Chapter Twenty
(The apparent error above is that the people chose to sacrifice rather than obey God’s commandments. Consider this against Hebrews 10:3-6 in the Bible. God takes no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices. He desires that people do not sin and therefore will not need to sacrifice. Above in the verses referenced, it appears that God told the people to eat the animals they were sacrificing rather than offer them to him.)
Jer. 14:10 Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the LORD doth not accept them; he will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins. Jer. 14:11 Then said the LORD unto me, Pray not for this people for their good. Jer. 14:12 When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. Admittedly this last rejection by God in chapter fourteen may have been a number of years before Lehi entered the picture. One might suppose that God had changed his mind by the time Lehi offered sacrifices. This is very unlikely due to the drought that produced grassless pastures and sickly animals rather than the unblemished specimens that God’s Levitical law required:
Jer. 9:10 For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.
Jer. 9:12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?
Jer. 14:2 Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.
Jer. 14:18 If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! . . .”
Jer. 23:10 For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right.
Famine is a result of the lack of food, and zero rain fall was not the only cause for the food shortage. Readers should realize that God had given the herds and flocks to Nebuchadnezzar’s armies who had laid siege against the city only about a year before Lehi had allegedly fled from Jerusalem:
Jer. 5:15 Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. Jer. 5:16 Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men.
Jer. 5:17 And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword. After Nebuchadnezzar’s armies besieged the city it is doubtful that there were very many herds or flocks remaining from which Lehi might have taken animals to sacrifice. Removing any from the Jerusalem area that might have remained would have brought the entire hungry population of the impoverished city against Lehi and his family. Even if there had been any to take, they would not have been very healthy, and God’s Levitical law required unblemished animals from the herds or flocks.
“And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.”98 “And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish.”99
“AND if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.”100
“And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the LORD be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.”101 Every offering pictured God’s perfect sacrifice, Jesus, the Lamb of God:
Jesus was without sin in every manner. He was unblemished!
In one manner or another, every sacrifice or burnt offering pictured our Savior who would eventually be offered upon the cross at Calvary. For this reason God would not have accepted blemished sacrifices under any circumstances. Weak sickly animals would have been an abomination because they did not properly portray Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God who would eventually take away all of the world’s sin. Every sacrifice had to be perfect.
It is doubtful that Lehi could have taken any large number of animals from the Jerusalem area because the family is recorded as having fled secretly for their lives, and a large caravan would have attracted unwanted attention.
“And it came to pass that he departed into the wilderness. . . . and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness.”105
As unlikely as it is that Lehi could have taken sacrificial animals with him when fleeing from Jerusalem, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose he did. Had Lehi taken animals with him from the Jerusalem area, by the time they arrived at the Red Sea those animals would definitely not have been in any condition to be the unblemished sacrifices required by Levitical law. The trek of at least 150 miles across the impassible wilderness barren of water and grass, part of which would have been the Sinai Desert, would only have made the animals more weak and sickly.
Some might claim that Lehi found animals in the wilderness to sacrifice, but God had already said there were no animals, including birds, in the wilderness, (See Jer. 9:10 & 12:4 above). Beside that, the law called for animals that were to be of the flocks and herds:
The truth of the matter is that Joseph Smith did not know the Bible or the events surrounding the time frame when Zedekiah was appointed king as well as he thought he did. Joseph Smith placed Lehi into a setting that was neither actual nor realistic. Lehi was merely a fictional character invented by Joseph Smith improperly placed into an ancient time frame in an impossible situation. Joseph Smith revealed his ignorance of Biblical history through the manuscript he penned called the BkM. In chapter twenty-one we will discover that this ignorance was evident as well in a vision from God he claimed to have had. The errors within will reveal that his visions were no more real than Lehi’s. #98 Leviticus 1:1-4, KJV Bible #99 Leviticus 1:10, KJV Bible #100 Leviticus 3:1, KJV Bible #101 Leviticus 3:6, KJV bible #102 John 1:29, KJV Bible #103 1 John 3:5, KJV Bible #104 1 Peter 2:21-22, KJV bible #105 1 Nephi 2:4, BkM #106 1 Nephi 4:36, BkM #107 Leviticus 1:2-3, KJV Bible |