LatterdayBloke

Come Follow Me – Notes and Thoughts – ‘All Those Who Would Go With Me’ (2 Nephi 5)

In 2 Nephi 5:6 we read:

Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take my family, and also aZoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the bwarnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words.

Those who fled into the wilderness with Nephi included:

  • his own family
  • Zoram and his family
  • Sam and his family
  • Jacob
  • Joseph
  • Nephi’s younger sisters
  • All those who would go with him.

But who were these extra people who would go with him?

Brant A Gardner writes:

“Who might these people have been? There are four possibilities for the identity of ‘all those who would go’:

  1. Ishmael’s sons and their families. This is unlikely. Tribal Ishmaelites are associated with Lamanites and Lemuelites in Alma 47:35 and 4 Nephi 1:38.
  2. Some of the Lamanite children. This possibility seems unlikely, since children born in the wilderness were probably no older than ten and would stay with their mothers who presumably stayed with their husbands.
  3. Unnamed and otherwise completely unidentified individuals who might have come over on the ship. This reading is possible, but would be the only time such people were mentioned or even hinted at as the family boarded the ship in the Old World.
  4. Local residents who allied themselves with the Lehites in the first months of settlement.

As we examine the nature of the early Nephite community, only this fourth option is viable in explaining Nephi’s community.

Assuming that this hypothesis is correct, we may further assert that many of the local people who originally joined with the Lehites remained with the Lamanites. Given only the people Nephi names as going with him, there should have been more Nephites than Lamanites. Nevertheless, in just two generations Jarom states that the Lamanites ‘were exceedingly more numerous than were they of the Nephites’ (Jarom 1:6)” (Brant A Gardner, The Book of Mormon as History)

Leave a comment