King Benjamin's Humility

I was impressed by one statement of King Benjamin’s in his counsel to his sons as I read Mosiah 1 today.  We read, “Therefore, he had Mosiah brought before him; and these are the words which he spake unto him, saying: My son, I would that ye should make a proclamation throughout all this land among all this people, or the people of Zarahemla, and the people of Mosiah who dwell in the land, that thereby they may be gathered together” (Mosiah 1:10).  This was at the end of King Benjamin’s reign after he had spent much of his life serving his people, “laboring with all the might of his body and the faculty of his whole soul” to drive out the Lamanites and establish peace among the Nephites (Words of Mormon 1:18).  He told the people, “I have labored with mine own hands that I might serve you” and “I have been suffered to spend my days in your service” (Mosiah 2:12, 14).  And yet, despite all that he had done serving the people as their king for what must have been decades, he still did not even call them his own people.  He called them “the people of Zarahemla, and the people of Mosiah,” and not “my people.”  To me it shows the incredible humility that he had to not even presume to call the people he had governed and served with all his heart his own people—he still deferred to his father Mosiah.  Even when teaching the people he still deferred to tat “which was spoken of by my father Mosiah” (Mosiah 2:32).    

                Of course much of what we have in the words of King Benjamin also showed the great humility that he had.  The fact that he “labored with [his] own hands” is really an astounding confession on the part of a king and shows a kind of leader that we can find in very few places.    King Benjamin made no presumptions about his own greatness and told the people, “I am like as yourselves” (Mosiah 2:11).  The other astounding action that was another witness to his humility was that he turned over the responsibility to be king well before his death.  We read that he “consecreated his son Mosiah to be a ruler and a king over his people” and then “king Benjamin lived three years and he died” (Mosiah 6:3, 6).  That’s unheard of for a king to simply give up his power and sit back and watch someone else rule.  What an incredible amount of humility he must have had to be able to simply give up his power completely and sit back as and watched someone else rule.  We could certainly use a lot more of that kind of attitude in today’s leaders as we watch some leaders cling to power and take up violent means just to hold on to that power.  King Benjamin not only didn’t try to hang on to his power but he didn’t even have the presumption to call the people his own.  He was a model of humility for all of us to follow.