Jacob 4:1-5
The Book of Mormon > Jacob > Chapter 4
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Questions
Verse 5
- Sanctified unto us for righteousness. Cf. Gen 15:6. Ps 106:31 also uses similar wording to apparently describe a very violent act of Phineas (cf. Num 25:6-8). The near-sacrifice of Isaac is also a (nearly) violent episode. Here, the keeping of the law of Moses is explicitly drawn into comparison with this near-violent act of violence. Why? Is this referring to the violent nature of animal sacrifice? Something else? (Notice the violent episode in 1 Ne 4:13, Nephi slaying Laban, also uses similar wording: "the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes.")
Lexical notes
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Exegesis
Verse 4
After apparently subsuming himself and Nephi under the strange title "their first parents," Jacob begins to lay out the "intentions" he and Nephi (reportedly) share in writing on the small plates ("these things," used in this verse, is almost universally a technical term in the Book of Mormon to refer to the text being written). That the explanation provided in this and the next verse is not to be severed from the first verses of the chapter is clear in that this verse begins with the word "For." Whatever else might be read into this connection, it is clear that verses 4-5 ought to be read with an eye to the structuration implied in father/motherhood (parenthood). It is interesting, in light of this very fact, that Jacob uses the word "intent," which means quite literally "under tension": a fundamental tension underlies the work of Nephi and Jacob, at least according to the latter, which must be understood as a tension between the "fathers" (v. 2) and the "children" (v. 3). This will become especially important in sorting out the implications of the typological language of verse 5.
What this father aims at communicating to his children is, at least in summary, twofold: that the Nephite fathers knew of and had a hope in Christ long before His coming, and that the Old World fathers did much the same. With this introduction of "the holy prophets which were before us," it would appear that Jacob establishes a kind of grandparents-parents-children structure, rather than just a parents-children structure as implied before this. He will go on, in the next verse, to wrap this business up chiastically, but then to reverse it all over again:
A "we had a hope of his glory"
B "also all the holy prophets which were before us"
B "they ... worshiped the Father in his name"
A "also we worship the Father in his name"
A "it is sanctified unto us for righteousness"
B "it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness"
Though these points might be structured in several different ways, at least this first way of structuring them makes it quite clear that they are all profoundly intertwined and that it would only do violence to the structure and meaning of the verse to take them all apart. Of course, each part of this broad structure deserves careful attention.
Verse 5
Because of the profound intertwinedness of verses 4-5, made clear in the structuration laid out above, the basic meaning of Jacob's introduction of Abraham is quite clear: the justification of Abraham's near-murder of Isaac is set in parallel to the sanctification of Nephite obedience to the Law of Moses. Of course what binds up this parallel structure, quite clearly, is the typological reference both the Law and the Moriah experience have to the relation between "God and his Only Begotten Son." But even this apparently simple typology is complicated by the broader structure and intention of the present verses: the relation between God the Father and "his Only Begotten Son" is mentioned only in the context of so much discourse about fathers and sons, about parenthood and childhood. All of this calls for some careful analysis.
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