A Man of Perfect Understanding

The exchange between Moroni and Ammaron has always intrigued me. One of the questions I have wondered about is why Moroni would not exchange prisoners with Ammaron when his conditions seem to have been met. Moroni wrote, “I will close my epistle by telling you that I will not exchange prisoners, save it be on conditions that ye will deliver up a man and his wife and his children, for one prisoner; if this be the case that ye will do it, I will exchange.” Ammaron responded, “Nevertheless, I will grant to exchange prisoners according to your request, gladly, that I may preserve my food for my men of war” (Alma 54:11,20). But then Moroni, when he received Ammaron’s letter—which was outrageous in its claims—commented, “Behold, I will not exchange prisoners with Ammaron save he will withdraw his purpose, as I have stated in my epistle; for I will not grant unto him that he shall have any more power than what he hath got” (Alma 55:2). It appears from the text that we have that Ammaron did indeed meet the demands of Moroni, and yet Moroni would not exchange despite what he had written. Why didn’t Moroni do what he said?

             Though it does not appear that way to us in the text, Moroni clearly believed that Ammaron had not met his conditions, saying that he would not exchange unless Ammaron withdrew his purpose “as I have stated in my epistle.” From my reading that does not seem to be a condition upon which Moroni would exchange, but it was a strong theme of his epistle. Moroni told him he needed to withdraw four different times in the short letter; for example, he wrote, “And now behold, we are prepared to receive you; yea, and except you withdraw your purposes, behold, ye will pull down the wrath of that God whom you have rejected upon you” (Alma 54:9). Moroni was very upset by Ammaron’s insistence on continuous a ludicrous war under bogus pretenses and I think he realized that he could not help in any way such a wicked man bent on power and destruction.  Perhaps what the letter from Ammaron—which tried to justify the massacre of thousands of people based on the relationship between Nephi and his brothers 500 years before—really told Moroni was that Ammaron was out of his mind and in no way could be trusted. Though Ammaron agreed in writing that he would exchange on Moroni’s conditions, it is certainly plausible that he had no real intentions of actually doing so. Given the deceit that he and his brother had perpetuated for years among the Lamanites, he likely would have tried some sort of trickery when exchanging prisoners. Moroni very well may have been inspired to know that Ammaron’s “yes” in his epistle was not to be believed and he needed to find a different way to rescue the Nephite prisoners. Moroni was, as Mormon told us, “a man of perfect understanding” and his wisdom undoubtedly helped him see the futility of trying to negotiate with a man like Ammaron who made such preposterous claims for justifying their wickedness (Alma 48:11). And clearly Moroni’s decision not to attempt the trade was indeed inspired, and the Lord showed him how to get the prisoners back from the city of Gid without the loss of a single life. Clearly this was a sign of the Lord’s approval on Moroni’s response to Ammaron’s spiteful letter.