Alma 16: Ammonihah Is Gone in the One Day It Doubted

Melissa asked me on Friday who it is that says God can't destroy a city. She was in verse 9, where Ammonihah is called a great city "which they said God could not destroy, because of its greatness." Who said it, she wanted to know. And when.

Fair question, though the chapter itself doesn't answer it. The boast gets one clause in Alma 16 and the narrative moves on, so the people it belongs to have to be found where they speak seven chapters earlier, in Alma 9, when Alma goes back into the city with Amulek and the crowd starts in on him:

And they said also: We will not believe thy words if thou shouldst prophesy that this great city should be destroyed in one day.

That's Alma 9:4. Now set it beside Alma 16:10: "But behold, in one day it was left desolate; and the carcasses were mangled by dogs and wild beasts of the wilderness."

One day, as promised

Nowhere in Alma 16 does the narrator point back, and there's no mention of the angel who sent Alma into the city with the message "except they repent the Lord God will destroy them" (Alma 8:16), and none of Alma 9:18, where Alma tells the people the Lamanites "shall be sent upon you" and that they "shall come in a time when you know not." I put those lines next to verse 10 myself. The chapter reports an invasion, a city gone and a boast, and that's all it reports.

Verse 1 says it came after a long peace, "no wars nor contentions" in Zarahemla, and then a cry of war. Verse 3 says the Lamanites destroyed the people of Ammonihah "before the Nephites could raise a sufficient army" to drive them out, so the city was finished before anyone got there. Alma 14:23 dates the prison to the twelfth day of the tenth month of the tenth year, and Alma 16:1 dates the attack to the fifth day of the second month of the eleventh year. Count the months yourself.

Zoram goes to Alma

I stopped at a gas station above Kamas one June, years ago, to ask the man behind the register where the Provo slowed down enough to fish after runoff. He didn't give me a mile marker. He gave me one long sentence, "Second cattle guard past the sign, park by the dead cottonwood, walk down to where the water bends into the rock and fish the east side," and I said it back to myself all the way up the road because my pen was at home on the kitchen counter.

There turned out to be three dead cottonwoods past that sign, and I stood on the shoulder for a good ten minutes with a rod in my hand looking at all three before I picked the one nearest the guard rail and walked down through the willows. I lost a fly in them on the way, I remember that.

Zoram is chief captain, and he and his two sons Lehi and Aha come to Alma because he's high priest and "had the spirit of prophecy." Alma inquires of the Lord and returns with a crossing: "the Lamanites will cross the river Sidon in the south wilderness, away up beyond the borders of the land of Manti." Then a bank: "on the east of the river Sidon." Then the sentence for the families waiting at home: "and there the Lord will deliver unto thee thy brethren who have been taken captive by the Lamanites."

Zoram crosses the Sidon with his armies and marches beyond Manti, the Lamanites are scattered and driven into the wilderness, and verse 8 says "there was not one soul of them had been lost that were taken captive."

Three verses on the dead, and then three years of quiet

Verses 9 through 11 are hard to read slowly, and I don't try to hurry them. Every living soul of the Ammonihahites is destroyed. The bodies are mangled by animals, and after many days they're heaped up and given "a shallow covering." The smell is so great that nobody goes in to possess the land "for many years." The place gets a name, Desolation of Nehors, "for they were of the profession of Nehor, who were slain."

What stays with me is the tone, which is flat, a report of what happened and what it was called, and I can't tell whether that's restraint or distance. Alma 14 had the believing women and children thrown into the fire in that same city, and the chief judge there was "after the order and faith of Nehor, who slew Gideon" (14:16). I wrote about that chapter eight days ago, in the post on how the charge in verse 5 matches Zeezrom's summary, and what held my attention then was where the crowd's charge came from. Verse 11 names the ruin after the same profession. Who gave the name isn't said, and I'd rather leave it there than guess.

Verse 12 gives the length of the quiet: the Lamanites didn't come again until the fourteenth year, "and thus for three years did the people of Nephi have continual peace in all the land." And in verse 13 Alma and Amulek, the same two who sat bound in that prison, go out to preach repentance "in their temples, and in their sanctuaries, and also in their synagogues." The last we saw of them before this, in Alma 15, where Zeezrom asks to be healed and gets a question, Alma was taking Amulek home. Now they're back at the work, which is all the chapter tells us about it.

No inequality among them

The line I'd hand to anyone is verse 14:

And as many as would hear their words, unto them they did impart the word of God, without any respect of persons, continually.

Verse 16 says "there was no inequality among them" and that the Lord poured out his Spirit "on all the face of the land." Verse 15 has the work spreading past the two men from the prison, since "many more who had been chosen for the work" go out too, and I like that it isn't left to Alma and Amulek alone. The church doesn't become general in the land because two well-known men kept at it. A lot of people whose names we're never given did it.

Verses 19 and 20 are where the preaching turns toward Christ. The priests hold forth "the coming of the Son of God, his sufferings and death, and also the resurrection of the dead." Then, at the end of a chapter that began with a city's wreckage:

And many of the people did inquire concerning the place where the Son of God should come; and they were taught that he would appear unto them after his resurrection; and this the people did hear with great joy and gladness.

The people ask about a place and are given a time, after his resurrection. The chapter reports no argument over that. It closes the fourteenth year with the church established and the word, in verse 21, "preached in its purity in all the land."

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was Ammonihah destroyed?

Alma 16 tells you who did it and doesn't say why. The warnings are back in Alma 8:16 and Alma 9, and I read the destruction as their answer, but that's a reading and not a statement of the text.

Is the Desolation of Nehors a town someone settled?

No. It's the name of the ruined land, and verse 11 says it was so called because the people killed there were "of the profession of Nehor." The same verse says nobody went in to possess it for many years. I wouldn't go looking for it on a map.

Did the Nephites save everyone who was captured?

According to verse 8, yes, "not one soul of them had been lost that were taken captive." That covers the captives only. Verse 9 is clear that the people of Ammonihah who weren't taken were all destroyed.

Does "no inequality among them" mean everyone joined the church?

No, and I don't think the verse says it. It says the Spirit was poured out to prepare hearts, and verse 17 gives the aim as receiving the word "with joy." Verses 14 and 15 say the word went to as many as would hear and the church became general, which is a different thing from a head count.

If you've taught or sat through this chapter, what did your class do with verses 9 through 11?

— D.