The Daughters of Lehi

2 Nephi 5:6 really comes out of nowhere.  There is no indication anywhere as far as I can tell in the twenty-six preceding chapters that there were any daughters in Lehi’s family, and suddenly we read as Nephi separated from his brethren: “I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me.”  Wait, where did they come from?!  As Lehi had left Jerusalem many years before, Nephi gave us this description: “[Lehi] did travel in the wilderness with his family, which consisted of my mother, Sariah, and my elder brothers, who were Laman, Lemuel, and Sam” (1 Nephi 2:5).  That seems to be a pretty definitive statement about the family—and there were no daughters. 

After the group had journeyed eight years in the wilderness to get to the land of Bountiful, Nephi mentioned, “And now, my father had begat two sons in the wilderness; the elder was called Jacob and the younger Jospeh” (1 Nephi 18:7).  But there is no reference there to sisters.  After they arrived in the promised land, Lehi gathered his children and grandchildren and gave them his final words.  He spoke to Laman and Lemuel in 2 Nephi 1, to Jacob in 2 Nephi 2, to Joseph in 2 Nephi 3, to the children of Laman and Lemuel in 2 Nephi 4, and then finally to Sam before Nephi recorded that Lehi passed away.  But there is no reference to speaking to any sisters.

                So why didn’t Nephi mention any sisters earlier in the narrative?  When did they join the family? When Nephi and his brothers were on their way back from Jerusalem with the family of Ishmael, he was specific about the children of Ishmael, mentioning that they had two married sons and five daughters (see 1 Nephi 7:6).  This was a perfect match for Lehi’s group because it provided exactly the right number of wives for Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, and Zoram.  It seems to me that if Nephi mentioned the daughters of Ishmael, he would have likewise mentioned the daughters of Lehi at this point if they had been born.  So the only explanation that makes sense to me is that these sisters were also born in the wilderness along with Jacob and Joseph.  We know that Jacob was the “firstborn in the days of [Lehi’s] tribulation in the wilderness” and the Joseph was his “last-born” (2 Nephi 2:1, 3:1).  So if these sisters came during the eight year journey in the wilderness, they must have come between Jacob and Joseph.  They would have been the same age as many of the grandchildren of Lehi.  If only we had the writings on the large plates to give us the details!

                At the end of the day it’s not really that important to know about these sisters.  The purpose of the Book of Mormon is to testify of Jesus Christ, not give us historical details.  What we do know about them, though, tells us everything that’s really important: they “believed in the warnings and the revelations of God” and “did hearken unto [those] words” (2 Nephi 5:6).  If one day in the distant future only a single verse in the records of that day described my life, I would hope that it would give the same message as this verse: that I believed in the revelations of God and did hearken unto them.