34 Do ye suppose that our fathers would have been more choice than they if they had been righteous? I say unto you, Nay.
The antecedent to “they” in this verse is the former
inhabitants of Israel’s Promised Land. Nephi is making the point that the
difference between these former inhabitants and the Israelites was
righteousness. We often wonder at the disobedience of the children of Israel, but
they obviously were more righteous than a lot of other people, including those
who were in their promised place. If that people had repented (after the manner
of Nineveh, years later when called to repentance by Jonah), their story would
have been different. The thing that made Israel more choice than these other
nations was their righteousness (and their covenant, but that is a topic for a
different entry). The wicked don’t make covenants with God.
