The Land of Helam

Alma 24 contains the description of those Lamanites who fought against the Anti-Nephi-Lehies and killed over a thousand of them.  Mormon introduced the chapter this way: “And it came to pass that the Amalekites and the Amulonites and the Lamanites who were in the land of Amulon, and also in the land of Helam, and who were in the land of Jerusalem, and in fine, in all the land round about, who had not been converted and had not taken upon them the name of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, were stirred up by the Amalekites and by the Amulonites to anger against their brethren.”  We know from Mosiah 23:31 that the land of Amulon was where the priests of Noah had established themselves, and from Alma 21:2 we know that the city of Jerusalem had been built up by the Amalekites and the people of Amulon.  So it’s no wonder that the people here who were the more hardened Nephite dissenters were particularly opposed to the converted Lamanites.  The other place mentioned by name was the land of Helam, which was the place that Alma and his people had built up before they were found by the Lamanites and put under the oppressive rule of Amulon.  So this verse tells us to some degree what happened to the land of Helam after Alma and his people escaped: it was inhabited by the Lamanites, and almost certainly by part of Amulon’s group.  Those priests who had used the people of King Noah to labor for their own idleness once again took advantage of the hard work of others and were “supported in their laziness” (Mosiah 11:6).     

               Given that about the land of Helam, I think there are two different ways we might view what happened there.  On one hand we might lament to the Lord the injustice of it all—the wicked Lamanites essentially stole the city from the people of Alma.  The people of Alma lost everything they had worked so hard to build even though were righteous.  On the other hand, the people of Alma miraculously were able to escape and were delivered from bondage by the hand of the Lord.  This latter way of seeing their experiences is clearly how the Lord wanted the people to remember Helam.  Here’s how the angel that came to Alma the Younger referred to the land of Helam: “Go, and remember the captivity of thy fathers in the land of Helam, and in the land of Nephi; and remember how great things he has done for them; for they were in bondage, and he has delivered them” (Mosiah 27:16).  For many of life’s experiences I think we have the same choice to decide how we view what has happened to us and what we focus on; we can set out to find the injustices and dwell on those, or we can choose to see how the Lord has blessed and preserved and delivered us in the midst of trials.  What happened at Helam reminds us that there will be injustice even for the righteous, but the Lord will help and strengthen us in those difficulties if we turn to Him.