Eric Poulin

1 Nephi 17:43

Jerusalem Falls

“And now, after all these things, the time has come that they have become wicked, yea, nearly unto ripeness; and I know not but they are at this day about to be destroyed; for I know that the day must surely come that they must be destroyed, save a few only, who shall be led away into captivity.”

Nephi, writing this at about 591BC, is very close regarding the Babylonian Captivity, which occurred at 586BC – just 5 years later (remember time counts towards 0 on the BC scale). As we can recall, this captivity was the reason Lehi and his family left Jerusalem. Lehi tells us this destruction and captivity was due to the wickedness of the people. Nephi reminds us about this prophecy here. There are some interesting reasons we can review (after the fact) about why the Lord spared Lehi and his family from the captivity and brought them to the promised land in the Americas.

1. The captivity lasted quite a while (until 537BC – a total of 49 years). It wasn’t until Persia overthrew Babylonia that the Jews were given permission to return to Jerusalem. Over this period of time, many of the Jews intermingled with the locals; traditions changed, even the religion changed somewhat. When they returned to Jerusalem almost 50 years later, 2 generations had passed and they had a really hard time restoring things back to the way they were. In fact, things were never quite the same, as much of the traditions evolved while in Babylonian captivity. Lehi’s family were removed from this situation and continued their religious worship unblemished by the captivity.
2. When the captivity happened, many were killed and the rest were taken to Babylon. The Jews did not bring their homes and riches with them. They were captive, not treated quite as a traditional slaves, but they certainly had their wealth taken from them with no promise of that status changing any time soon. Lehi’s family, on the other hand, left their wealth voluntarily, being led towards a promised land. They were not captives; they were free. While there is no doubt they toiled on their journeyings they were never slaves and they all had hope that the promised land was coming.

Lehi’s family, by heeding the commandments of the Lord were spared the great toils of captivity. Even Laman and Lemuel, who pushed back so many times, were spared captivity. We too can be spared many pitfalls in life by heeding the commandments. Many of the things we’ll be spared will be spiritual challenges, but also many things we can be spared from are physical things, enabling us to obtain our promised land in due time.

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