Was Omni Really Wicked?

The book of Omni is unique because, according to Omni’s own account, it is named after a man who was “wicked.”  No other book in the Book of Mormon carries the name of someone who was labeled in the text as a wicked individual, and that is the same for the Pearl of Great Price, and the New Testament.  In the Old Testament we could say the Song of Solomon is likewise named after a wicked man, but we don’t believe that to be scripture anyway.  We could make the argument that the book of Jonah is as well given that Jonah ran away from the Lord and did not want to see mercy given to the people of Ninevah, but even he did not (as far as we know) commit acts of wickedness but rather held a grudge against his enemies.  So the book of Omni is fairly unique given Omni’s declaration about himself: “But behold, I of myself am a wicked man, and I have not kept the statues and the commandments of the Lord as I ought to have done” (Omni 1:2).  Given this apparent uniqueness among books of scriptures, my question as I thought about the words that Omni left us and his statement about himself is this: was he really a wicked individual committing many sins or was he simply being humble about his own weaknesses? 

               I do not think we can know the answer to that question with only the text that we have, but I do believe a strong case can be made that Omni may have simply been showing humility about his weakness.  Omni left us only three verses despite the fact that the book itself had 30 and so we have very little to go on other than his own statement.  If the only three verses we had from Nephi were 2 Nephi 4:17-19, we might also question his righteousness, for he declared to us that he was a “wretched man” who grieved for his “iniquities” and was “encompassed about” by “temptations and the sins” which did “easily beset” him.  He recorded that his “heart groaneth because of [his] sins.”  All of that sounds like descriptions we would use to describe those who are “wicked” and yet obviously we know that Nephi was so righteous that his little moments of weakness caused him great anguish as he wrote about here.  So I think it is possible that Omni was showing the same kind of humility and feeling perhaps out of place writing in a book with the likes of Jacob and Nephi and Enos who showed such marvelous righteousness. 

               We have at least a few specific actions of Omni which point to his goodness.  The first is simply that he kept the record as he had been commanded.  He introduced his writing by the statement, “I, Omni, being commanded by my father, Jarom, that I should write somewhat upon these plates, to preserve our genealogy—Wherefore….”  In other words, because he was commanded by his father to write on the record, he did it and mentioned this again as he finished up, “I had kept these plates according to the commandments of my fathers.”  The second is related in that he not only wrote as commanded, but he passed down the plates to be continued by his sons: “I conferred them upon my son Amaron.”  Both of these actions point to the obedience of Omni.  The other action he took that we know of was this: “I would that ye should know that I fought much with the sword to preserve my people, the Nephites, from falling into the hands of their enemies, the Lamanites” (Omni 1:1-3).  He fought to defend his people, just as Nephi “wielded the sword of Laban” in the defense of his people (Jacob 1:10).  That points to a man who was willing to sacrifice and serve his people.  Lastly, he also raised two sons who appear to have been righteous followers of the Lord, Amaron and Chemish.  Both of these wrote briefly after Omni, as they had been commanded, and Amaron’s words declared that the Lord “did spare the righteous that they should not perish,” putting them in the category of righteous since they did not perish. 

All of these actions point to a man who had tried to do what is right: Omni fought for the freedom of his people, he kept the commandments of his fathers to keep the record, and he taught his sons to do likewise.  It may be that he was at heart a good man trying to follow the Lord who had made mistakes he was ashamed of that caused him to label himself as “a wicked man.”  In reality couldn’t we all repeat these words about our own selves?  “I of myself am a wicked man, and I have not kept the statutes and the commandments of the Lord as I ought to have done.”  We all fall short of fully following the Lord’s commandments.  The Lord labeled Martin Harris as a “wicked man” (as He might at times us) when he made some foolish mistakes, but he ultimately did a lot of good and repented despite his weaknesses (Doctrine and Covenants 10:7).  We don’t remember Martin in church history for being wicked because that didn’t define his whole life.  Perhaps Omni deserves little more credit as someone who was trying to do what was right despite his failures to always keep “the statutes and the commandments of the Lord.”