Mosiah 2 - The Conference

In my last post, I talked about Mosiah chapter 1.  Just to reiterate, this is my favorite part of the Book of Mormon.  Good King Benjamin is getting old and has Mosiah, his son, gather their people so that he can address them publicly one last time.  It is a sign of the love and respect the people have for their king that they came to the meeting in droves, even on one day's notice. Come, they did.... and Benjamin did not disappoint them in his speech.

The gathering became a great spiritual event, one that had a vast effect on the people, an effect which was evident for many years after.  This "general conference" of the people of Nephi can be grouped into two logical "sessions" (if not by schedule, at least in topic).  I will discuss the content of both sessions at length, but first I want to comment on some things that the curious workings of my mind fixates on.  The logistics of such a conference is intriguing to me (now, just to be clear, I want to remind readers of this blog that I know that the Book of Mormon is truly of God and that it truly depicts the interactions of an ancient people with their Heavenly Father and His Son.... the book is true!!).

Today, each conference weekend draws hundreds of thousands of people to the Salt Lake City area.  The roads leading to the Conference Center are crowded; hotels and motels are booked and often times people of the area host out-of-town visitors who are there for conference.  Just try to get into a restaurant on Friday nights!  I'm thinking that the gathering for Benjamin's last words may have been very much like that.  Chapter 2 of Mosiah indicates that the people were so numerous that the event could not be held in the temple grounds.  It seems that they had to hold it in an open area close to the city of Zarahemla.  People brought their whole family to hear the words of their king/prophet.  Just think about how anyone, let alone an old man such as King Benjamin, could possibly make himself heard by such a large crowd.  As it turns out, Benjamin's people appreciated the problem and King Benjamin had his words written and distributed to the people who could not hear him (this may be why we have such a good record of what he said). 

It seems hard to understand, then, why at one point of his speech all of the people fell to the earth:  "And now, it came to pass that when king Benjamin had made an end of speaking the words which had been delivered unto him by the angel of the Lord, that he cast his eyes round about on the multitude, and behold they had fallen to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them." (Mosiah 4:1).  Then they all cried out, essentially in unison: "And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men." (Mosiah 4:2).  The question is:  How did they all fall to the earth; how did they cry out as one voice?

Knowing that the Book of Mormon is true, the possibility of inconsistency or error in the account may be ruled out, leaving other explanations for this somewhat unusual thing.  It may be that King Mosiah's words were distributed ahead of his speech and those who couldn't hear him could hear the reaction to his words as they followed along.  It may be that he had the written word read aloud as he spoke.  It may be that after he spoke and had his words distributed, the people read them to each other as they camped (don't these things happen today, during and after every general conference talk?).  Whatever actually happened, it is clear to me that the Spirit was present.  The Spirit conveyed the meaning and feeling of Benjamin's speech to all of the people at the same time.  As a result, I believe that the people did prostrate themselves simultaneously and that they did cry out as one because the Spirit of the Lord acted on all of them simultaneously. 

As I said, the gathering could be like a general conference in which there were two sessions, or at least two different discussions. In the first session, King Benjamin talks about his reign - how he served his people - and he talked about how they should live.  He also informed them that his son Mosiah would become their king.

In the second part of his talk, or the second session, if you will, he revealed to the people what an angel told him to talk about and he bore witness to the coming of the Savior.  In my next blog I will cover these two sessions in more detail.

Don