Zeezrom, Man of Silver

I was intrigued by a description of Alma 11 that I listened to today which suggested a possible connection between Zeezrom and the Nephite monetary system that Mormon laid out.  I’ve always assumed the purpose of the description of the Nephite money to be to help us understand how much Zeezrom was trying to bribe Amulek with.  He told Amulek that he would give him “six onties of silver” if he would “deny the existence of a Supreme Being.”  In the description of the money we find that “a senum of silver” was given to a judge for his labors for a day, and then that “an amnor of silver was as great as two senums” and “an ezrom of silver  was as great as four senums” and “an onti of silver was as great as them all (Alma 11:3-13).  If we interpret “them all” to mean the other pieces of silver, then 1 onti = 1 senum + 1 amnor + 1 ezrom = 1 senum + 2 senum + 4 senum = 7 senums.  Therefore the offer of 6 onties would be equal to 42 senums, or the wage of a judge for 42 days.  Trying to put that in current terms, if we assume a judge makes about $70,000 a year (the number I found for an average), then this would have been an offer of 42/365 * 70,000, or over $8,000 in our terms.  So it was certainly no small sum that Zeezrom was putting before Amulek in this exchange.  The details of the monetary system help us to figure that out. 

              There was a different suggestion in the book I listened to, though, which gave another reason why we were given the details of the different pieces of money.  I had never noticed this before, but it was pointed out that Zeezrom’s name contains a piece of money: Ze + ezrom, where ezrom is one of the pieces of silver.  It’s possible that Mormon actually named him that (for purposes of referring to him in his abridgment) or that this was his real name, but either way it certainly seems closely connected to this piece of silver.  Some scholars have suggested that his name may mean, “He is of the ezrom,” something that would have been a derogatory term from Mormon’s perspective.  Zeezrom thought that he could get out of his problems with money; that may be why the very first thing he tried to do was to ensnare Amulek with money.  Of course, it failed, and later we find Zeezrom suffering with “a burning fever, which was caused by the great tribulations of his mind on account of his wickedness” (Alma 15:3). All the money in their land couldn’t help him, but the “power of Christ unto salvation” did.  Zeezrom’s lessons, the man who had silver in his name, teach us that money can’t buy everything.  Focusing on money leads to despair, even if we have riches.  Zeezrom’s story is certainly one that we need in our day, for it also gives us hope that we can pull ourselves away from a focus on the riches of the world and instead center our lives on the Savior.