Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Jacob 1-3

1. Jacob definitely wants to establish a continuity with Nephi's work.  He's going to write the "precious" things (1:2, reminds us of 1 Nephi 11); we have talk of plates and seed (1:3); he'll only write sacred things, great revelations and prophesying, which Nephi did -- when Nephi wrote such things, they all had temple connections or themes, and, sure enough, Jacob immediately gives us a temple discourse (1:17 and 2:1); like Nephi, Jacob sees his people in terms of the Exodus (1:7); not rebelling and bearing the shame of the world (1:8) remind us of Lehi's vision.

2. 1:11 and 1:13 on the Nephite kingship and the division of the people into tribes effectively remind me how small a slice of Nephite history we have -- especially in the small plates.

3. In 2:8, 11 we see that, at least in Jacob's day, the Nephites continued the Israelite linguistic usage of describing all movement towards the temple as "going up".  (Remember we see this something like 17 times in 1 Nephi, always accurately.)

4. 2:18-19 the kingdom of God = hope in Christ.  This is interesting; I think that "hope" is the most misunderstood and most neglected of the three great spiritual gifts (faith, hope, charity).

5. 2:23-30 Jacob delivers the prohibition against polygamy like it's an original commandment in the name of the Lord.  Interestingly, he then indicates that Lehi has already given his sons this commandment (2:34 and 3:5).  What happened out there in the family's desert sojourn?  Does this have anything to do with the disappearance of Sariah from the record before Lehi's youngest sons were born?

6. 2:32 "fair" daughters in Egyptian would be daughters who are nfrt, from the same root as Nephi and Nephites.

7. 3:2  Feasting on the "love of God" ties us back into 1 Nephi 11:21-22 -- the love of God is the tree who is the virgin who is Jerusalem.

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