Lessons from Zeniff

In Sunday School today we discussed Zeniff and what we can learn from him.  He was one of the relatively rare characters it seems in the scriptures who was neither really righteous or really wicked.  Instead he was a good man who made some bad choices and seems to have regretted it at the end of his life.  It appears that in the days of either Mosiah I or Benjamin, Zeniff was part of a relatively large group of Nephites who went back to the land of Nephi from Zarahemla to see if they could take back their land.  He was not the leader of the group but held some prominent position, for it was his job to “spy out [the Lamanite] forces” to see how this group of Nephites could attack them.  He said this about what happened next: “When I saw that which was good among them I was desirous that they should not be destroyed” (Mosiah 9:1).  Clearly he had a decent heart, for he didn’t want to simply go in and destroy the Lamanites because he saw there was good among them.  He came back and defended the Lamanites to his group, and he related this: “I contended with my brethren in the wilderness, for I would that our ruler should make a treaty with them; but he being an austere and a blood-thirsty man commanded that I should be slain; but I was rescued by the shedding of much blood” (Mosiah 9:2).  It seems sadly ironic that his desire to spare Lamanite blood caused the death of many Nephites, and it appears to have been largely the fault of the leader—not Zeniff—who was “a strong and mighty man, and a stiffnecked man” (Omni 1:28).  Only fifty in the group remained, and they returned back to Zarahemla with nothing to but tragedy to take with them. 

                It was at this point, I believe, that Zeniff made his crucial mistake.  After returning back to Zarahemla after such a terrible tragedy, it seems that Zeniff would have lost all desire to try again to take back some of the land of Nephi.  But he recorded in the very next verse after relating the story of their first failure, “And yet, I being over-zealous to inherit the land of our fathers, collected as many as were desirous to go up to possess the land, and started again on our journey into the wilderness to go up to the land” (Mosiah 9:3).  There was something in him that wanted so badly to possess the land of Nephi that he was willing to go again and risk his life and the life of his brethren in another attempt to possess it.  On their journey back he recorded that they were “slow to remember the Lord” and had “sore afflictions,” but eventually he got what he so desperately wanted: a treaty with the Lamanites giving them some land.  But it came at a price, because his strong will made him blind to what was really happening, for “it was the cunning and the craftiness of king Laman, to bring [his] people into bondage, that he yielded up the land.”  This led eventually to “wars and contentions” and many battles between the two groups (Mosiah 9:10, 13).  Zeniff did show that he was trying to put his trust in the Lord, for he described how they battled “in the strength of the Lord” and that God “did hear [their] cries and did answer [their] prayers,” but he didn’t live long enough to see the full consequences of his “over-zealousness” (Mosiah 9:18).       

                There are two lessons for us from the life of Zeniff that stand out.  The first is to look for the good in people and situations as much as possible.  If Zeniff could “see that which was good” in the Lamanites, their bitter enemies, then surely we could find more good in the challenging situations that surround us.  The second lesson, of course, is that we must not let the things of the world cause us to be over-zealous for them.  It was, it appears, material possessions (the land) that caused Zeniff to do that which in hindsight he would regret.  Clearly he did not counsel with the Lord about whether going back to the land of Nephi was the right decision.  He did what he was driven to do because, for some reason, he felt he had to have that land which must have been better land than what they had at Zarahemla.  If he had not been so bent on obtaining the things of this world, surely his story would have been a different one.  We are constantly bombarded with the temptations to acquire physical things, and if we are not careful, we can quickly become over-zealous to obtain them.  Without being able to step back and check ourselves, we too may look back like Zeniff and one day regret our failure to pursue with zeal the most important things.