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Book of Mormon Commentary
Jacob Chapter 2
THE LAMANITES ARE MORE RIGHTEOUS THAN YOU, VER. 50-70
Jac 2:52 And the Lamanites which are not filthy like unto you, (nevertheless, they are cursed with a
sore cursing,) shall scourge you even unto destruction.
2:52 The time element for the giving of this prediction is indefinite. When Nephi turned the small
plates over to Jacob, the time is given as "fifty-five years since Lehi left Jerusalem” Ob. 1:1). The
next recorded time is when Jacob's son, Enos, "began to be old”. His record closes with the
statement "an hundred and seventy and nine years had passed away from the time that our father
Lehi left Jerusalem" (En.1:42).
The Nephites had departed from the Lord during this time to the extent that their destruction is
predicted. Sin spreads like an infectious disease. Jesus gave a parable to the disciples in Palestine:
"For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required'. (Luke 12:57) .The Lord had
shown his love and power in miracles and spiritual guidance many times. Perhaps Jesus' lament
over Jerusalem would be appropriate here to the Nephites: "How often would I have gathered your
children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not" (Matt.
23:37).
"Shall scourge you even unto destruction" sounds rather final as well as positive. It is well for all
men to learn, as the Lord told Noah, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man" (Gen. 8:5).
Jacob declared, "And the Lord God will lead away the righteous out from among you" Ob. 2:53).
Jac 2:54 Behold, the Lamanites, your brethren, whom ye hate, because of their filthiness and the
cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you;
2:54 He does not leave his people dangling in generalities. He follows this condemnation by
telling why, "For they have not forgotten the commandments ...that they should have, save it were
one wife: and concubines they should have none" (55). There is no subtlety here about "it" or
"except" the Lord should direct otherwise. Adam's time and the period after the flood might have
justified plural marriages had God ever intended to resort to the practice, but there is no record of
such divine direction.
The Lamanites clung to the Hebrew tradition of the solidarity of the home and monogamy. There
was a strong domestic affection in ,the Jewish household. "Behold, their husbands love their
wives, and their wives love their husbands, and their husbands and their wives love their children”
(57).
Jac 2:59 O my brethren, I fear, that unless ye shall repent of your sins, that their skins will be whiter
than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.
2:59 Because the Lamanites rejected God and would not hearken to his words, and "that they
might not be enticing unto my people," Nephi says that "the Lord God did cause a skin of
blackness to come upon them" (II N. 4:31,35). Now the tables are turned, and Jacob says that at
the day of judgment, the skins of the Lamanites will be whiter than those of the unrepentant
Nephites. "Revile no more against them, because of the darkness of their skins" (60). "But ye
shall. remember your own filthiness" (61). The family feud was constantly intensified by name
calling and mutual abuse. It was a case of "the pot calling the kettle black."