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Book of Mormon Commentary
1 Nephi Chapter 5
Zenock is quoted by Nephi (I N. 5:240); Alma (A. 16:188); Amulek (A. 16:205); Nephi, the son of
Helaman (H. 3:54); and Mormon (III N. 4:71).
Zenos is often quoted by the servants of God. He was greatly blessed with the spirit of prophecy.
Jacob gives his parable of the vineyard at great length (Ob. 3: 30-153). He is also quoted by Nephi
(I N. 5:242), by Alma (16:177, 186, 188), by Amulek (A. 16:205), by Samuel, the Lamanite
prophet (H. 5:101), and by Mormon (III N. 4:71). Helaman gives one personal item (H. 3:53) that
because of boldness in speaking the words of God Zenos was slain.
These prophets were each shown the coming of the Lord and his rejection and crucifixion, and
also the results upon the house of Israel.
1 Ne 5:245 For thus spake the prophet, The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel at that
day;
5:245 The time of this visitation was to be subsequent to the coming of the Messiah. Six hundred
years after Lehi left Jerusalem (I N. 3:4; 5:236), the city had been destroyed. The house of Israel
was scattered by this time over both continents and the islands of the sea.
The disturbance which came to Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion also extended to the
Americas (III N. 4:6-25). It was more severe in duration and intensity in the "New World”.
The darkness, which was like looking through extra-strong sun glasses, seems to have pervaded
the world at this hour. Phlegon wrote that in the fourth year of the two hundred and second
Olympiad, there was a great darkness over Europe, surpassing anything that had ever been seen.
At mid-day, he said, the stars could be seen. At the same time an earthquake caused much damage
in Nicaea. Tertullian said later that he found in the records of Rome a notation of world-wide
darkness which the statesmen of the Empire could not explain. -Jim Bishop, The Day Christ Died,
page 314, footnote.
1 Ne 5:251 And as for those who are at Jerusalem, saith the prophet, they shall be scourged by all
people, because they crucify the God of Israel, and turn their hearts aside, rejecting signs and wonders,
and power and glory of the God of Israel;
1 Ne 5:252 And because they turn their hearts aside, saith the prophet, and have despised the Holy One
of Israel, they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and a byword, and be hated
among all nations;
5:251,252 History gives abundant proof of the validity of this prophecy to the house of Israel, but
there seems little evidence to justify the severe penalty which the Jews had to pay. In color of skin,
in manner of living, in social conduct there is no radical difference between Jew and Gentile. The
prophecy in Deuteronomy, twenty-eighth chapter, indicates that they brought the persecution on
themselves because of their disobedience to the divine laws and by their rejection of the Messiah.
Note the peculiarity of this prediction. The Jews would be dispersed among, but never assimilated
[as a people] with other nations. Other peoples, or parts of other peoples, have been dispersed and
made friends among the peoples of the world, while the Jews, in the dispersion (the "diaspora," as
they call it) remain strangers, even when they acquire a new citizenship. History shows this to
have been the rule, although there, of course, are many notable individual exceptions.
Dr. Keith, in his dissertations on the evidence for the truth of the Christian religion, calls attention
to the fact that the Jews have always, since the Crucifixion, been a suffering people. In the fifth