Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

The three “angels” or holy men have agreed to spare the city of Sodom if there are only 10 righteous people in it. Abraham asked these questions knowing full well that his nephew Lot and his family were there. Now I don’t know exactly how big Lot’s family was or if his family alone exceeded the 10 person requirement, but I know he had a wife and at least two daughters, so that’s only four people altogether, assuming they were all righteous. This really begs the question, why did Lot even live there if the whole city was so wicked? It’s really an interesting question, why does he stay? These angels walk toward Sodom and Lot sees them because he “sat in the gate of Sodom.” An article about this chapter form bibleref.com notes that Lot was probably “sitting at the gate as a leader and elder of the town.” When Lot sees these men, the article makes a good point of noting “he probably doesn’t yet know that these are angels sent to investigate the sins of the city’s people in preparation for...

The men that have visited Abraham and Sarah “rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom.” It’s important to note that Abraham and Sarah have been incredibly hospitable to these visitors as illustrated by the fact that what Abraham offered and presented to these visitors was described in detail. It seems like the visiting men have a debate among themselves whether to “hide from Abraham that thing which I must do,” which seems like an interesting event considering that they are probably having this conversation within ear shot of Abraham. They consider telling him because they believe that he will “command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, and to justice and judgment.” The IM comments, “This verse records one of the keys of Abraham’s righteousness. Not only did he keep the commandments but he taught his household to do so too. Of this fact President Kimball said: ‘Abraham’s desire to do God’s will in all things led him to preside over hi...

There is a bit of confusion in the first verse of chapter 18 because it says that after Abraham had circumcised all the male members of his household like the Lord commanded him, “the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day… and, lo, three men stood by him.” The IM says, “we are not justified in teaching that our Heavenly Father, with other heavenly persons, came down, dusty and weary, and ate with Abraham. This is not taught in the 18th chapter of Genesis. The first verse of that chapter should read as follows: ‘And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre.’ That is a complete thought. The second part of this paragraph has nothing to do with the Lord’s appearing to Abraham.” It’s like that thing that says, “Let’s eat Grandma!” or “Let’s eat, Grandma!” Punctuation saves lives. I think this is another example of that. In fact, the IM says at the end of this explanation, “In the Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 18:23 sta...

17:1-14 - Ishmael is born and suddenly there is a flash forward 13 years and we find that “the Lord appeared to Abram.” He gives Abram the command to be perfect. I’ve never really liked this because it implies that perfection is possible in this life or that some people might be born perfect or close to it. But I like the IM’s quote saying, “Salvation does not come all at once; we are commanded to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect. It will take us ages to accomplish this end, for there will be greater progress beyond the grave, and it will be there that the faithful will overcome all things, and receive all things, even the fullness of the Father’s glory.” Perfection isn’t commanded like it is our only goal to get there as fast as possible, but it’s a complex and complicated concept that takes eons of time to achieve. God also promises, by covenant, that he shall “be a father of many nations.” There is an extensive JST from verses 3-12 which gives a lot more insight i...

Abram and Sarai are old, and even though the Lord promised Abram that after 400 years his descendants would inhabit the land of Canaan, they still don’t have any children. Probably seeing that her childbearing years were behind her, Sarai gave her “handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar” to Abram and basically told him to have sex with her so that she can get pregnant and have a child, “that I may obtain children by her.” This seems weird to us, but anciently, this was a very standard practice, the IM comments, “According to the custom of the time, Sarah’s giving her handmaid, Hagar, to be a wife to Abraham was an expected and logical act.” Abram does what Sarai asks and Hagar gets pregnant, “and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.” I always thought that Hagar was bad because of this, she should have just known how important Sarai was and calmed down, but at this point, I can’t ever in any way condemn someone’s reaction to their enslavement...

After returning from rescuing Lot and being blessed by Melchizedek, Abram has a vision in which God says, “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” Maybe it’s a just a different want of speaking, but if someone told me “don’t worry I am your reward for obedience,” I would be very skeptical about the whole deal. But this could also be similar to God promising eternal life with Him, in fact, that’s probably exactly what it’s like. But Abram’s concern about this promise is that he doesn’t have any kids and the main steward of his house “is this Eliezer of Damascus.” Abram has just come back from being blessed by Melchizedek and has already been blessed by God with a Promised Land that is currently inhabited by several groups of people and “seed as the dust of the earth in number.” He’s probably thinking “I have a small group of soldiers and no kids and my wife and I are getting old how is all of this going to be fulfilled?” So he’s asking God is this Eliezer is ...

Circling back to Melchizedek, there is another 15 verses about him as a JST for chapter 14. It’s difficult for me to understand the much about this guy because there is no set record about or by him, so we can’t really get specifics except indirectly. In fact, it seems like so much of what is recorded about him was lost so we only here references to things that were talked about before, so it’s really abstract. What is interesting about this though is that even though he’s not given personal writings in the scriptures, he’s discussed in each and every single book of scripture that we have. If nothing else, this indicates that he is just as important as the other patriarchs that are mentioned in all the books of scripture such as Abraham, Moses, Noah, and Adam. In fact, Elijah isn’t mentioned in all the books and he was/is a major player, so it just goes to show that Melchizedek is a big deal too, even though we don’t know a ton about him, or at least I don’t. The JST about Melchizedek...