Somewhere on the coast by an ocean there is a very high mountain that the brother of Jared and his people named “Shelem” because of its exceeding height. The Lord has revealed so many of His great, expansive, panoramic visions from mountain tops - to Moses, to Elijah, to Nephi, and many others. It is not an accident that mountains are symbolic of Temples, and that the Lord has also revealed many great, expansive, panoramic visions from His Temples. Nor is it an accident that so many of the talks, if not all of them, in recent general conferences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints focus on and point people toward the House of the Lord. Certainly Moroni’s abridgment of Ether’s record of the brother of Jared’s experience points us toward the House of the Lord.
Moroni takes it for granted that his modern audience will make the connection between the name of the mountain “Shelem” and its meaning. Whether “Shelem” is a Jaredite or a Nephite word, we don’t know. In one of those languages, Jaredite or Nephite reformed Egyptian or Hebrew, the word “Shelem” connotes “exceeding height” in some way. I like this speculative comment in the Book of Mormon Onomasticon entry on “Shelem”:
An intriguing suggestion is to derive SHELEM from Arabic and HEBREW סלם sullām, “ladder, stairway, elevation” (LID, 242). However, both HEBREW and Arabic have /s/ and not /š/ or /ś/, while SHELEM seems to require /š/ or /ś/ (JAT). Another Semitic possibility is Akkadian simmiltu, “ladder,” partly because the issue with the initial sibilant is not as pronounced (cuneiform texts seldom distinguish between Semitic /s/, /ś/ and /š/, especially in initial position), and despite the obvious metastasis compared with the Arabic and HEBREW. The Akkadian word occurs in a context (literary text) that would lend itself to the Book of Mormon context referring to “exceeding height.” The passage is from the Nergal and Ereškigal myth in which the god “Namtar ascended the length (?) of the stairs of heaven,” where simmiltu “ladder” is translated as “stairs.” [1] Other Akkadian texts mention the “ladders” (“ledges”) on high mountain ranges.[2]
Whatever the case, the brother of Jared worked on a solution for lighting the barges by melting sixteen small stones out of a rock, and carrying them in his hands to the top of Mount Shelem. How do you melt small stones out of a rock? That alone is an amazing feat. But the brother of Jared didn’t just melt the small stones out of a rock, he carried them to the top of an exceedingly high mountain. Could it be that the exceedingly high mountain to the top of which Nephi was carried by the Spirit of the Lord in his great vision was Mount Shelem?
For it came to pass after I had desired to know the things that my father had seen, and believing that the Lord was able to make them known unto me, as I sat apondering in mine heart I was bcaught away in the Spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceedingly high cmountain, which I never had before seen, and upon which I never had before set my foot. (1 Nephi 1:1)
Remember that the brother of Jared and his crew first traversed an area of the world, through the wilderness, into that quarter where there never had man been. Nephi’s mountain was also exceedingly high, and he had never before seen it or stood upon it.
The brother of Jared’s covenant confidence in the Lord grew ever stronger as He continually drew closer to the Lord. His confidence was like that of Nephi who rebuked his brothers and asked:
And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot ainstruct me, that I should build a ship? (1 Nephi 17:51)
The brother of Jared knew that the Lord had instructed him to build the barges, and he knew that the Lord had asked him what he wanted to do in order to provide light for the barges. How did the brother of Jared come up with the molten rocks idea? The Lord specified that fire in the barges was prohibited, and that windows would be dashed into pieces. But certainly the brother of Jared knew and remembered the story of his forefather Noah and his ark. A footnote to the Lord’s instructions to Noah regarding the ark is interesting and perhaps a hint for how the brother of Jared came up with the idea of molten rocks:
Make thee an aark of gopher wood; brooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
A awindow shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. (Genesis 6:14-16)
Consider the footnote to “window”:
HEB tsohar; some rabbis believed it was a precious stone that shone in the ark. Ether 2:23 (23–24).
John A. Tvedtnes’s fascinating article “Glowing Stones in Ancient and Medieval Lore” sheds more light on this possibility:
Hugh Nibley calls attention to accounts from Jewish tradition of similar arrangements that were made for the ark of Noah, to which the Jaredite vessels are compared in Ether 6:7. Several early Jewish sources indicate that God told Noah to suspend precious stones or pearls inside the ark to light it; in some traditions, it is a jewel-encrusted heavenly book. The gem would glow during the night and grow dim during the day so that Noah, shut up in the ark, could tell the time of day and how many days had passed. This was the explanation given by the rabbis for the sôhar that the Lord told Noah to construct in the ark. The word is rendered “window” in the King James Version of Genesis 6:16 but “light” in some other translations.
The Hebrew word Zohar means “light, brilliance, radiance.” If Noah put light, brilliance, and radiance into the ark, he may have done it just as some ancient Jewish sources indicate, suspending precious stones or pearls inside the ark to light it. The plates of Ether that Moroni left out almost certainly included the story of Noah and his tsohar, sôhar, or zohar.
The brother of Jared melted sixteen small stones out of a rock. What did these stones look like? They were white and clear, even as transparent dglass. They were small enough that he could carry all of them in his hands as he hiked to the top of a very high mountain. The brother of Jared’s work and prayers demonstrate great faith in the Lord. I believe that this story is also strategically placed in the Book of Mormon near the end of the book for a good reason. Those who have metaphorically climbed to the top of the Mount Shelem of the Book of Mormon by reading and studying this far, are invited to join the brother of Jared in his exercise of faith. If the Book of Mormon is a Temple text or an endowment of power from the Lord - and I believe that it is - then the story of the brother of Jared represents the pinnacle of that endowment and that Temple journey, on a personal basis for each individual, even as the personal ministry of Jesus Christ among the Nephites represents the pinnacle and central story of the Book of Mormon in a group setting.
After melting the sixteen small, white, transparent like glass stones out of a rock and carrying them to the top of Mount Shelem, the brother of Jared cried again unto the Lord:
O Lord, thou hast said that we must be encompassed about by the floods. Now behold, O Lord, and do not be aangry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are bunworthy before thee; because of the cfall our dnatures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires.
Behold, O Lord, thou hast smitten us because of our iniquity, and hast driven us forth, and for these many years we have been in the wilderness; nevertheless, thou hast been amerciful unto us. O Lord, look upon me in pity, and turn away thine anger from this thy people, and suffer not that they shall go forth across this raging deep in darkness; but behold these bthings which I have molten out of the rock.
And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all apower, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy bfinger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have clight while we shall cross the sea.
Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which alooks small unto the understanding of men. (Ether 3:2-5)
The brother of Jared had absolute confidence in the Lord. The brother of Jared recognized his weakness, unworthiness, and fallenness before the Lord, and he acknowledged the great mercy and goodness of the Lord. The brother of Jared trusted completely in the Lord’s power to do whatever He wills for the benefit of man. The brother of Jared knew that the Lord can do things that are impossible for men to do.
How did the brother of Jared develop such great faith in the Lord? Moroni’s abridgment of Ether’s record of the brother of Jared’s experience reveals a steady process of growth in faith, from early prayers for deliverance from the confounding of language, and prayers for direction, to this mighty prayer of faith for which the brother of Jared had diligently prepared. Apparently, however, the four years of delay upon the beach and the travel in the wilderness were characterized by severe afflictions. This is a pattern that emerges in the stories of Moses and the children of Israel, Nephi and his family, and others. The period of a journey of trials and afflictions was followed by chastisement and correction, which was followed by the brother of Jared’s earnest preparation and diligent efforts to follow accomplish the will of the Lord.
It is possible that the brother of Jared drew from his understanding of Noah’s ark and the tsohar that lit the ark from within in order to prepare his own melted stones. If there were eight barges and sixteen small stones, it makes sense that the brother of Jared planned to place two luminous stones in each barge, lighting the barge from each end (Ether 6:2). There may be other reasons for placing two stones in each barge, and the allegorical meaning of two luminous stones in each barge is something to ponder. But it is remarkable to consider that the brother of Jared had such great faith in the Lord that before even knowing that the Lord had fingers to touch the stones, he asked Him to touch them, believing that the Lord’s touch would illuminate them and prepare them to shine forth during their journey across the great deep.
Moroni rightly includes the brother of Jared’s experience in his great list of miracles accomplished by faith in Jesus Christ. If we return to the symbolic nature of the Jaredite journey, we might also ponder what the sixteen small stones that the brother of Jared melted out of a rock represent when we remember how the Jaredite journey to the promised land is an allegory of our mortal journey toward the ultimate Promised Land, the Celestial Kingdom of God and Eternal Life with our Father in Heaven. That is a journey across an even greater deep than any ocean - a journey that we each make in the very special barges of the gift of a physical body with which we have been blessed, with the very special gift of two eyes, like two luminous stones, that enable us to see and navigate - a journey from mortality to immortality and Eternal Life, the greatest gift of God. With this allegory in mind, the mountain waves, the depths of the sea, the winds, the rains, and the floods - the trials and the challenges in our lives, the opposition - if our barges are sound and our stones shine brightly within - this opposition actually propels us toward our Heavenly destination. In the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith:
I have waded in tribulation lip-deep; but every wave of adversity which has struck me, has only wafted me that much nearer to Deity.