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

Book of Mormon Commentary
1 Nephi Chapter 5
Nahom, where Ishmael was buried, comes from the Hebrew nacham, which means "consolation"
but it also means vengeance, on the supposition that there is some consolation in retribution.
1 Ne 5:48 And Laman said unto Lemuel, and also unto the sons of Ishmael, Behold, let us slay our
father, and also our brother Nephi, who has taken it upon him to be our ruler and our teacher, who are
his elder brethren.
5:48 This proposal was made by Laman. The old argument was used that Nephi had usurped
authority and sought to be the ruler of the group. They accused him of plotting to destroy the
colony by leading them "away into some strange wilderness" (5:50) and set up a kingdom over
which he would rule according to his pleasure.
FROM NAHOM TO BOUNTIFUL, VER. 55-67
1 Ne 5:55 And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel
nearly eastward, from that time forth.
1 Ne 5:56 And we did travel and wade through much affliction in the wilderness; and our women did
bear children in the wilderness.
5:55, 56 Not much has been said about the direction traveled. Lehi was directed of the Lord to
leave Jerusalem, and he came to the borders of the Red Sea (1 N. 1:30-36). Thus we know the
general direction was south and east (5:16). Now the eastward route might take them along the
Gulf of Aden. A mountain chain parallels the coast a few miles back from the gulf.
After traveling a vast distance in a south-southeasterly direction (16:13, 14, 33 [5:16, 18, 42]), the
party struck off almost due eastward through the worst desert of all, where they “did wade through
much affliction," to emerge in a state of almost complete exhaustion into a totally unexpected
paradise by the sea. There is such a paradise in the Qara mountains on the southern coast of
Arabia. To reach it by moving "nearly eastward" (17:1 [5:55]) from the Red Sea coast, one would
have to turn east on the nineteenth parallel.
Of the Qara Mountains which lie in that limited sector of the coast of south Arabia which Lehi
must have reached if he turned east at the nineteenth parallel, Bertram Thomas, one of the few
Europeans who has ever seen them, writes:
“What a glorious place! Mountains three thousand feet high basking above a tropical ocean, their
seaward slopes velvety with waving jungle, their roofs fragrant with rolling yellow meadows,
beyond which the mountains slope northwards to a red sandstone steppe. ...Great was my delight
when in 1928 I suddenly came upon it all from out of the arid wastes of the southern borderlands."
1 Ne 5:57 And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in
the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like
unto the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings.
5:57 Nephi states that their women ate raw meat and became as strong as the men. In addition to
bearing children they were able to bear the hardships of Bedouin life without murmurings. Nephi
credits their strength mainly to their keeping the commands of God and His supply of nourishing