In Part 1 we looked at the covenant connection of the Hebrew yeresh, meaning to inherit/possess. The promised land is an inheritance given by covenant. It is a blessing ("flowing with milk and honey") but also a great responsibility.
9 And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be when the fulness of his shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are in iniquity.
10 For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be ; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are . (Ether 2)
In Deuteronomy, Israel are repeatedly instructed to purge the evil out of their midst when they possess the promised land. The evil that should be purged comes from breaking God's statutes, judgments and commandments. Sin made unclean and defiled the whole land.
As we have often seen from Old Testament rhetoric, the blessings and cursings associated with the promised land were temporal and physical in nature. It was all about crop yields, weather, success or failure in warfare, children and posterity. There was little concern with the afterlife. But then the Book of Mormon comes along and adds a spiritual dimension to it all, indicating that the Old Testament instructions and events also functioned as "a type and a shadow" (Mosiah 13:10). For instance, in 1 Nephi 15, Nephi teaches his brothers about the Abrahamic covenant and the restoration of the Jews and ties it into his and his father's vision of the tree of life. His brothers seem confused about the temporal and spiritual aspects of this.
31 And they said unto me: Doth this thing mean the torment of the body in the days of , or doth it mean the final state of the soul after the of the temporal body, or doth it speak of the things which are temporal?
32 And it came to pass that I said unto them that it was a representation of things both temporal and spiritual; for the day should come that they must be judged of their , yea, even the works which were done by the temporal body in their days of .
33 Wherefore, if they should in their wickedness they must be also, as to the things which are spiritual, which are pertaining to righteousness; wherefore, they must be brought to stand before God, to be of their ; and if their works have been filthiness they must needs be ; and if they be filthy it must needs be that they cannot in the kingdom of God; if so, the kingdom of God must be filthy also.
34 But behold, I say unto you, the kingdom of God is not filthy, and there cannot any unclean thing enter into the kingdom of God; wherefore there must needs be a place of prepared for that which is filthy. (1 Nephi 15)
The temporal promised land of inheritance for Israel should be kept clean, otherwise God could not dwell there among them. This is a type and a shadow of our eternal inheritance. No unclean thing can enter in there, because then "the kingdom of God must be filthy also". Another example from Alma 40:26
But behold, an awful cometh upon the wicked; for they die as to things pertaining to things of righteousness; for they are unclean, and can inherit the kingdom of God;
The bolded phrase is recurrent in the scriptures, especially the idea that the kingdom of God is an inheritance, like the promised land was to Israel. But Laman and Lemuel's confusion about the physical and spiritual dimension of this may be the reason for their statement in 1 Nephi 2:11
11 Now this he spake because of the of Laman and Lemuel; for behold they did in many things against their , because he was a man, and had led them out of the land of Jerusalem, to leave the land of their inheritance, and their gold, and their silver, and their precious things, to perish in the wilderness. And this they said he had done because of the foolish imaginations of his heart.
1 Nephi 17:21
Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy.
Learning about the covenant context of yeresh (possess/inherit), I realize that Laman and Lemuel's lament here is also an appeal to the Abrahamic covenant. Their land of inheritance was according to their tribe, Manasseh, granted as a covenant promise from God. They had gold, silver and other possessions, indicating covenant blessings in the land. So why should they leave it? This seems like a fair argument but they are missing the bigger point that Nephi explains. He launches into a long speech in 1 Nephi 17 after their comment that I will not quote. But the point is that God establishes different lands of promise for the righteous. "he leadeth away the righteous into precious , and the wicked he
Later, the sons of Mosiah-II go back to "the place of their father's first inheritance" (Alma 22:28) to preach the gospel. They have great success, but their coverts are under serious threat by the wicked and must once again be led out of the land into a new land of inheritance. The Nephites come to the rescue and grant the Lamanite converts the land of Jershon, meaning "place of inheritance/possession" according to rules of Hebrew name formation. The 'Y' in yeresh becomes 'J' according to typical English transliteration of Hebrew, and the suffix, "on", indicates a place. The wordplay is evident
And it came to pass that the voice of the people came, saying: Behold, we will give up the of , which is on the east by the sea, which joins the land Bountiful, which is on the south of the land Bountiful; and this land Jershon is the land which we will give unto our brethren for an inheritance...And now behold, this will we do unto our brethren, that they may inherit the land Jershon...And it came to pass that it did cause great joy among them. And they went down into the land of Jershon, and took possession of the land of Jershon (Alma 27:22, 24, 26)
According to Matthew Bowen, the land grants to the Lamanite converts therefore stand as a symbol of the restoration of the Abrahamic covenant and reintegration into the House of Israel. His most recent article in the Interpreter Journal touches upon several of the aspects in these two posts as well as some that I have not addressed.
The Book of Mormon is also full of promises about lands of inheritance in the latter days. For example
7 But behold, thus saith the : the day cometh that they shall believe in me, that I am Christ, then have I covenanted with their fathers that they shall be in the flesh, upon the earth, unto the of their inheritance.
8 And it shall come to pass that they shall be in from their long dispersion, from the of the sea, and from the four parts of the earth; and the nations of the Gentiles shall be great in the eyes of me, saith God, in them forth to the lands of their inheritance.
9 , the kings of the Gentiles shall be nursing fathers unto them, and their queens shall become nursing mothers; wherefore, the of the Lord are great unto the Gentiles, for he hath spoken it, and who can dispute?
10 But behold, this land, said God, shall be a land of thine inheritance, and the shall be blessed upon the land. (2 Nephi 10)
As covenant children of Abraham, we are part of the restoration of the latter days where, according to the Book of Mormon, the righteous inherit their original promised lands, preparing for a time when we may inherit a place at the right hand of God (see Alma 5:58).