Bondage and the Priests of Noah

Last year I wrote about the priests of Noah and how they seemed to prosper greatly despite their wickedness.  One of the things that has perplexed me as I’ve thought about this is that this prophesy of Abinadi does not seem to have been fulfilled for them: “Thus saith the Lord, it shall come to pass that this generation, because of their iniquities, shall be brought into bondage” (Mosiah 12:2). That certainly came to pass for the people of Limhi as a whole as well as for the people of Alma who were put into bondage in the land of Helam.  And yet the priests of Noah never came under bondage—in fact, instead they were the ones to put heavy burdens on the people of Alma!  That certainly doesn’t seem fair; the ones who repented were enslaved to those who continued in their wickedness.  Why would the Lord let the events transpire this way?  

               When we look at this from a different perspective, I think it actually makes sense and we see the wisdom and love of the Lord.  The bondage that the people of Limhi and Alma endured proved to be a great refiner for them and helped them to come to know God and commit more fully to follow Him.  In the midst of the great trials of the people of Limhi, Mormon described their response this way: “And they did humble themselves even in the depths of humility; and they did cry mightily to God; yea, even all the day long did they cry unto their God that he would deliver them out of their afflictions.”  This led them to be “desirous to be baptized as a witness and a testimony that they were willing to serve God with all their hearts” (Mosiah 21:14, 35).  Because of their struggles, they became righteous and turned to the Lord.  For the people of Alma, their trials were such that they received these incredible words of the Lord: “Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me….  I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions” (Mosiah 24:13-14).  They came away from that experience with a sure knowledge of the Lord and His goodness, and like the pioneers who crossed the plains, surely they came to know God in their extremity.  Because of their trials, they received blessings from the Lord that the priests of Noah would never know.  In our dispensation the Lord said, “Whom I love I also chasten” (D&C 95:1).  The priests of Noah, though they prospered physically, received none of this love from the Lord.  Surely he loved them too, but it seems that they were “past feeling” like Laman and Lemuel had been; perhaps they had “procrastinated the day of [their] salvation until it [was] everlastingly too late” (1 Nephi 17:45, Helaman 13:38).  It may be that the priests of Noah didn’t get any more chastisement or bondage because the Lord knew they were not going to repent, and their punishment would surely come eventually.  And as I mentioned previously, He needed them as an instrument in his hands to teach the Lamanites the language of the Nephites so they could ultimately receive the gospel from the sons of Mosiah.  Lehi testified, “All things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things” (2 Nephi 2:24).  We don’t usually know why some of the righteous seem to get more of their fair share of struggles while the wicked appear unscathed, but surely it is all in God’s great wisdom and we will one day see how our experiences have indeed “[been] for [our] good” (D&C 122:7).