Alma 8: Many Days in Amulek's House Before He Preaches

Caleb took the fall-ball fundraiser sheet down the cul-de-sac on Monday after school, frozen cookie dough in tubs. I stayed a house behind him on the sidewalk. At the one with the green door a man said they were all set and thanks anyway, and Caleb said "thanks anyway" back, which I thought was decent of him. He came down the driveway holding the clipboard a little lower than he'd gone up with it. He sold two tubs on the rest of the street and didn't mention the green door again.

Alma 8 has a good deal of that in it, and the angel's speech in the middle gets quoted so often that the verses on either side of it get very little attention. I'd like to go through all thirty-two.

What is verse 1 summing up?

Verse 1 holds two chapters, because it says Alma returned from Gideon "having established the order of the church, according as he had before done in the land of Zarahemla," and that is Alma 6 and Alma 7 folded into one clause. Then he goes west of the river Sidon to Melek, where "the people came to him throughout all the borders of the land which was by the wilderness side" and were baptized (verse 5). That's the success, and it gets two verses.

Then three days north to Ammonihah, and a verse about how the Nephites named their cities after whoever first possessed them, which I've never known what to do with. After it comes that "Satan had gotten great hold upon the hearts of the people of the city of Ammonihah" (verse 9). Alma prays hard for them in verse 10 and in verse 11 they harden their hearts. What they say has two parts. They know he's Alma and they know he's high priest of a church they're "not of", and "we do not believe in such foolish traditions" is a flat rejection of what he teaches. Then verse 12 adds the point about authority: because they aren't of his church he has no power over them, and he has handed the judgment seat to Nephihah besides, so he isn't their chief judge. Verse 13 says they "withstood all his words," reviled him, spit on him and had him put out.

What does the angel actually say to him?

Alma is walking toward Aaron, "weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul," and Mormon says it twice in verse 14, nearly the same words, as if once wouldn't carry it. Then the angel's first word is this.

Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivedst thy first message from him. Behold, I am he that delivered it unto you. (Alma 8:15)

The cause to rejoice here is built entirely from the past, since he has been faithful since the first message, and that's the whole ground of the comfort. Nothing in it says Ammonihah will listen the second time. Alma is to go back and preach again and say that "except they repent the Lord God will destroy them" (verse 16). He's being sent with a warning, and no promise about how it will be received.

The last sentence of verse 15 is the one I'd underline. The angel says he delivered Alma's first message himself. Most readers take that as the angel of Mosiah 27, and I do too. That angel came in a cloud with a voice like thunder and the earth shook under Alma and the sons of Mosiah, and the message was "Alma, go thy way, and seek to destroy the church no more" (Mosiah 27:16). Here the same messenger meets the same man on a road and begins with "lift up thy head." Nothing shakes. That's as far as I'd take the contrast. He's being spoken to by someone who knew him when he was on the other side.

Verse 17 gives the reason for the hurry. The city is working to destroy the liberty of the Lord's people.

Who feeds a prophet in a city that just spat on him?

Alma goes back "speedily" and comes in from the south, by "another way" (verse 18). The chapter gives no reason, and nobody tells him to do it.

The first thing he does is ask for dinner. "Will ye give to an humble servant of God something to eat?" (verse 19). He had fasted many days (verse 26) and he was hungry in the plain sense. The man he asks is Amulek, who says an angel told him in a vision to expect him (verse 20). Then comes the order of verses 21 to 23, which I like. Bread and meat are set in front of Alma. He eats and is filled. He blesses Amulek and his house and gives thanks. Only after he has eaten does he say "I am Alma" and start explaining himself. The introduction waits for the meal.

Amulek tells his side of it in Alma 10. He had "much riches by the hand of my industry" (Alma 10:4) and then "I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear" (Alma 10:6). The angel stopped him while he was on his way to visit a relative and told him to turn around, because he would feed a prophet who "is an hungered" (Alma 10:7). So the door that opened in Ammonihah belonged to a man who had been called many times and had said no, and he says so about himself in public. Alma didn't find a believer sitting at home. He found a man who turned around when he was told to.

Why does Alma wait many days before he preaches?

The angel's command in verse 16 is to return and preach, and Alma returns "speedily." Then verse 27 says "Alma tarried many days with Amulek before he began to preach unto the people." Verse 28 follows it directly: "the people did wax more gross in their iniquities." Then, in verse 29, "the word came to Alma," and it says "Go; and also say unto my servant Amulek, go forth and prophesy unto this people." Only after that do they go out, filled with the Holy Ghost (verse 30).

So there's a gap between being told to preach and preaching, and the chapter fills it with a meal, a house and some number of days. Mormon doesn't say how many, or what the two of them talked about, apart from what Alma tells Amulek in verses 24 and 25. He says he'd been about to set his back toward the land forever, and that he'd been commanded to turn again and testify against them.

I don't know why the days were necessary, and Mormon puts the verse about the city getting worse right beside the verse about the visit and doesn't connect them. It's possible Alma was resting, or that the two men needed to know each other first. The text allows either. The one thing I'd point to is that verse 29 names Amulek, before anyone has asked Amulek to do a thing. Whatever the days were for, Alma isn't going in alone when he does go.

Alma tells his host the plain version, that "they cast me out and I was about to set my back towards this land forever" (verse 24). He had already decided. And the command in verse 25 arrives in his telling as something he was handed, "I have been commanded that I should turn again," with no mention of his own courage anywhere in it.

It's easy to read the angel's speech as the turning point of the chapter, because it's the part with the most dialogue in it. The stretch from verse 18 to verse 29 is mostly bread and a house and some days that the text doesn't count.

The chapter ends with them preaching "according to the spirit and power which the Lord had given them" (verse 32). Chapter 9 is where that gets tested.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did the people of Ammonihah refuse Alma?

Verse 9 says Satan had a great hold on their hearts, and verses 11 and 12 give what they said out loud. They called what he taught "foolish traditions," and then they added that he had no power over them, since they weren't of his church and he'd handed the judgment seat to Nephihah. Verse 13 says they "withstood all his words," so it was the teaching they pushed back on, with the question of his authority alongside it.

How did Amulek know to take Alma in?

An angel told him in a vision (verse 20) and he gives the fuller version in Alma 10:7 and 8: the angel stopped him on the road and told him to go home because a hungry prophet would be there. He also says in Alma 10:6 that until that day he'd been hardening his heart. So he wasn't a believer who happened to be at home when Alma knocked.

How long was Alma fasting?

The text says "many days" (verse 26) and that's all. It doesn't say he fasted on the road or that he was fasting for any reason beyond what Alma himself tells Amulek. I'd say what the chapter says. He fasted and he was hungry, and a man fed him.

What does verse 31 mean about their power?

That Alma and Amulek had power such that they "could not be confined in dungeons" and no man could slay them, and that they "did not exercise their power until they were bound in bands and cast into prison." The verse gives the reason too: "that the Lord might show forth his power in them." You can read that two ways. I'd say it sits well beside the days in Amulek's house, since in both places they had the means and held off.

Read all the way to verse 32 this week, and if you have a few minutes after that, read Alma 10:1 to 11 in the same sitting. They cover the same days from the other man's side, and it changes how chapter 8 reads.

— D.