Alma 22: The King Offers His Kingdom and Aaron Doesn't Take It
Nobody names the king in Alma 22, and verse 1 describes him as the one "which was over all the land save it were the land of Ishmael," and then says "he was the father of Lamoni." After that he is "the king" to the end of the chapter. A chapter that turns on his conversion leaves him identified only by whose father he is and how much ground he rules.
What he asks for and what he offers, set beside what Aaron asks of him, is the part I'd like to follow.
Verse 3: servants
Aaron has offered the service of himself and his brethren: "if thou wilt spare our lives, we will be thy servants." The king answers, "Arise, for I will grant unto you your lives, and I will not suffer that ye shall be my servants; but I will insist that ye shall administer unto me" (Alma 22:3). What he wants is an answer. He has been "somewhat troubled in mind because of the generosity and the greatness of the words of thy brother Ammon." Two verses later he asks what Aaron meant by the Spirit of the Lord, and what Ammon meant by "If ye will repent ye shall be saved" (Alma 22:5-6). The questions are his.
He also talks the way a ruler talks. He "will grant" lives in verse 3, and in verse 7, when Aaron asks if he believes there is a God, he answers:
I know that the Amalekites say that there is a God, and I have granted unto them that they should build sanctuaries, that they may assemble themselves together to worship him. And if now thou sayest there is a God, behold I will believe.
Alma 22:7
That is how he describes two of his own acts in this chapter, and I won't lean on it further. The sanctuaries are the ones the Amalekite in Alma 21 pointed to (Alma 21:6). What I find disarming is the last sentence: he offers to believe on Aaron's say-so, and Aaron's heart "began to rejoice" (Alma 22:8).
Verses 15 and 16: what he offers, what Aaron asks
After Aaron has expounded the scriptures from Adam through the atonement, the king asks, "What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken?" and then offers: "I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy" (Alma 22:15).
In Alma 20 he offered "even to half of the kingdom" with Ammon's sword raised (Alma 20:22-23). Here it is all of it, and nobody has asked.
Aaron's answer in verse 16 doesn't take it up. He says: "If thou desirest this thing, if thou wilt bow down before God, yea, if thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and will bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest." Bow down, repent, call, believe. The word "kingdom" appears once in the chapter, in the king's own mouth in verse 15, and it is not in Aaron's reply or anywhere after it. The text doesn't say what became of it.
Then the king bows down "upon his knees" (Alma 22:17), and the prayer is verse 18.
O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day.
Alma 22:18
Two "if"s sit in the prayer, and so does an offer: "I will give away all my sins to know thee." Verse 15 put the kingdom on the table and verse 18 puts the sins there, which is closer to what Aaron said in verse 16. Then he "was struck as if he were dead," and the chapter gives no answer in words.
Verses 19 to 25: the household and the crowd
The queen sees the king on the ground and "Aaron and his brethren standing as though they had been the cause of his fall," and commands that they be slain (Alma 22:19). The servants won't, and their stated reason is fear: "one of them is mightier than us all" (Alma 22:20). The queen is afraid too by verse 21, and her next order is to call the people. Aaron, "knowing the hardness of the hearts of the people," raises the king with his hand and says "Stand" (Alma 22:22).
I said in the Alma 19 post that I'd read these two chapters side by side, and here they line up. In Alma 19:29 Abish takes the queen by the hand and she rises. In verse 30 the queen takes Lamoni by the hand and he stands, and verse 31 has him "seeing the contention among his people" and going forth to rebuke and teach them. In Alma 22 a multitude is gathered by the queen's commandment, with "great murmurings among them because of Aaron and his brethren" (Alma 22:24). The king "stood forth among them and administered unto them. And they were pacified towards Aaron and those who were with him" (Alma 22:25).
"Administer" is the verb he used in verse 3 for what he wanted from Aaron. Verse 23 uses "minister" twice for what he does once he is on his feet: "the king stood forth, and began to minister unto them. And he did minister unto them, insomuch that his whole household were converted unto the Lord."
The two chapters report differently. Alma 19:31-32 gives a split: "as many as heard his words believed," and "there were many among them who would not hear his words." Alma 22 reports a household converted and a multitude "pacified," and then the king has Aaron and his brethren "preach the word unto them" (Alma 22:26). There the chapter stops reporting on the people.
Verses 27 to 34: the proclamation, then the map
"The king sent a proclamation throughout all the land" (Alma 22:27). The rest of the verse is a single sentence running through the seashores, the narrow strip of wilderness and the head of the river Sidon, and it ends, "and thus were the Lamanites and the Nephites divided." It never says what the proclamation said. That waits for Alma 23:1-3, where the king's word is that nobody should "lay their hands on Ammon, or Aaron, or Omner, or Himni, nor either of their brethren who should go forth preaching the word of God."
The rest, verses 28 to 34, is geography: Bountiful and Desolation, "a day and a half's journey for a Nephite" (Alma 22:32), "a small neck of land." Nothing in it puts any of this on a modern map, and I'd be wary of anyone who does.
Then the map turns into a verdict, in verses 33 and 34.
Therefore the Lamanites could have no more possessions only in the land of Nephi, and the wilderness round about. Now this was wisdom in the Nephites—as the Lamanites were an enemy to them, they would not suffer their afflictions on every hand, and also that they might have a country whither they might flee, according to their desires.
Alma 22:34
I don't like verse 34, and my reason is where it sits. The chapter has just shown a Lamanite king pray, fall, stand and see his household converted. The narrator's next move is to explain how the Nephites "with their guards and their armies, had hemmed in the Lamanites on the south" (Alma 22:33) and to call it wisdom. Every reason given is the Nephites' own: the Lamanites are "an enemy to them," and the refuge is "a country whither they might flee." The land the Lamanites are left with, "the land of Nephi, and the wilderness round about," is the land verse 1 put the king's house in. So the people he has just been ministering to are inside the line, and the passage never turns to them. A record can keep a border. I can't see calling the confinement wisdom in the same breath as the conversion, and I'd have liked the narrator to stop a verse earlier.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the king in Alma 22?
Lamoni's father (Alma 22:1), the king who offers half of his kingdom in Alma 20:23. The chapter doesn't give his name.
Was the king dead when he fell?
The text says he was "struck as if he were dead" (Alma 22:18). The words are "as if," and in verse 22 he stands "receiving his strength."
Did the whole kingdom convert in Alma 22?
The chapter says his "whole household" was converted (Alma 22:23) and that the gathered multitude was "pacified" (Alma 22:25). It doesn't say the people converted.
What did the king's proclamation say?
Alma 22:27 doesn't give it. Alma 23:1-3 does: no one is to lay hands on Ammon, Aaron, Omner, Himni or their brethren, so that the word of God "might have no obstruction."
Alma 23 is next, and the proclamation gets its words there.
— D.