He Would Not Deny the Commandments of God

After Abinadi finished speaking to the king and the priests of Noah, “The priests lifted up their voices against him, and began to accuse him, saying: He has reviled the king. Therefore the king was stirred up in anger against him, and he delivered him up that he might be slain.” The account in the Book of Mormon continues, “And it came to pass that they took him and bound him, and scourged his skin with faggots, yea, even unto death.” In the 1828 Websters Dictionary the word fagot is defined this way: “A bundle of sticks, twigs or small branches of trees, used for fuel, or for raising batteries, filling ditches, and other purposes in fortification.” And so taken alone, that verse would suggest that Abinadi was hit with a bundle of sticks until he was killed, for there is no mention in it of fire, even though the word connotes sticks that would be used for fuel. But the next verse seems to assume that we already know that he was suffering death by fire: “And now when the flames began to scorch him, he cried unto them” What flames? If he was being scourged with sticks, when did the fire come in? It is perfectly clear from the subsequent verse that it was indeed fire that killed him, for Abinadi promised King Noah that he too would “suffer, as I suffer, the pains of death by fire” (Mosiah 17:12-14, 18). So how do we understand the odd language of Mosiah 17:13?

                One explanation that has been given (I believe in Royal Skousen’s analysis) concerning this verse is this: the word “scourged” in Mosiah 17:13 was misheard or incorrectly written by the scribe (presumably Oliver Cowdery) and should be been “scorched”. This would have been an easy mistake to make given how similar the words are. Looking at the printer’s manuscript the word clearly was written as scourged, so if this theory is correct then either that was the word that was written down the first time in the original manuscript, or an error was made in copying it from the original manuscript to the printer’s manuscript before it was published. If that were the word here in the original text then it would make perfect sense, and there would be no surprise transition when going from verse 13 to verse 14. One of the strongest arguments for this is simply that in verse 14, the word “scorch” is used: “When the flames began to scorch him,” suggesting that the reader already knew that fire had been used to scorch him. To me this is the only logical explanation of an otherwise difficult passage to understand.

In the end, of course, it doesn’t really matter that much because the meaning of the story as a whole is clear, and we know that Abinadi did indeed suffer death by fire. Whatever was meant originally in verse 13, what the story should teach us is that Abinadi was a faithful witness of the Lord and willing to give his life up for his testimony of the Savior. We likely won’t have to be scourged or scorched for our witness of Jesus Christ and His gospel, but we will be required and make sacrifices and consecrate our lives for Him. We can look to Abinadi for courage when we might feel alone or marginalized because of our beliefs. He never wavered, despite being the only one willing to stand up for what this people should have all known. We should all strive to live so that it can be said of us as it was of him: “He would not deny the commandments of God” (Mosiah 17:20).