Travels in the Wilderness: 1 Nephi 16-22

 This week in Come Follow Me we studied the time period from when Lehi and Ishmael's families leave the Valley of Lemuel, travel to Bountiful, build ships and sail to the Promised Land.  These are very familiar stories and I can't say I had many new insights about them.  Here are just a few:

1. When it says that the family of Lehi ate raw meat in the wilderness, (1 Nephi 17:2) the picture that came to my mind as a child was them taking dead animals, skinning them and then biting into the red meat.  That is, frankly, pretty disgusting and also pretty risky from a health point of view. Recently I read a survival story where the main character stops every 3-5 days, catches fish and then dries them to carry with him on his next part of the journey.  I am thinking this is what must have been going on.  They were traveling through the desert.  If they carried salt with them, it would have been possible to salt the meat and then dry it into jerky.  That would make it less likely to spoil, lighter to carry and safer and more palatable to eat.

2. I had never really connected the death of Ishmael with the lack of food,  but those two things happen back to back in the story.  Ishmael probably died because of starvation or he became susceptible to illness because of lack of food. It would further explain why his family was so angry at Nephi about their father's death.

3. One of the podcasters, I think it was Tyler Griffith, pointed out that Nephi had more confidence that he would be able to build a ship, cross the many waters, and make it to the Promised Land than his brother because he had seen in a vision that this is what was going to happen. The revelation strengthened his faith. It goes along with Joseph's Smith's teaching in the Lectures on Faith that in order to exercise faith we need to receive revelation of Heavenly's Father's will, and then move forward with confidence that His will would be fulfilled. (Lectures on Faith: Law of Sacrifice)

4. I have mentioned this before, but this whole Book of Mormon exodus narrative is told in such a way to draw parallels to the story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness. Many of the same elements are there. The initial vision of Lehi is like Moses' vision.  Getting the brass plates are like the Israelites plundering the Egyptians.  Food is miraculously provided though Nephi's broken bow instance, like the mana in the Old Testament. The Liahona is like the fire that went before the Israelites by night and the cloud by day to lead their way.  Crossing the river Jordan is like building the ships and crossing the great waters. Then what do they do when they get to the new land?  They build a temple like Solomon's temple. By telling the story this way Nephi is legitimizing the decision to leave Jerusalem, which is compared to Egypt and captivity, and to establish a new center of worship in the new world.