promised the kingship to the lineage of David and that Zedekiah had been of that line. If not before, then certainly after reviewing the brass plates that Mosiah had brought with him. Obviously, they would have quickly understood that this lineage was among them who were rightful heirs of the divinely-appointed royal line of David. They may even have known of Zedekiah’s capture and the killing of all the other royal sons (2 Kings 25:6-7).
    It seems obvious that this would have been received as exciting and worthwhile news by the Mulekites in Zarahemla. More than a hundred years later, Helaman makes this quite clear when he stated: “Will you dispute that Jerusalem was destroyed? Will ye say that the sons of Zedekiah were not slain, all except it were Mulek?  Yea, and do ye not behold that the seed of Zedekiah are with us, and they were driven out of the land of Jerusalem?” (Helaman 8:21), and Mormon certainly knew of it (Mosiah 25:2; Helaman 6:10).
    It is interesting to note that theorists, who write about this without much understanding claim in effect that “it is very rare in history when a small number of outsiders manage to peacefully gain control of a much larger, better established group.” They go on to debate that “Mosiah must have been able to offer something truly remarkable to Mulekite civilization.” The answer to this seems quite obvious upon reading the scriptural record and understanding who the Mulektes were, which leads to an understanding that the people of Zarahemla were delighted that Mosiah arrived, and delighted to know that they were of the House of Israel, and more importantly, some who could trace their line back to Mulek, were of the ruling lineage of king David. To people who had previously no more than a slight inkling of who they were, this information would have been much to rejoice over, plus having the scriptural and historical record now to further acquaint themselves with their past and history, one can obviously see why the people of Zarahemla rejoiced at the arrival of Mosiah.
    We can also see that the people of Zarahemla were well acquainted with the law of the Jews in that they recognized that the land belonged to the Nephites and that Mosiah was the Nephite leader, thus they agreed for him to be their king, and they joined with the Nephites in order to come under the legal provision of inheriting the land. This was a very important part of the Nephite laws, as stated by Limhi: “I am Limhi, the son of Noah, who was the son of Zeniff, who came up out of the land of Zarahemla to inherit this land, which was the land of their fathers, who was made a king by the voice of the people” (Mosiah 7:9).
    The people of Zarahemla seem to have well understood this, for when they learned that the kingdom had been conferred upon none but those who were descendants of Nephi, they took upon themselves the name of Nephi, that they might be called the children of Nephi and be numbered among those who were called Nephites (Mosiah 25:13-14).
    There appears to be much reason for the people of Zarahemla to have rejoiced with quite some exuberance when understanding the significance of Mosiah’s arrival with the more righteous Nephites.
    Thus, the Mulekites rejoiced at the arrival of Mosiah and the Nephites, and in learning who they were.