Lessons from Jarom

One of my wife’s good friends suggested an interesting lesson that we might take from the book of Jarom in the Book of Mormon.  Jarom was the son of Enos, and we don’t know very much about him or what happened in his time.  He did give this introduction to his short narrative, though: “And as these plates are small, and as these things are written for the intent of the benefit of our brethren the Lamanites, wherefore, it must needs be that I write a little; but I shall not write the things of my prophesying, nor of my revelations. For what could I write more than my fathers have written? For have not they revealed the plan of salvation? I say unto you, Yea; and this sufficeth me” (Jarom 1:2).  My wife’s friend suggested that Jarom may have lacked the confidence and self-esteem that he needed to write down his own prophesying and revelations.  Seeing the great experiences and writings of his father Enos, his grandfather Jacob, his great uncle Nephi, and his great grandfather Lehi, he may have felt as if the contribution he could make to the sacred record was small in comparison to those marvelous visions and prophecies already engraved.  Of course we don’t know the heart of Jarom, but the book confirms that he was a righteous man, and perhaps he did lack the confidence he should have had in his own ability to touch others with his spiritual capacities.  With this interpretation perhaps the lesson we could take away from the short book is that we shouldn’t diminish the great contribution that we could make just because we see that others have made the kind of contributions that seem unattainable by us.  Just because others have touched more lives than perhaps we will doesn’t mean that we can’t still make a great difference. 

               On the other hand, though, we might also take the lesson of humility from Jarom.  I think we could see his deference in not recording more of his own revelations as a sign of deep humility before God.  He knew that the “plates [were] small” and so he didn’t want to take up the rest of the plates with his own words knowing that others after him would also need to write.  At the end of the book of Omni we read that the plates were full as Amaleki finished them and handed them to King Benjamin, and so Jarom may have been conscious of those who would come after him and didn’t want to use all the room on the plates for himself (for some reason it seems like they weren’t able to add more metal to this set of plates).  I think we also see his humility in other parts of his book.  He mentioned briefly that he had his own revelations and prophesying, and as the record keeper and son of Enos surely he was a spiritual leader among the Nephites.  And yet as he spoke about the work done among the people he didn’t include himself as a key contributor.  He wrote, “Our kings and our leaders were mighty men in the faith of the Lord; and they taught the people the ways of the Lord….  Wherefore, the prophets, and the priests, and the teachers, did labor diligently, exhorting with all long-suffering the people to diligence….  And it came to pass that by so doing they kept them from being destroyed upon the face of the land” (v7, 11-12).  Notice that he didn’t say “we taught” or “we labored” or “we kept them from being destroyed,” even though he almost surely played a part in that.  Perhaps he was so humble before the Lord that he chose not to highlight any of his own labors or accomplishments but rather deferred to describing others.  It’s certainly not the style we would except to see from any leaders of our day if they were given 800 words to summarize their life and the status of their people—any such modern summary would be full of grandiose claims of the great good they had done for mankind.  But Jarom’s brief life summary was simple and focused on others.  Surely we can all learn something from the humility of this faithful Nephite.