Sally Forth

Yesterday I read this verse with my children from the Book of Mormon: “And it came to pass that in the latter end of the eighteenth year those armies of robbers had prepared for battle, and began to come down and to sally forth from the hills, and out of the mountains, and the wilderness, and their strongholds, and their secret places, and began to take possession of the lands, both which were in the land south and which were in the land north, and began to take possession of all the lands which had been deserted by the Nephites, and the cities which had been left desolate” (3 Nephi 4:1). Despite the sober nature of the verse, I had to chuckle as I read that these fierce Gadianton robbers did “sally forth” from the hills, a phrase which to me has a little more light-hearted connotation. (That may be because a famous comic strip was named “Sally Forth” and was popular in the 1990s.) The phrase in a modern dictionary is defined as “to set out on a journey or undertaking,” which does fit here. These Gadianton robbers “set out” from the mountains to take over the Nephite lands.

The phrase is used in one other place in the Book of Mormon. Helaman described how during the war with the Lamanites he and his troops received provisions which caused some angst for their enemies. He wrote, “And the Lamanites, thus seeing our forces increase daily, and provisions arrive for our support, they began to be fearful, and began to sally forth, if it were possible to put an end to our receiving provisions and strength” (Alma 56:29). Again, the context was a war and the phrase was used to describe how the enemy was seeking to take over the sustenance of the Nephites. These Lamanites “set out” to disrupt the provisions that the Nephites were receiving. Like in the first example, the Lamanites were ultimately unsuccessful in what they did “sally forth” to accomplish, and the Lord protected the Nephites in their difficult time despite the “undertaking” of their enemies.

The 1828 Websters Dictionary does not contain the phrase “sally forth,” but it does contain the word “sally.” It defines this as a verb meaning “to issue or rush out, as a body of troops from a fortified place to attack besiegers.” This fits very well the context of these two passages in the Book of Mormon that use the phrase “sally forth.” The Gadianton robbers did indeed rush out as a body of troops, from their “fortified place” in the mountains to attack the Nephites and take over their lands. In the account of Helaman, the Lamanites similarly came out from a fortified place to come against the Nephites. Neither group of enemies were attacking besiegers, but certainly both were trying to act as besiegers. The Lamanites fighting against Helaman and his army wanted to cut the Nephites off from their “put an end to [their] receiving provisions” as one would do in a siege. Of the Gadianton robbers, Mormon wrote, “And in the twenty and first year they did not come up to battle, but they came up on all sides to lay siege round about the people of Nephi; for they did suppose that if they should cut off the people of Nephi from their lands, and should hem them in on every side, and if they should cut them off from all their outward privileges, that they could cause them to yield themselves up according to their wishes…. But behold, this was an advantage to the Nephites; for it was impossible for the robbers to lay siege sufficiently long to have any effect upon the Nephites” (3 Nephi 4:16, 18). The robbers laid siege to the Nephites, but this ultimately failed because the Nephites were so prepared with provisions. It is certainly interesting that the verb “sally,” specifically defined as relating to besiegers, was used here in the context of a siege.

Most importantly, in both of these examples where the enemy did “sally forth” against the Nephites, the righteous were ultimately preserved because they put their trust in the Lord. Certainly, the adversary will “sally forth” against us spiritually, seeking to cut us off from God. But if trust in the Lord as Helaman and Lachoneus and all of these Nephites did, we will find that the Lord will indeed “protect [His] people in righteousness, so long as they shall call on the name of their God for protection” (3 Nephi 4:30).