Alma and the King of the Lamanites

 In the war between the Nephites and the Amlicites, Alma showed us what a true leader does. We read, “Now Alma, being the chief judge and the governor of the people of Nephi, therefore he went up with his people, yea, with his captains, and chief captains, yea, at the head of his armies, against the Amlicites to battle” (Alma 2:16). As the chief judge surely he could have reasoned that it wasn’t his role to go and fight with the army, but he knew the examples set by their righteous kings such as King Benjamin who “did fight with the strength of his own arm, with the sword of Laban” when the people went to battle (Words of Mormon 1:13). And not only did Alma fight, but “he contended again with Amlici” directly and slew him. After that “he also contended with the king of the Lamanites” but the latter wasn’t quite as brave as Alma for he “fled back from before Alma and sent his guards to contend with Alma” (Alma 2:32). As chief judge Alma showed he was willing to risk his life for the people and fight for them, exemplifying what a true leader does.

               As I thought about this experience of Alma today, I realized that Alma was fighting this king of the Lamanites around the same time that Ammon and his brethren were teaching the Lamanites. So who was this king of the Lamanites that Alma fought? I see two possibilities:

·        He was Lamoni’s father “who was king over all the land” (Alma 18:9). If this were the case, the battle would have had to have taken place before his conversion since clearly he would not have come to fight the Nephites after repenting of his sins. This battle took place around 5 years into the reign of the judges, and the sons of Mosiah went to live among the Lamanites before the start of the first year. We don’t have much information about the timing of what happened during the missionary labors of Ammon and his brethren so we don’t know exactly when Lamoni’s household or that of his father were converted. It doesn’t seem like it was five years for the conversion of Lamoni and his father the way the text reads, but it is possible. If this were the case, then the fact that the king fought directly with Alma and then was taught directly by Aaron, one of Alma’s close friends, would be pretty ironic.  

·        He was king over a land among the Lamanites but not the whole land. I think this possibility is more likely. Since we know that Lamoni was considered a king but not the king over all the Lamanites, surely there were several others in the same group. So the king that joined with Amlicites may have simply been from another part of the Lamanite territory who wasn’t converted by Ammon and his brethren. If this were the case it likely would have been a king from a land relatively close to the Nephites who could have easily entered into an agreement with the Amlicites to fight the Nephites.

 Either way, clearly there are lots of details about these stories that we don’t have, but what we have shows us the kind of leader Alma and all the other righteous kings and chief judges of the Nephites were. Their stories should inspire us to lead by example and never expect others to do things that we ourselves wouldn’t be willing to do. We too must seek to be “exercised with much faith” and fight for the righteous causes the Lord calls us to.