Prisoners At Work

After the Nephites had a significant victory in their long war against the Lamanites, they were left with an enormous amount of Lamanite prisoners on their hands.  Figuring out how to guard these Lamanites without using up too many Nephites that were needed in battle was a significant challenge.  Moroni’s solution was to put them to work.  He first “did compel them to go forth and bury their dead, yea, and also the dead of the Nephites who were slain.”  Then they were taken back to the land Bountiful and Teancum “caused that they should commence laboring in digging a ditch round about the land, or the city, Bountiful.”  The Lamanites were required to labor in building a “strong wall of timbers and earth” and were placed therein afterwards (Alma 53:1, 3-4).  After describing this Mormon made the following comment about part of the reasoning for putting the prisoners to work: “Now Moroni was compelled to cause the Lamanites to labor, because it was easy to guard them while at their labor; and he desired all his forces when he should make an attack upon the Lamanites” (Alma 53:5).  I’ve thought a lot about this idea that the prisoners were easier to guard while they were working than when they were idle.  Is there any lesson in this for us?  

                Perhaps one application for us is that in our own lives we will be much more likely to not fall into serious sin and addictions if we avoid idleness.  We know that in the scriptures the Lord commands us, “Thou shalt not be idle,” and one of the obvious reasons for this is that we need to be able to provide the necessities of life for ourselves and family.  But another reason may be to avoid situations that would lead us to commit sin we otherwise wouldn’t.  As J. Richard Clarke said, “Idleness in any form produces boredom, conflict, and unhappiness. It creates a vacancy of worth, a seedbed for mischief and evil.  It is the enemy of progress and salvation” (see here).  That was said in 1982 in general conference; how much more it applies today with sin astronomically more accessible than it was then.  It takes only a few minutes of boredom on a phone or computer to get someone in potentially serious spiritual trouble.  We can guard ourselves much better if we keep ourselves “anxiously engaged in a good cause” and working to “bring to pass much righteousness” (D&C 58:27).  I think we see one example of the dangers of idleness in the account of the journey across the ocean for Lehi’s family.  Surely the people on the boat had little to do as they tried to pass the time on the water, and so some of them “began to make themselves merry, insomuch that they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness, yea, even that they did forget by what power they had been brought thither” (1 Nephi 18:9).  This obviously led to serious problems for the group, and my guess is that it all started with Laman and Lemuel trying to think of creative ways to pass the monotonous time on the ship.  Another example is that of David who, while his armies were fighting, “tarried still at Jerusalem.”  When it was evening when he was supposed to be in bed, he walked up on the roof and saw Bathsheba.  He should have been at war with his troops, but instead he let his idle wanderings become the beginning of his downfall.  To avoid that kind of mistake we have to learn to protect ourselves from the onslaught of wickedness that surrounds us and is constantly trying to get our attention.  And it’s much easier to guard ourselves from falling into sin when we are “working” on good things than when we are idle.