Book of Mormon Commentary CofC - Odessa, Missouri Community ...

Book of Mormon Commentary
Alma Chapter 20
ZERAHEMNAH OFFERED TERMS FOR SURRENDER,VER. 61-100
Alma 20:63 Ye know that ye are in our hands, yet we do not desire to slay you.
Moroni stopped the battle and withdrew a pace when he saw his enemy was prostrated. He told
Zerahemnah, “We have not come out to battle against you." The Nephites did not want power nor
to put the Lamanites in bondage. "But this is the very cause. .. ye have come against us; yea, and
ye are angry with us. .. because of our religion" (65). “Never will the Lord suffer that we shall be
destroyed, except we should fall into transgression, and deny our faith" (69).
Alma 20:71 And by all that is most dear unto us; yea, and this is not all; I command you by all the
desires which ye have for life, that ye deliver up your weapons of war unto us, and we will seek not your
blood, but we will spare your lives, if ye will go your way, and come not again to war against us.
The alternative to this offer was war to extinction (72). Zerahemnah delivered up his weapons into
Moroni's hands but !said, "We will deliver them up unto you, and we will not suffer ourselves to
take an oath unto you, which we know that we shall break." Take our weapons and let us depart,
otherwise "we will perish or conquer" (75).
He continued, “We do not believe that it is God who has de- livered us into your hands" (76). It is
your cunning and "your breastplates and your shields that have preserved you" (76, 77).
Moroni then returned his weapons of war, saying, "We will end the conflict," meaning fight it out
(78). In anger Zerahemnah rushed forward to slay Moroni, but a soldier smote his sword "and it
broke by the hilt." Then he smote Zerahemnah and "took off his scalp." Many of the Lamanites
who witnessed this threw down their weapons and signed a covenant of peace. They were allowed
to depart into the wilderness.
Alma 20:89 And now Moroni was angry, because of the stubbornness of the Lamanites; therefore he
commanded his people that they should fall upon them and slay them.
The Lamanites "did fall exceeding fast” and when Zerahemnah "saw that they were all about to be
destroyed," he promised they would sign the covenant.
There were so many dead that they were not counted nor buried. Instead their bodies were cast
into the river Sidon and swept out to sea.