20 And thou art like unto our father, led away by the foolish imaginations of his heart; yea, he hath led us out of the land of Jerusalem, and we have wandered in the wilderness for these many years; and our women have toiled, being big with child; and they have borne children in the wilderness and suffered all things, save it were death; and it would have been better that they had died before they came out of Jerusalem than to have suffered these afflictions.
I’m sure Laman, Lemuel, and company thought they were really
insulting and hurting Nephi, trying to make him feel guilty for bringing them
out of Jerusalem. What they didn’t understand is that Nephi had accepted his
role as prophet by now. Just like Lehi, Nephi wasn’t about to apologize for
being a prophet or obeying the Lord (see 1 Nephi 5:4–5). So that insult missed
the mark. The second thing they didn’t understand about Nephi was that he had a
totally different take on how the trip affected the women. So while his
brethren tried to make him feel guilty about dragging their women through the
wilderness (“It’s one thing to get us
out here. We’re men. We can handle it. But think about our poor helpless
women!”), Nephi had a much different understanding about how well the women
were handling the trip (see vs. 2–3 in this chapter. Also refer again to Alma
62:41 for insight on how people going through the same experience come to
different conclusions). Nephi knew that through obedience to God, the women
were handling the hardships of the journey just fine. If anyone, including the
women, was not handling the hardship well, it was due more to disobedience than
to the hardship of the journey itself. So Laman and company missed Nephi on
those two points, just like in verse 19 when they tried to tell Nephi that he
lacked the judgment to build a ship. Nephi might have agreed if he didn’t know
he was on the Lord’s errand.
Isn’t this an interesting point in comparing Lehi’s journey
to the Promised Land to our own journey through mortality. If anyone, including
the Lord’s covenant people, is not handling the hardships of life well, it is
more likely due to disobedience and iniquity than to the hardships of life.
Just like the women were given strength “like unto the men” (vs. 2), if
obedient, we will be given strength to handle temptations and other pitfalls of
this life.
- 1 Nephi 17:2–3 (for contrast)
- Alma 62:41
