Smiting Their Arms

One of the most famous stories in the Book of Mormon is that of Ammon defending the flocks of the king of the Lamanites. Mormon recorded what happened as those seeking to scatter the flocks came to fight Ammon: “But behold, every man that lifted his club to smite Ammon, he smote off their arms with his sword; for he did withstand their blows by smiting their arms with the edge of his sword, insomuch that they began to be astonished, and began to flee before him; yea, and they were not few in number; and he caused them to flee by the strength of his arm. Now six of them had fallen by the sling, but he slew none save it were their leader with his sword; and he smote off as many of their arms as were lifted against him, and they were not a few.” This scene is well-known in the minds especially of young boys learning the stories of the Book of Mormon. The account continues, “And when he had driven them afar off, he returned and they watered their flocks and returned them to the pasture of the king, and then went in unto the king, bearing the arms which had been smitten off by the sword of Ammon, of those who sought to slay him; and they were carried in unto the king for a testimony of the things which they had done” (Alma 17:37-39). So Ammon cut off the arms of “not a few” of them, and those arms were taken to the king to prove what Ammon had done. The natural interpretation of this is that Ammon actually cut off their limbs, but in a recent podcast Hank Smith commented, “I don't know how old I was when someone told me that whenever Mormon uses the word arms in his books that he writes Mosiah, Alma, that he's talking about weapons. I thought, ‘Don't tell me that.’ They said, ‘It may be that Ammon is smiting off the weapons of the Lamanites.’ I thought, ‘I don't want to know that. I want it to be a big bag of arms.” Could we have been understanding this story wrong the whole time—was it really weapons that Ammon had cut off?

               There are indeed several passages that speak of “arms” clearly as weapons. Zeniff wrote of his battle with the Lamanites, “I also caused that all my old men that could bear arms, and also all my young men that were able to bear arms, should gather themselves together to go to battle against the Lamanites” (Mosiah 10:9). When the people of Limhi captured the Lamanite king and went to plead for mercy before the Lamanites, “The Lamanites saw the people of Limhi, that they were without arms, they had compassion on them and were pacified towards them” (Mosiah 20:26). Certainly Mormon did not use “arms” here to refer to limbs! Later speaking of the converted Lamanites, Mormon wrote, “Now there was not one soul among all the people who had been converted unto the Lord that would take up arms against their brethren; nay, they would not even make any preparations for war between the Nephites and the Lamanites; yea, and also their king commanded them that they should not” (Alma 24:6). Of the same group we also read, “Now this people again refused to take their arms, and they suffered themselves to be slain according to the desires of their enemies…. Their fear to take up arms against their brethren lest they should commit sin…. they never could be prevailed upon to take up arms against their brethren” (Alma 27:3, 23, 28). During the great war between the Lamanites and the Nephites, the fathers of the stripling warriors were “moved with compassion and were desirous to take up arms in the defence of their country,” but it was their sons who “did assemble themselves together at this time, as many as were able to take up arms, and they called themselves Nephites” (Alma 53:13, 16). Later Ammoron wrote to Moroni, “And now behold, if ye will lay down your arms, and subject yourselves to be governed by those to whom the government doth rightly belong, then will I cause that my people shall lay down their weapons and shall be at war no more” (Alma 54:18). Clearly he was referring to weapons and not to physical limbs. All these references suggest that Mormon often used the word arms to speak of weapons. The 1828 Webster’s dictionary has for its first meaning of the word arms this definition: “Weapons of offense, or armor for defense and protection of the body.”  

               All those references do give credence to the idea that Ammon was cutting off weapons from his enemies instead of arms. As I reread the passage describing what Ammon did, I am led to believe that indeed he was smiting down their weapons and not their limbs, especially given the fact that Mormon included the word “arm” (singular) to describe Ammon’s physical arm, but he always used the word “arms” for the people he was combatting: “Every man that lifted his club to smite Ammon, he smote off their arms with his sword; for he did withstand their blows by smiting their arms with the edge of his sword, insomuch that they began to be astonished, and began to flee before him; yea, and they were not few in number; and he caused them to flee by the strength of his arm.” Per this description, each Lamanite came to Ammon and raised his club up to then bring it down upon Ammon. While he was bringing it down, Ammon withstood their blows with the edge of his sword, and that language (particularly the word “withstood”) suggests that Ammon was in a defensive position. It seems very unlikely to me that Ammon could have successfully cut off the arm of a person who was in the process of bringing down a big club on top of him. The positioning just doesn’t work in my mind—how could he successfully make a sideways attack on the Lamanite with enough force to actually take the whole arm off before that Lamanite simply brought it down from above his head onto Ammon? Understanding “arms” to mean weapons though, makes sense: Ammon stood there defensively with his sword and waited for the man to bring down his club, and Ammon made sure that club hit into his sword first and such that the club was cut off and rendered useless. One more fact also convinces me that Alma was cutting off their weapons and not arms: “Now six of them had fallen by the sling, but he slew none save it were their leader with his sword; and he smote off as many of their arms as were lifted against him, and they were not a few” (Alma 17:38). Those whose “arms” he cut off did not die—not one of them. And yet, if he had really cut off their arms, I have to think that the bleeding would have been so bad that at least some of them would have died.

            To me this interpretation suggests that Ammon was not out to injure the Lamanites more than he had to in order to defend the people. When he could, he simply rendered their weapons useless instead of trying to kill them. This then is more consistent with his overall mission to bring salvation to the Lamanites through the gospel of Jesus Christ.