We learn so much more about King Zeniff and his people from this fascinating chapter. We also learn of his faith and what it means to battle in the strength of the Lord. This is a great chapter. I would challenge anyone in the entire world to come up with just one chapter of a book that is even half as inspired, interesting, rich, and varied as just this one simple chapter from the Book of Mormon.
These events that are recorded in the Book of Zeniff took place from about 187 to 160 B.C. There is still a ways to go until Christ's first coming among the Nephites, but we are significantly closer than we were when Lehi left Jerusalem. And Nephite time is still being measured, at this point, from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem. King Laman, the King who deceived King Zeniff, dies, and his son is hardly any friendlier to the Zenephites, or the Nephites under the reign of King Zeniff. Although King Zeniff had originally refrained from any plans to destroy the Lamanites because of the good that he saw among them, by the end of this chapter it is clear that Zeniff had obtained a more sober and sobering view of his enemies.
Zeniff and his people had peace and prosperity for 22 years, but they paid for such peace and prosperity by constant vigilance and by building up a strong military defense. In addition to commanding the creation of more weapons of war, King Zeniff commanded his men to till the ground and his women to spin and toil to make clothing. The division of labor between men and women was very clear. Men did the fighting in battle and the farming. Women made clothing. I imagine that Zeniff's people were very happy in their separate roles, and that their peace and prosperity was in part due to this simple division of labor. The women were happy to be women and to do the work that was best suited to their nature. The men were happy to be men and to do the work that was best suited to their nature. Zeniff's people enjoyed peace and prosperity for more than two decades in part because everyone knew exactly what his or her duty was and no one was clamoring for supremacy or such imbecilic passions for equality.
Thus King Zeniff's people had great internal strength and unity. Their main problems came from the outside, from King Laman's son and his armies. But the Lord strengthened King Zeniff and his people against the ferocious and bloodthirsty Lamanites. As a former spy himself, King Zeniff knew how to train and manage his own spies. He sent spies out around the land of Shemlon so that they would know exactly when the Lamanites would attack.
The Lamanites had similar weapons of war, but the savage Lamanites were easy to distinguish from the more civilized Nephites. When I read Zeniff's description of the Lamanites it is impossible not to think of the most common characterizations of many of the early Native Americans in the United States of America. This is yet another reason why I think that most of the action of the Book of Mormon took place in North America, mostly in what is now the United States of America.
Zeniff prepared his people so well for battle that even the women and children were called to fight. Zeniff himself, an old man, also fought in this battle against the Lamanites. Zeniff and his people prepared well and used strategy to defend themselves against their enemies. They did not aggressively hunt down the Lamanites as Zeniff's former leader had planned to do. They prepared themselves in every way that they could to defend themselves.
Zeniff records that he and his people went up to battle against the Lamanites in the strength of the Lord. Zeniff and his people understood that their victories depended upon their faith in and devotion to the Lord. The Lamanites, on the other hand, knew nothing about the strength of the Lord, and therefore they depended entirely upon their own strength. Zeniff informs us that the Lamanites were a strong people as to the strength of men. But Zeniff and his people understood that the strength of the Lord is something altogether greater, and in fact unconquerable. The strength of men is weakness and nothingness, especially when compared to the strength of the Lord.
What do you think that it means to battle in the strength of the Lord? We all have our battles to fight, personal and otherwise, and I think that we can learn a lot from King Zeniff and the way that he approached his battles. Zeniff's life was not easy. Some of his difficulties came as a result of his own unwise choices. Some of his difficulties came as a result of opposition from enemies. Some of his difficulties came as a natural result of living in this fallen world. I consider Zeniff to be a very relatable character, a good person who was eager to do good, but who gradually discovered the reality and intensity of opposition in all things.
It seems to me that Zeniff was somewhat of an idealistic person in his youth. He saw good among the Lamanites. He fought for what he believed in. He set out on a great pioneering expedition. He settled a new territory, or the old Nephite territory. He was a good man and a good leader. But Zeniff's idealism gradually gave way to the weight of reality. I see in Zeniff such a great struggle to bless and benefit his people after all of the trouble that they plunged themselves into among the Lamanites. After all the good that Zeniff saw among the Lamanites, how could he ever have supposed that he would spend the rest of his life in an almost constant struggle against them?
Did Zeniff not remember what the Lord had told Nephi regarding the Lamanites, namely, that they would be a scourge to the Nephites to stir them up in remembrance of the Lord? I don't think that Zeniff was wrong to be idealistic or to find good among the Lamanites. In fact, I think that he was right, and that a similar attitude inspired the great Nephite missionaries who later embarked on a daring adventure to rescue their Lamanite brothers and sisters. But it seems clear to me that Zeniff underestimated just how wild and ferocious the Lamanites were. His underestimation may have been a natural outgrowth of his over-zealousness, or his overestimation of the Nephites' ability to re-settle and re-colonize their original Promised Land.
Nevertheless, Zeniff's expeditions, colonizing, and leadership were successful in many ways. He and his people re-established a prosperous and peaceful civilization in the land of Lehi-Nephi. The Lord strengthened them and delivered them from their enemies. The price for over-zealousness was great, but King Zeniff and his people grew in wisdom through these experiences. The Lord had a purpose for it all.
What was King Zeniff's more mature and sober perspective on the Lamanites among whom he had seen so much good? King Zeniff came to realize that the Lamanites were wild, ferocious, blood-thirsty, and beset with an eternal hatred of the Nephites. He learned that the tradition of their fathers, namely the tradition that was handed down to them by Laman and Lemuel, was a false tradition that made any peace between the Lamanites and the Nephites practically impossible.
At this point in the Book of Mormon we may have already forgotten about Laman and Lemuel, but their influence upon their posterity comes to the foreground again in these chapters from the Book of Zeniff. In essence, Laman and Lemuel considered themselves to be victims. They considered themselves to be among the oppressed. Their worldview sounds a lot like the worldview of many among us today who suppose that life is a constant struggle between oppressors and the oppressed, and that the oppressed must rise up and liberate themselves from the shackles of their oppressors. It's almost as though Laman and Lemuel were the precursors to Marx and the Frankfurt School. Laman and Lemuel were perhaps the first "woke" Americans.
As I see it, everything comes down to opposing views about agency. The conflict over opposing views of agency, of course, goes all the way back to the pre-mortal council in Heaven in which God's plan for Christ and agency was put into action, and against which Lucifer and a third of the hosts of heaven rebelled. Gordon B. Hinckley gave an excellent talk on this subject:
https://site.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/06/an-unending-conflict-a-victory-assured?
lang=eng&adobe_mc_ref=https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/06/an-unending-conflict-a-victory-assured
At a fundamental level, Lehi and Nephi chose to follow the Lord and His plan, to seek to do His will. They chose liberty and eternal life through Jesus Christ. Laman and Lemuel, on the other hand, just wanted to do things their own way. At the most basic level, this conflict over different uses and abuses of agency played out on a grand scale throughout Nephite history. This episode with Zeniff shows how the opposition continued.
What did Zeniff learn about Laman and Lemuel's influence upon their posterity, and the results of that influence? He learned that when entire generations believe a lie that hardens into tradition, namely, that they were victims all along, then the consequences are drastic and almost impossible to reverse or to remedy. These Lamanites believed that that had been driven out of the land of Jerusalem because of the iniquities of their fathers. This was the opposite of the truth, of course, but they believed this lie because it had been handed down to them since the time of Laman and Lemuel, almost like the truth and the plates had been handed down from Lehi and Nephi to Zeniff.
The Lamanites also believed that they were wronged in the wilderness by their brethren. Again, this was the opposite of the truth. Laman and Lemuel somehow managed to transfer the blame of their own rebellion and disobedience onto those who had been faithful to the Lord, namely Lehi, Nephi, and others. The Lamanites also believed that they had been wronged while crossing the sea. What more obvious example of a lie that hardens into a tradition can there be? Of course we don't read the record of Laman and Lemuel and their perspective on the whole matter. But Laman and Lemuel had bound Nephi with cords and almost caused their vessel to sink in a storm. Laman and Lemuel had adopted a view of agency - and exercised that agency, probably without knowing it - that was similar to that of the third of the hosts of heaven that followed Lucifer in the rebellion against Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father's plan of salvation.
As if that weren't enough of a history of victim ideologies, the Lamanites also believed that they were wronged while in the land of their first inheritance, after they had crossed the sea. Laman and Lemuel and their posterity somehow managed to convince themselves that all of their problems were other peoples' fault. The tale that they told themselves was practically the opposite of the truth in every way. While Laman and Lemuel were busy doing wrong and oppressing Nephi and anyone who dared to follow Nephi, they were also busy blaming Nephi for the inevitable consequences of their own actions. That is a difficult way to live, but it was the way of life that defined an entire civilization for a long time. King Zeniff's reflections on the Lamanites gives us a glimpse of how the ideologies of victimhood naturally lead to ferocity, violence, and rampant ignorance and savagery.
Is any of this relevant to modern life in America?
There is palpable irony in the Lamanite mentality, but I don't think that Mormon meant for this palpable irony to go unnoticed or to remain as a simple history lesson. Mormon and his son Moroni saw our day and they knew how pervasive Laman and Lemuel-esque ideologies would be. This is not to deny or dismiss the reality of the suffering of those who are the legitimate victims of abuses, crimes, and so forth. It is simply to point out that the human tendency to shift responsibility for our own actions onto others and to inherit and live by a false tradition that is saturated with victim ideology is at least as old as the Lehite civilization.
The truth is that Nephi obtained blessings because he was more faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord. The Lord favored Nephi because of his willing obedience to the commandments. The Lord heard and answered his prayers. The Lord blessed Nephi and made him a ruler. Nephi did not "wrong" Laman and Lemuel at all. In fact, he did everything in his power to help and to bless his brothers. Laman and Lemuel wronged themselves by opposing and rebelling against Nephi and his sound counsel.
Nevertheless, Laman and Lemuel were angry (Zeniff's word is "wroth") with Nephi because they didn't understand the dealings of the Lord. They were angry with Nephi because they hardened their hearts agains the Lord. They were angry with Nephi because they thought that he had taken away their right to rule. They were so angry with Nephi that they even tried to kill him. They were even more angry when Nephi fled from them into the wilderness with the records, the plates of brass in particular. Laman and Lemuel claimed that Nephi had robbed them, but it was the Lord who had commanded Nephi to take the plates and to flee.
Zeniff's list of the Lamanite ideological distortions of reality is fascinating because it shows how a tradition that is the exact opposite of the truth can become so entrenched that an entire group of people lives according to it. Laman and Lemuel taught their children to hate the Nephites, to rob and plunder them, and to do all they could to destroy them. They taught an eternal hatred of the Nephites. Talk about a pernicious upbringing.
Do we hear echoes of such pernicious traditions in modern American society? Wherever we learn of an ideology that attempts to instill hatred for another group of people or to twist historical facts so as to teach the opposite of the truth, we might remember what Zeniff and his people were forced to endure. Think of critical race theory, the 1619 project, and the clamor for an endless variety of "rights," for example. Perhaps we now have more to learn from Zeniff than ever. He employed even women and children in the battle for defense against the Lamanite onslaught, and he prayed mightily for deliverance and to fight in the strength of the Lord.
Come to think of it, the Zenephite society was a kind of Benedict option society, an oasis of civilization in the midst of bloodthirsty and ideological enraged savages. Zeniff was over-zealous to re-inherit the land, and his over-zealousness may have been due in part to an overly idealistic understanding of his enemies. His heart was right, because Jesus commands us to love our enemies, but his mind lacked the maturity to accurately evaluate what a treaty with the Lamanites would entail.
Zeniff may have supposed that he could be a bridge-builder. He may have wished to combat "polarization". But there was just one little problem that he had to confront: reality. The reality was that the ideologies of Laman and Lemuel were so rampant and so entrenched that they could not be uprooted by treaties or friendly relations with the Lamanites. Only the power of God, the virtue of His word, and the miraculous efforts of great missionaries could cure such hatred and such ignorance. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was and is the only real solution.
King Laman cunningly deceived Zeniff and his people, with lying craftiness and fair promises, because King Laman had inherited the false traditions of his fathers. Although King Laman and his people believed in false traditions and although their minds were clouded with darkness and ignorance, they were not dumb when it came to worldly tactics for taking advantage of others. Zeniff and his people suffered greatly because of King Laman and his son, but they also relied upon the Lord for their deliverance.
But what did Zeniff do about all this? Did he just roll over and concede victory to their Lamanite oppressors? To his great credit, the once over-zealous, now wise Zeniff continued to fight for his people. Even in his old age, he went into the thick of the battle. And the Nephites were victorious.
What was Mormon trying to teach us by including the record of Zeniff? I don't think that the record of Zeniff is just a way to connect the dots of the abridgment of the large plates or to maintain continuity for the Nephite history.
But the lesson continues because in spite of all of his efforts, Zeniff was not able to transmit his own good intentions and essentially righteous endeavors to the next generation, or at least to the next king whose reign was disastrous for the Zenephites.