Jaredite Examples for King Mosiah

Yesterday I wrote about how the Jaredite record must have influenced King Mosiah in his decision to end the reign of the kings among the Lamanites.  Though we do not have all of the Jaredite record that he had (we have only Moroni’s condensed version), I believe we can still see some specific parallels between Mosiah’s description of unrighteous kings and what happened to the Jaredites.  The most obvious is this statement about what might happen if someone besides his sons became king: “And now if there should be another appointed in his stead, behold I fear there would rise contentions among you” (Mosiah 29:7).  As far as we have in the Nephite record up to this point, that was never the case.  There were never contentions regarding who should be king, but the Jaredite history is a story of one contention after another of those who sought to be king.  Corihor caused contentions and stole the kingdom from his father Kib (Ether 7:4), Noah caused contentions and rebelled against Shule (Ether 7:15), Jared “gave battle unto his father” Omer because he wanted the kingdom (Ether 8:3), and the brother of Shiblom rebelled against his brother and caused “an exceedingly great war in all the land” (Ether 11:4).  Again and again we see in the Jaredite record how selfish desires for the kingdom caused contentions and bloodshed.

               Mosiah also specifically mentioned how someone who didn’t get the kingdom would “draw away a part of this people after him, which would cause wars and contentions among you” (Mosiah 29:7).  We see very similar language in several of the Jaredite stories.  When he tried to take the kingdom from his father, “Corihor drew away many people after him” (Ether 7:4).  Noah rebelled against Shule and “drew away Cohor his brother, and also all his brethren and many of the people” (Ether 7:15).  The sons of Akish “drew away the more part of the people after them” when they rebelled (Ether 9:11).  We also read that “Com drew away the half of the kingdom” when he wanted to gain power (Ether 10:32).  Mosiah’s idea that one would be jealous of not having the kingdom and then draw away people after him to fight for it clearly had many precedents in the Jaredite stories. 

               Another one of Mosiah’s claims was this: "And behold, now I say unto you, ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood (Mosiah 29:21).  One Jaredite example of this was the story of Riplakish who reigned in wickedness for 42 years, burdening the people with taxes, casting many into prison, causing the people to labor continually for him, and putting many of them to death.  Finally after all those years of the people suffering, “the people did rise up in rebellion against him; and there began to be war again in the land, insomuch that Riplakish was killed” (Ether 10:8).  Clearly it was indeed very difficult to dethrone this iniquitous king and it did cause contention and the shedding of blood.  The story of Akish is another example; after killing his father-in-law to gain the throne, he killed his own son and ultimately caused a division between himself and his sons who sought to destroy him: “And there began to be a war between the sons of Akish and Akish, which lasted for the space of many years, yea, unto the destruction of nearly all the people of the kingdom” (Ether 9:12).  Again, it was extremely difficult to dethrone the wicked Akish and it caused much shedding of blood. 

             Another description of an unrighteous king by Mosiah was this: “And he enacteth laws, and sendeth them forth among his people, yea, laws after the manner of his own wickedness; and whosoever doth not obey his laws he causeth to be destroyed; and whosoever doth rebel against him he will send his armies against them to war, and if he can he will destroy them” (Mosiah 29:23).  We don’t have enough detail in our account of the Jaredites to see the laws that they enacted, but get a sense that this was indeed the case in the example of Heth stole the kingdom from his father.  We read that during his time, “But the people believed not the words of the prophets, but they cast them out; and some of them they cast into pits and left them to perish. And it came to pass that they did all these things according to the commandment of the king, Heth” (Ether 9:29).  So Heth commanded—i.e. gave decrees or laws—that the prophets be killed.  All of these Jaredite examples—and others—point to the great evil caused by wicked kings, and understanding these makes it easy to see why Mosiah was so keen on switching their form of government at his death.