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The Book of Mormon > Alma > Chapter 32

Questions

Verse 12

• "Necessary" and "necessarily." Why does Alma say "it is necessary that ye should learn wisdom"? Is it necessary in order to obtain something, or something else? Does the statement "ye are necessarily brought to be humble" related to this? Is the "forced" sense in which they are brought to humble related to the reason it is necessary to learn wisdom? Is there a better, non-necessary way to learn wisdom, or is it necessary for everyone to learn wisdom, as Alma is using the phrase?

• "Wisdom" vs. knowledge. What does Alma have in mind when he says "wisdom" here? How should this be understood in light of the later discussion of knowledge? How does wisdom differ from knowledge? How does wisdom relate to humility? Is a particular action required to be humble?

• "Exceeding poverty." Why does Alma refer to the "exceeding poverty" of his listeners here? Should "exceeding" be read as equivalent to "very," or is something more going on with the use of this adjective? Might this be suggesting an over-whelming role of their poverty, poverty that exceeds their pride or something?

Lexical notes

Verse 12

• "Learn wisdom." This phrase is used in 6 other instances in LDS scripture: 2 Ne 28:30; Mosiah 2:17; Alma 37:35; Alma 38:9; D&C 97:1; D&C 136:32. In 2 Ne 28:30, the image of a lengthened arm is used only two verses later (2 Ne 28:32), recalling Alma stretching forth his hand here in verse 7. Also, the teaching in that 2 Ne 28:30ff about more being given to those who receive seems quite similar to the situation here where the people seem willing to receive the Alma's word, and then Alma teaches them about how to exercise faith and receive more and more fruit from the tree growing from the word of God. Also of interest is the parallel in D&C 136:32 between the persecuted, modern Saints being driven out of their lands and homes they build with their own hands and these persecuted Zoramite poor who are driven out of the temple which they built with their own hands.

Exegesis

Verse 11

Just as in verse 10, Alma presents a structural tension in his second rhetorical question: while the rhetorical question he asks makes an appeal to absolute reason, his "I would ask" and his "do ye suppose" together ground the question in the situational reality of the missionary encounter. That is, there is a tension between the absolute, non-situational reason one should employ in thinking the question being asked, and yet Alma is careful to keep things located immediately in the situation in which the question is asked. This tension has been building, of course, since verse 9, and it will come to a first fruition in verse 12; thereafter it will guide the interpretation of the remainder of the chapter (see the commentary for verses 8-10).

Moreover, if the content of the previous verse also embodies the same sort of tension by intertwining the concrete act of worship with the abstract idea of a kind of absolute worship, the same is accomplished in this verse. Verse 10 at once points to and subverts the concrete reality of place in the act of worship, while the present verse at once points to and subverts the concrete reality of time in the same. That is, together, these two verses underscore the absolute necessity of a concrete place and time for the concrete act of worship, and yet in their very nature as rhetorical questions, they seem together to imply that worship is something abstract, a sort of broader way of being rather than a concrete act. This tension, however, is left off at this point until Alma 33:2, while the remainder of the present chapter deals with the structural tension discussed in the paragraph above.

Verse 12

If verses 9-11 are characterized by appeal to absolute reason, it appears quite clear that Alma abandons any such appeal in the present verse. That is, the rhetorical questions have ended, and Alma turns rather to a sort of direct engagement of the Zoramite poor in very existential terms. Leaving off the rhetorical questions entirely (Alma himself does not answer them here), he returns in full force to the situational reality of the face-to-face encounter: "I say unto you." In four words, Alma brings the Zoramites to a direct engagement with himself, and anything he goes on to say in this verse will be characterized by that situational reality. In fact, if one is inclined to read the phrase immediately following these first four words as universal in some sense, it is worth pointing out that Alma uses the word "well" rather than the word "good" to make his first point: rather than making some absolute claim about their being cast out of their synagogues, Alma describes the situation as "well," relativizing it by using an adverb. Likewise, when Alma goes on to speak of the necessity of learning wisdom, he immediately relativizes that point as well: "it is necessary that ye should learn wisdom." Undeniably, every hint of the universal, of the absolute, of non-passional reason has disappeared when Alma turns to this verse.

Or perhaps not entirely, since Alma's injunction to the Zoramites is precisely that they "may learn wisdom," that universal, rational, absolute understanding that allows for the possibility of doing things well or decently. But if the very word "wisdom" reintroduces the absolute, it is only reintroduced in tension with the paired word "humble": "that ye may be humble, and that ye may learn wisdom." Without any doubt, humility is always a question of a direct encounter, of a face-to-face reality. The tension, then, of the previous two verses is reintroduced in the present verse: humility is connected with wisdom, in that the two arise together. Curiously, this same tension characterizes almost all of the Old Testament wisdom writings. While most scholars agree that the wisdom writings draw on universal understanding, on the collective wisdom of many nations, on ideas and beliefs that transcend the particularities of Israelite thinking, those same wisdom writings nonetheless relate learning this wisdom--constantly--to one's relation to Jehovah specifically. The tension is embodied wonderfully in the rather common saying: "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (see Job 28:28; Ps 111:10; Prov 1:7; 9:10). If wisdom has some sort of absolute or universal appeal, it is nonetheless a direct result of the personal encounter one might have with a very personal and real God.

In the end, this same tension between the universal and the particular characterizes the whole of the present chapter: right through to the end of chapter 32, there is a constant appeal to reason (even in the form of experimentalism) coupled with Alma's strict reminders that every word being spoken (every word and all the words) is spoken in a particular place and at a particular time and according to a face-to-face encounter that requires the personal engagement called "faith." Over the course of the chapter, the face Alma puts on the relation between faith and reason is constantly changing as each verse adds its conditional take on that relation (albeit implicitly). In order to watch the unfolding dynamic of that relation (between faith and reason) throughout the chapter, then, it is worth first taking the time to identify how that relation appears in these first five verses of Alma's discourse.

What, then, is the relation between faith and reason as Alma lays it out in these first five verses, already shown to be quite rich in implication? And just asking the question this way draws out an important point that is too easily missed. Verse 9 offers an initial reading of the relation between faith and reason that the present verse overturns. When Alma cites the leading poor Zoramite's words, he seems to recognize in it an implicit exchange of faith for reason: "What shall we do?" makes an appeal to reason, seeks for reasons, for reasoning; and this appeal to reason overthrows what had been, before, an explicit life according to faith (the Zoramite poor had before been in their synagogues to "worship our God"). In a sense, the Zoramite appeal to Alma follows a simple logic: since we have been denied any possibility of a faith relation ("cast out of our synagogues"), we appeal to reason, we seek at the hands of reason some way to remain faithful. In short, the Zoramite poor seem to be trying to replace the faith relation with an alternate faith-like relation grounded in the categories of reason.

Verses 10-11 overthrow that implicit shift, but only with verse 12 does Alma make his point explicit: being "cast out of your synagogues" does not issue in a sort of necessary appeal to reason, but rather in "a lowliness of heart," being "necessarily brought to be humble." That is, in the end, the denial of their places in the synagogue results in the very possibility of faith, according to Alma. Whether Alma means by this to suggest that their religious practices before were quite clearly a sort of rational religion rather than a religion of faith is not quite clear, but that Alma seems to be reversing the implicit logic of verse 9 is certainly suggestive on these lines: the rational is exchanged for the faithful, not vice versa. This reversal is vital to the development of Alma's theme.

Verses 13-14

In a discourse perfectly saturated by the theme of the "word," verse 14 is undeniably fundamental: it marks the first instance of "word" in the discourse. The introduction is somewhat peculiar in that "the word" comes into the story in terms of the process of humiliation: "they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word." In fact, there are several difficulties about the very phrase in which "the word" appears, all of which must be dealt with at some length.

The idea being introduced in this difficult phrase is, it must be noticed, a new idea. The "And now" with which the verse begins is a rather common locution in the Book of Mormon for clearing the slate, or for making some other necessary break in the logic of discourse. Here it is clear that the phrase means something like: "But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's leave off that business and take up an earlier statement as a new point of departure." Curiously, the statement he takes up appears only in the previous verse (13), but the latter part of the previous verse makes a rather rapid series of steps to a point well beyond the question of being blessed through compelled humility. Here Alma returns to that point.

But if Alma returns to the question of compelled humility, he returns to it only to set it against a far better situation. That is, verse 14 opens up a kind of humility that outstrips the humility of verse 13, a kind of humility that is, regardless of its apparently lesser nature, nonetheless exalted (from "mercy" to being "saved" in so many words). If compelled humility, despite its lesser nature, results in salvation, it is worth considering the comparison and relation Alma introduces in verse 14 quite carefully. Set against compelled humility is a sort of chosen humility, perhaps even--as awful as it sounds--a willful humility. But the nature of this chosen humility is somewhat peculiar: one humbles oneself "because of the word." Perhaps what is emphasized here is the "heard" nature of the word: humility that issues from hearing is being exalted over humility that issues from something else, in fact, from seeing, as will become clear in verse 17.

At work, then, in verses 13-14 is a comparison between two kinds of humility, one that issues from seeing (the lesser) and one that issues from hearing (the greater). If the former can ("sometimes") result in repentance and therefore mercy (which, if found and maintained through endurance to the end, can result in salvation), the latter is only summed up for now as resulting in being "more blessed." What perhaps deserves closest scrutiny within consideration of these two verses particularly is how it is that "seeing" compels humility but not salvation, while "hearing" apparently does not compel humility but when it results in humility it is apparently more likely to result in salvation.

It might be, though there is of course absolutely no evidence for it, that there is a play on words at work on the level of the ancient language (assuming that some relation to the original Hebrew was, by this point, still intact). The most common root in the OT that becomes one form or another of the word "humility" is `nh, which has two different, but perhaps related, meanings (most scholars claim that there are two very different roots at work in the Hebrew language, though some try to connect the two roots as linked etymologically). In one register, `nh means "to answer" or "to respond"; in another register, it means "to subjugate" or even "to browbeat." Variations of the word "humility" are generally only read into the word when it appears to derive from the latter of these two meanings: to be humble is, in Hebrew, to be subjugated or conquered (the verb can even have reference to rape). Suggested here is a compelled humility, a humility that results from a show of power, an act of subjection. But over against this might be set the former meaning of the root: "to answer" or "to respond." If this verbal root might also be read as a facet of humility, it might be read to suggest a kind of chosen humility like the one mentioned above: in response or as answer to a call, one comes in humility before the caller. In short, there may be a play between two very different meanings of the same Hebrew root: a humility-as-subjected (`nwh) and a humility-as-response/answer (`nwh also?).

Ultimately, though, whether the linguistic speculation above is justified, something like the distinction worked out there is helpful in thinking about the two kinds of humility Alma discusses: one that responds to a call, over against one that is forced into its submission by a show of power. In the end, "seeing" issues in the latter kind of humility because the eyes are dazzled by the power of the other that imposes, while "hearing" issues in the former kind of humility because the ears are open to the calling word (the cry, even, for help?) of the other: a word, a summons, or a petition draws out a very different humility from a brazen show of absolute or total power.

It might be that "hearing-humility" opens the way to a greater blessing because it results in communion or in a real, personal relation: the one who hears a summoning word is called to an encounter, called perhaps to help the other, and so is called to communion, to a common work. On the other hand, "seeing-humility," because it follows the unquestionable show of power, is unavoidable, but it does not necessarily issue in salvation (which apparently must be thought relationally, communally) because one's ultimate subjection cancels the possibility of community. (All of this might be thought in terms of the difference between the servant and the son: the son hears the words of his father, while the servant receives the physical--the visible--rod.)

Verses 14-15

This comment focuses on political and rhetorical context discussed in the exegesis on verse 4. Why does Alma tell the poor people who are listening to him and who have been compelled to be humble that others who are humble without compulsion would be more blessed? Why risk alienating his audience by tactlessly saying that here, especially when he will say much the same thing more diplomatically in 24 - 25? The most likely answer is that the poor are not the intended audience for these remarks. Prior to the arrival of the poor, Alma had been addressing a multitude of the rich and powerful. While he is now directing his comments primarily to the poor, his previous audience is also still present. His suggestion that those who voluntarily humble themselves are especially blessed is probably meant for them.

Verse 15

An unresolved difficulty from the previous verse carries over into verse 15: how is it that one can "humble oneself" without the process being ultimately self-centered or proud by nature? That is, how can self-deprecation not be selfish? The wording this verse uses is curious though: "he that truly humbleth himself...." Might it be that Alma has two kinds of self-humiliation at work, one that he would label "true," and another he would label false? This calls on the wording at the close of verse 14: "who truly humble themselves because of the word." This phrase might be understood to suggest, along with the wording of verse 15, that all humbling is self-humbling, but that there are different ways to go about doing it. However, verse 6 may suggest otherwise, since there Alma rejoices because "their afflictions had truly humbled them." This may, in fact, suggest another way of reading the phrase with which verse 14 closes: that Alma feels it necessary to say "truly" as well as "because of the word" suggests that these are two separate, ultimately unconnected concepts: the trueness of one's humility is not a function of how one humbled oneself (whether "because of the word" in verse 14 or whether "compelled" to do so in verse 25).

But whatever else might be said about how one arrives at "true humility," it is clear in these verses that Alma understands the process to be a reflexive one: one humbles oneself. And so the difficulty remains: how can "true humility" (whether compelled or voluntary) be achieved through a self-imposed act (which would seem to imply a kind of self-ishness)? The difficulty seems to be all the more frustrating because the very nature of pride—presumably the opposite of humility—is self-ishness. Humbling onself sounds like an act of abrogating pride proudly. On the other hand and at the same time, how could humility ultimately be "true" if it were absolutely imposed on one? If pride is self-centeredness, it is not at all clear how any outside force could ever, in and of itself, annihilate one's focus on oneself. In the end, all that any "outside" influence can do is either to call (as a word) or to compel (as a force, but not as an absolute force). In fact, humility, it appears, is something that can only be an act of self, a kind of self-abrogation brought about by the self. This is as much as to say that humbling oneself is a paradoxical act: the self asserts itself in its own self-disregard. That is, in losing its "life," it finds it. One might say in the end that humility amounts to a reorientation of the self, a rupture of the self that allows it to survive precisely in that it becomes something else or is directed toward something else: rather than beholding nothing but itself in a mirror (pride), the self becomes a reflection of God's continually directedness towards the poor, the suffering, the teachable. Hence in humbling oneself, one humbles one's self, de-centers it, draws attention away from it, shows it that the whole world does not bow before it.

These musings clarify the call of the word: the suffering (servant?) speaks the word, calls one to offer relief, and so summons the self to relativize itself. But if what Alma means in speaking of those "who truly humble themselves because of the word" becomes clearer here, the meaning of being "compelled to be humble because of their exceeding poverty" becomes somewhat more difficult. That is, because the compelling agent cannot have absolute sway, it is not entirely clear where one should delineate the power of that agent. Where does one draw the line? Perhaps the answer is in verse 12, where Alma employs the phrase, "ye are necessarily brought to be humble." This might imply that being compelled is less a question of force than it is a question of necessity: when one is compelled to be humble, outside circumstances have made it necessary for one to humble oneself; that is, if one does not humble oneself, there are to be negative consequences the would-be humble would like to avoid. In a sense, this establishes the difference between the two kinds of humility Alma is describing. The greater one is to humble oneself because of the petition of the suffering; the lesser is to humble oneself by—essentially—threat. This seems to make sense of the tendency Alma has to label the greater "to humble oneself" and the lesser "to be compelled to be humble." In the one, one is active, while in the other, one is passive.

If this is ultimately the difference Alma is establishing here, then all of this opens onto the most important new point this verse introduces: that "much more blessed" are those who humble themselves according to the petition of the sufferer than those who "are compelled to be humble because of their exceeding poverty." In fact, after all of the above comments, this last phrase becomes all the more significant. It suggests, in the end, a further difference between the two kinds of humility Alma is describing, and one that may ultimately go to the heart of the matter. The greater kind of humility—the one that results in the greater blessing—is a responsive humility, while the lesser kind of humility is ultimately a petitionary humility. That is, the two kinds of humility being explored here represent two figures who come face to face in a very real existential encounter: the one who is "compelled to be humble because of [his] exceeding poverty" petitions the one who "truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins." The one who is, in the end, compelled to be humble seeks sustenance at the hands of the one who willingly humbles herself, and far blessed is it to give willingly than to beg necessarily.

It is worth noting that something very like this situation is at work in the very encounter in which all of these words are spoken. Alma and his brethren have been teaching in all willing humility (though not one of his sons, which will become a major question later on; cf. Alma 39:2), and suddenly the Zoramite poor have come forward in compelled humility to petition Alma. The humble encounter the humble, but there are two very different kinds of humility at work here, as Alma himself is describing: responsive humility (when one humbles oneself) and petitionary humility (when one is compelled to be humble). Perhaps the most fascinating detail of all in all of this is that the former, the responsively humble, humble themselves precisely at the word of the latter, the petitionarily humble. All of this grounds the sharp turn the discourse takes in the next couple of verses.

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