A Study of Book of Mormon Texts

A Study of Book of Mormon Texts By J. M. Sjodahl Notes on Significant Words and Phrases. (Con.) Columbus Inspired. Nephi, the prophet, teaches us that Columbus was inspired to undertake his epoch-making voyage of discovery. He says: "And I looked and beheld a man among the gentiles who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land." (I Nephi 13:12.) Columbus himself held this view of his mission on earth. His great aim in life was to obtain enough meuns with which to equip an army and undertake a crusade to the Holy Land, for the purpose of dri\ing the Mohammedans away from the places made sacred by historical association with the life and death of Christ. Before his fourth and last voyage, which he commenced on May 11, 1502, he wrote a letter to Pope Alex- ander VI, renewing a promise previously made that he would furnish troops for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, and the conviction grew upon him, as he devoted a considerable portion cf his time to the study of prophecies of the Scriptures, that he was, as Fiske puts it (The Discovery of America Vol. 1, pp. 415, 505), "a chosen instrument in the hands of Providence for enlarging the bounds of Christendom . . . and a habit grew upon him of attributing his discoveries to miraculous inspiration rather than the good use to which his poetical and scientific mind had put the data furnished by Marco Polo and the ancient geographers." Columbus, evidently, was conscious of the fact that he act- ed under the influence of a higher power, as represented in the prophetic vision of Nephi, and so he becomes, indirectly, one of many witnesses for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. The East Wind. One of the peculiarities of language is this that words continue to be used long after their first meaning has been lost sight of. We speak, for instance, of a "disastrous" event, although we do not believe that the "stars" have anything to do with it. We ha\e simply inherited the word from a time when people regarded some stars as "lucky" and others as "unlucky," and attributed misfortunes to the in- fluence of the latter class. "Starboard," the nautical term, is another familiar illustra-

1046 IMPROVEMENT ERA tion of the fact stated in the preceding paragraph. The term was originally "steerboard." There was a time when the rudder of a ship was attached to it by means of a piece of wood which pro- jected from the right side of the vessel. The viking ship dis- covered at Sandefjord, Norway, shows this peculiar arrangement of the steering apparatus. This accounts for the name "star- board" by which the right side of a ship is still known, although the reason for it has has long since ceased to exist, as far as the construction of the ship goes. We still call written or printed records "books" (from "beech"), as did our ancestors who carved their runes on "staves" made of the wood of the beech tree. We use "pens" to write with, though they are no longer made of feathers, or rather quills (pennae). We still speak of "lunacy," although we know that the mental condition designated by that word has nothing to do with the moon (luna). Such illustrations could be multi- plied indefinitely. In the Book of Mormon there is an instance of this peculiar use of a word, of more than passing interest. According to Mosiah 7:31, King Limhi told his oppressed people that they were smitten and afflicted, because they had sinned and the Lord had made good his threat: "If my people shall sow filth- iness, they shall reap the east wind, which bringeth destruction." The people of Limhi were in bondage to the Lamanites (Mos. 7:15). Many of them had been slain (V. 24), and all had suf- fered affliction (V. 28). And this condition the king refers to, speaking figuratively, as the result of a destructive "east wind." Whence this figure of speech? In Palestine, the country from which the ancestors of Limhi came, the east wind was very destructive. In the summer time it was dry and scorching, and in the winter it was cold. Sweeping out upon the Mediterranean it generally became dangerous to the ships in its path. "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind" (Psalm 48:7). It was such a wind, known in the days of Paul as a euroclydon, which made a total wreck of the ship in which the apostle was being conveyed %o Rome (Acts 27). According to Gen. 41:6, 23, 27, the seven years famine in Egypt was caused by a scorching east wind. The people of Palestine were familiar with the, to them, disastrous effects often produced by the east wind, and their descendants carried that knowledge with them to this part of the world. Here the term was used as Limhi uses it, and also Abinadi (Mos. 12:6), even when the geographical reason for it no longer existed. But it proves that those who so used it on this side of the "many waters" were familiar with Semitic ideas and expressions. (To be continued)

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HHMSHHI jjt' ■""' ih^i ' ' < i '"TOE* jg Z«f/,j ^F '. r Mb % ,;IP£P^| 9 .?w / HB 81 :.■,,.: . .• ■-■ • :.--; ■■■:.'. . - , ■* . ' * wrflk* ^ ■\ - . >! - ".. ■ ' - • ? - * »■ ■ < • ■ ■ «- --' '. -'.' ..-■ ... '. ■"' V " ■ " ',■■'■■ - vr&aaiRs ■ . '- "• <•" ' «.- Twl^ ' fifty -'■" "<•' ■• •■ 1 -''I , •' • '-',** i • r "" * / . v a^,rf%dmBaBM^B J&&. ' ' y " ■""' '-/'■■■-*"■ In celebrating July 24, 1923, the Daughters of the Pioneers staged an historic pageant at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, duplicating as nearly as could be done, the entrance of the original band of Pioneers, in 1847. This picture represents the main group of the original party going into camp at "Pioneer View" near the M. I. A. monument, the spot where President Brigham Young, viewing the valley, made the memorable statement, "This is the place." A feature of the parade was these yokes of oxen which came from Lewiston, Cache county, Utah, and are hitched to the original wagon in which J. T. Terry, of Draper, first entered the valley in 1851. He insisted on riding in it once more, his wife be- side him. Pioneer Entrance Re-enacted Daughters of the Pioneers Make Reproduction of Original Band of Pioneers, Under Leadership of Brigham Young With the dual purpose of entertaining the pioneers of 1847 to 1869, and their friends during the celebration, July 24, 1923, of the original entrance of the "Mormon" pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley, and also of obtaining motion pictures for his- torical preservation, the Daughters of the Pioneers collected out- fits which duplicated as nearly as is now possible, the original band entering the Salt Lake Valley, July 21-24, 1847. Automobiles stretching over the road for two miles car- ried the pioneers to the mouth of Emigration Canyon and were parked at advantageous places where a view of the pageant could be seen by all. Two amplifiers carried the voice of Hon. Joseph J. Cannon, the speaker for the occasion, so that the sev- eral thousand spectators could hear his story and words of trib- ute to the Pioneers. First in the pageant came Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow, im- personated by Clark Kimball and Russell Snow, respectively,