Alma 7: Alma Spends Two Verses Explaining Why He's Late

The first thing Alma tells the people of Gideon is why he hasn't been there before. Verse 1 says this is the first time he has spoken to them "by the words of my mouth," that he's been "wholly confined to the judgment-seat," that there was "much business" he couldn't leave. Verse 2 adds that he's only standing in front of them now because the seat "hath been given to another."

That's a lot of scheduling to put at the front of a sermon about the Redeemer, and most readers go straight through it to get to Mary and the virgin birth in verse 10, which I did myself this morning before I made myself go back. I'd stay a minute longer.

Why does Alma explain his calendar first?

Alma 4 tells us how he got free. In verses 17 through 20 he picks Nephihah, hands over the judgment seat and keeps the office of high priest for himself, so that he can "go forth among his people." Verse 20 puts it at the start of the ninth year of the judges. Alma 8:1 and 8:2 then have him back in Zarahemla, resting, as that same ninth year ends. So the stretch from handing over the seat to standing in Gideon's valley fits inside one year, and he was still saying sorry for the wait. Before that he'd held the seat for about eight years, which is the part he's apologizing for.

My wife's brother Benjamin is a school principal in Spanish Fork, and last spring at a dinner in St. George he told me about the day he sat in a classroom. Early in his first year a first-grader had asked a teacher whether Mr. Pearson lived in the office. Benjamin heard it secondhand and it bothered him enough that he cleared a Thursday, left the clipboard at his desk and sat at the back of a third-grade room from the first bell until lunch. Around ten a girl in the front row turned around and asked if he was in trouble. He said no. She said, "then why are you here," and he told me he didn't have an answer ready, that he'd said something about visiting and she'd gone back to her worksheet. The kids he'd met up to then had mostly been walked into his office by somebody else.

I don't want to make Alma into a principal. Verse 1 doesn't say he knew the people of Gideon only through his chair, and he may have known them well. What it does give us is the plain fact that in eight years he hadn't spoken to them by mouth, and that he says so before anything else. Benjamin's girl would have understood the problem. If you want the longer version of how Alma ended up in that chair, I wrote about the silk and the pride in Alma 4.

What does Alma mean by "I do not know"?

Verse 7 says the time is "not far distant" that the Redeemer comes among his people. Then verse 8 backs off a step, and I think it's the best sentence in the chapter.

Now as to this thing I do not know; but this much I do know, that the Lord God hath power to do all things which are according to his word.

What he leaves open is whether Christ will come among them in a mortal body in his own day. He puts it carefully: "the Spirit hath not said unto me that this should be the case." He doesn't say the Spirit told him no. He says the Spirit hasn't told him either way.

The excuse in verse 1 and the "I do not know" in verse 8 are the same kind of statement. Each one marks the edge of what he can offer, in a clause, with no apology piled on top, and each time he moves straight on to what he has. After the first he gets to the greeting and the hopes. After the second comes verse 9, where the Spirit does tell him something, "Repent ye, and prepare the way of the Lord," and that instruction doesn't need a date. Then a mother named Mary, a virgin, in Jerusalem (verse 10), and pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind (verse 11).

What does "know according to the flesh" mean in verse 12?

Verse 12 gives the reason for the suffering, and the reason is a little surprising. Christ takes on death and infirmities "that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities." Succor means to run to help, and Alma 4:13 uses the word for the humble members who were "succoring those who stood in need of their succor."

Hebrews 4:15 says something close, that we don't have a high priest who "cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Same idea from a different writer.

What keeps catching me is that the very next verse starts with "Now the Spirit knoweth all things" and then turns on "nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh." A reader could take verse 12 to mean the Savior lacked some information and went to get it. Verse 13 closes that door almost as soon as it's opened, since the Spirit already knows all things and could simply have supplied it.

So "know according to the flesh" has to mean a different kind of knowing, the kind you get by being the one in the bed or the one at the door. I doubt that covers all of it, and I've left a question about it at the bottom.

Why does "I trust" turn into "I know" and then "I perceive"?

The shift is spread thin enough that I almost missed it. Verse 3 has Alma coming "having great hopes," and in verses 5 and 6 he says "I trust" five times, reading out the sins he hopes aren't true of them: unbelief, pride, riches, idols. By verse 17 it's "I know that ye believe them," with the way he knows given as "the manifestation of the Spirit which is in me," and in verses 19 and 20 he says "I perceive" four times.

Hope, trust, know, perceive. I'd guess Gideon was relieved to hear the last one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Alma talking to people who didn't believe?

Verses 17 through 19 say the opposite, with Alma telling them he knows they believe and that he's glad of it. The warning in verse 21 about the filthy staying filthy is addressed to people who are on the path, which I find more unsettling than if it were aimed at outsiders.

Why does verse 10 say Jerusalem and not Bethlehem?

The verse says "at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers." Most of what I've read takes that as the region around the city, and Bethlehem does sit a few miles south of it, but I haven't found anything in Alma that settles it.

Does "I do not know" in verse 8 mean Alma was unsure about the prophecy?

Not about the coming, the mother or the suffering, as far as the text goes. The timing is the only thing he leaves open, and he says why.

Who was he asking to be baptized in verse 15?

As far as I can tell everyone in earshot, since verse 15 is an open invitation, "come and fear not," and he doesn't ask the believing question until verse 17, then answers it himself in the same breath. The chapter doesn't say who stepped forward. Alma 8:1 only says he taught them "many things which cannot be written" and established the order of the church, so I won't guess past that.

Where is Gideon?

East of the river Sidon, in a valley of the same name, according to Alma 6:7. The city and valley were named for the man killed by Nehor's sword. The text doesn't give a distance from Zarahemla, so I won't either.

I've been turning verses 12 and 13 over since this morning. One says he suffers so that he may know how to succor, and the other says the Spirit knoweth all things and he suffers anyway. When somebody taught you this chapter, how did they fit those two together, and did they lean on one and let the other go? If you've got a reading that holds both without bending either, I'd like to hear it.

— D.