The Voyage of the Jaredites

As I read the account of the voyage of the Jaredites in Ether 6 today, I was struck by just how awful such a voyage sounds.  The group had eight barges which they entered in to cross the ocean, and they were described as being “small” and “the length of a tree” (Ether 2:17-18).  We don’t know exactly how many people were in the group, but surely in each barge it was cramped quarters with very little privacy.  Not only did they have people in the barges, but they had to bring along “all manner of food, that thereby they might subsist upon the water, and also food for their flocks and herds, and whatsoever beast or animal or fowl that they should carry with them” (Ether 6:4).  Sharing the space with animals sounds like a nightmare when you consider the smells and the daily needs of all the individuals and beasts.  There was no way to take a bath to clean off, and jumping into the ocean to wash off would only leave them covered in salt.  They sometimes would be “buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountain waves which broke upon them, and also the great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness of the wind” (Ether 6:6).  Surely with that kind of movement and storm there was plenty of sea sickness to go around.  The worst part perhaps was simply the length of the voyage.  In the days when the early Saints crossed the Atlantic from England to the United States the trip would take somewhere on the order of six weeks, and the descriptions I’ve read make the journey sound simply terrible because of the storms, sickness, lack of adequate food, and cramped quarters.  These Jaredites were in the little barges for “three hundred and forty and four days upon the water” (Ether 6:11).  It was almost a full year!  Why it took that long I don’t know—and surely they must have had many stops at various islands along the way (there’s just no way they could have had enough food and water for that long)—and the fact that they survived is a miracle indeed.  It’s no wonder that when they arrived, “They bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them” (Ether 6:12).

            As I thought about these difficulties that the group must have faced and how grumpy most of us would have been to have spent a single day on a barge—let alone a year—I was struck by verse 9: “And they did sing praises unto the Lord; yea, the brother of Jared did sing praises unto the Lord, and he did thank and praise the Lord all the day long; and when the night came, they did not cease to praise the Lord.”  This is not the description at the end of the journey when it was all over—it was during the difficulties that they continually praised the Lord.  I can understand being grateful for their lives and the way the Lord was guiding them, but to be able to look past the daily challenges all around them and simply praise the Lord shows the kind of character the brother of Jared had.  It reminds me of the story of Corrie ten Boom and her sister in the Nazi concentration camp who were able to express gratitude for the fleas in their filthy living quarters.  Or I think of Nephi who, on a similar voyage, was tied up by his brothers in the midst of a terrible storm such that “great as the soreness” of his wrists and ankles as he nearly died.  How did he respond?  “Nevertheless, I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (1 Nephi 18:15-16).  To be able have that kind of perspective, to praise the Lord even when in the midst of terrible discomfort and real suffering, is truly amazing to me.  We are spoiled with the modern conveniences of life, and when little challenges come perhaps we simply need to think of Nephi and the Jaredites and say this: “At least I’m not cramped in a barge while being tossed on the ocean with a bunch of sheep and chickens!”  Surely we too can find ways to praise the Lord even in the midst of our day to day hardships.