Moroni's "covenant of peace"

The authors of the Book of Mormon possessed what I like to call a "covenant worldview." Every aspect of their life was immersed in the idea that their devotion to God and obedience to His word would determine their fate -- whether they would prosper or be cut off.

Studying the scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, has helped me understand this worldview much deeper. It strikes me as anathema in many ways to our modern worldview.

Yet it seems every chapter in the Book of Mormon displays this covenant worldview, often overtly and occasionally quite subtly.

The war chapters are no exception to this.

Alma 44 will be the focus of this post.  As I've spent the past several years really focused on learning more about the ancient covenant worldview, each chapter in the Book of Mormon has taken on new depth.

The context of Alma 44 is that Moroni's army has the army of Zarahemnah surrounded. Rather than destroy them, they seek a "covenant of peace" with them.

Notice the covenant worldview expressed in the words of Moroni's offer of freedom in exchange for an oath of peace, found in verses 3-7:

 

But now, ye behold that the Lord is with us; and ye behold that he has delivered you into our hands. And now I would that ye should understand that this is done unto us because of our religion and our faith in Christ. And now ye see that ye cannot destroy this our faith. Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith.

After this introduction, we get the actual words of the offer of peace.  Notice all of the things Moroni swears this oath by:

And now, Zerahemnah,
I command you,

in the name of that all-powerful God, 

    who has strengthened our arms that we have gained power over you, 

• by our faith, 
• by our religion, and 
• by our rites of worship, and 
• by our church, and 
• by the sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children, 
• by that liberty which binds us to our lands and our country; yea, and also 
• by the maintenance of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness; and 
• by all that is most dear unto us—

Yea, and this is not all; 

I command you 

• by all the desires which ye have for life, 

that ye deliver up your weapons of war unto us, 

    and we will seek not your blood, 

    but we will spare your lives, 

if ye will go your way and come not again to war against us.

And now, if ye do not this, 

behold, 

• ye are in our hands, and 
• I will command my men that they shall fall upon you, and inflict the wounds of death in your bodies, 

that ye may become extinct; 

and then we will see who shall have power over this people; 

yea, we will see who shall be brought into bondage. 

These words, when studied closely, demonstrate Moroni's worldview. Especially the comments about how their liberty binds them to the land and their happiness depends on the "maintenance of the sacred word of God."

It isn't hard for me to see a parallel to my life. God desires all of His children to accept a covenant of peace. He desires us to understand that our agency binds us by covenant to His creation, and that our willingness to maintain the sacred word of God in our hearts will lead us to happiness.  He offers us this opportunity to us according to "all the desires which [w]e have for life." If we refuse, and choose to dismiss His covenant, that choice will bring about spiritual bondage.

The rest of the story

Zarahemnah rejects the offer and ascribes to their "cunning" and their "breastplates and shields" what Moroni had ascribed to God.

In a future post, I'll have a little more to say about how this story ends, and how the final part of the story illustrates an important lesson about God's pattern of sending warnings through prophets prior to sending destruction.