Lehi's Last-Born

I asked my eight-year-old daughter to name Nephi’s brothers, and she was able to name all of them except for Joseph.  It isn’t surprising that she missed him because he is not spoken of very often in the text.  We know that he was Lehi’s “last-born” and that he was “born in the wilderness” during a very difficult time for the family as they crossed the desert (2 Nephi 3:1).  If the Arabian desert was then like it is now, then it is a wonder he survived at all as a baby there.  This likely means that Joseph was just a toddler when they crossed the ocean, and Nephi specifically mentioned that Joseph and Jacob were “young, having need of much nourishment” and were therefore “grieved because of the afflictions of their mother” during the storm on the ship (1 Nephi 18:19).  We don’t know how much time passed between the arrival of the group in the Americas and the death of Lehi, but shortly before his death when Lehi gave Joseph his last charge and teachings he said to Joseph, “Thou art little” (2 Nephi 3:25).  This leads me to believe that Joseph was still pretty young, and at least how I would use the word “little” I would suspect that Joseph probably younger than a teenager.  That may indicate that Lehi didn’t actually live very long once he was in the promised land.

               There are a few other references to Joseph that give us a little more information about him.  We know that when Nephi and the other believers split from Laman and Lemuel, Joseph went with them.  Joseph was righteous, for Nephi “did consecrate Jacob and Joseph, that they should be priests and teachers over the land of my people” (2 Nephi 5:6, 26).  Jacob confirmed this fact in his record that he and Joseph were “priests and teachers” of the people, but we unfortunately don’t have any of Joseph’s teachings (Jacob 1:18).  Jacob was the record keeper and only left us with a few of his own words and a summary of what happened among the people.  Mormon later confirmed that “Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam” were “just and holy men,” and that is the last we hear directly of Joseph in the record (Alma 3:6).  But we do know that he at least had posterity and that those who descended from Joseph kept their identity, for there was a group called “Josephites” among the Nephites.  Jacob referred to this near the beginning of the Nephite record, and so did Mormon at the end when the Nephites were in a final war with the Lamanites (Jacob 1:13, Mormon 1:8).  And, in our dispensation, the Lord spoke of “the Nephites, and the Jacobites, and the Josephites, and the Zoramites” who were still represented among those living in the promised land (Doctrine and Covenants 3:17).  So while we have relatively little about Joseph in the text, clearly he was an important Book of Mormon figure for his posterity to still be counted among the Lehite descendants 2400 years after he lived.  And, as I mentioned previously, if I interpret 2 Nephi 3:24 correctly then we can look forward to the day when “one mighty among” the descendants of Joseph (the son of Lehi) will “work mighty wonders, and do that thing which is great in the sight of God, unto the bringing to pass much restoration unto the house of Israel.”