One of the complaints leveled against
Lehi by his rebellious sons Laman and Lemuel and his wife Sariah was that
he was a "visionary man" (1 Nephi 2:11; 5:2). Although this term
does not appear in the King James translation of the Bible, it accurately
reflects the Hebrew word hazon meaning divine vision (John A. Tvedtnes, "A Visionary Man," in Pressing
Forward with the Book of Mormon: The FARMS Updates of the 1990s, ed. John W. Welch and Melvin J. Thorne [Provo,
UT: FARMS, 1999], 29—31). Although this Hebrew term appears in connection
with true prophets of God it is also sometimes written with a negative connotation,
describing false prophets, especially in the writings of Lehi's contemporary,
Jeremiah (Jeremiah 14:14; 23:16).
In Jeremiah 23, the prophet refers
to certain opponents who cried peace in contradiction to his true message
of repentance and the impending destruction of Jerusalem. Jeremiah wrote,
"they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of
the Lord" (Jeremiah 23:16). They deceptively cried peace for Jerusalem
"unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart"
(Jeremiah 23:17). The Lord drew a distinction between true prophets and the
false prophets of his day. "For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived and heard his
word? who hath marked his word, and heard it? . . . But if they had stood
in my counsel, and had
caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from
their evil way, and from their evil doings" (Jeremiah 23:18, 22, emphasis
added). The Hebrew word rendered "counsel" in this passage is sod meaning a "council" or "assembly."
In contrast to these false prophets, Jeremiah had received his message in
the heavenly council of God (Hebrew sod),
while the false prophets had not (H. Wheeler Robinson, "The Council
of Yahweh," Journal of Theological Studies 45/179—80 [1944]:
151—57; S. B. Parker, "Council," in Dictionary of Deities and Demons
in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter W. van der
Horst, 2nd rev. ed. [Leiden: Brill, 1999], 204—8; John W. Welch, "The
Calling of a Prophet," in The Book of Mormon: First Nephi, The Doctrinal
Foundation, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. [Provo, UT: BYU
Religious Studies Center, 1988], 35—54).
In a revelation to Jeremiah which
some biblical scholars date to the early reign of Zedekiah (Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 21—36 [New York: Anchor Bible and Doubleday, 2004],
211). the Lord said, "I have heard what
the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed,
I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy
lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; Which think
to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every
man to his neighbour. . . . The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a
dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully" (Jeremiah
23:25—28).
While we do not know whether these
revelations of Jeremiah would have been known to Laman and Lemuel at the time,
the charges they leveled against Lehi seem to reflect similar views. "For
behold they did murmur in many things against their father, because he was
a visionary man. . .
. And this they said he had done because of the foolish imaginations of
his heart" (1 Nephi
2:11). Later, they leveled the same false accusation against Nephi (1 Nephi
17:20). In light of the controversies reflected in Jeremiah, it seems likely
that when Laman and Lemuel described their father as a "visionary man,"
they were not simply suggesting that he was an old fool. They were accusing
him of being a false prophet who was leading their family astray.
Nephi, on the other hand, who knew
that those accusations were false, countered them by noting that (1) Lehi
(like Jeremiah) had stood in the divine council and received his message from
the Lord (1 Nephi 1:8—14); (2) unlike the false prophets who had a message
of peace, Lehi preached that the people must repent or be destroyed (1 Nephi
1:13); (3) unlike the false prophets who claimed dreams but did not reveal
their content or call the people to repentance (Jeremiah 23:28), Lehi openly
declared the messages he received from the Lord to the Jews (1 Nephi 1:18)
and to his family (1 Nephi 8:2—38). In his account of his father's visions,
Nephi seems to be responding in some measure to his brothers' accusation that
Lehi was a false visionary.
In this light, Lehi's gentle response
to his wife's accusation is also interesting. He affirmed, "I know that
I am a [true] visionary man; for if I had not seen the things of God in a
vision I should not have known the goodness of God, but had tarried at Jerusalem,
and had perished with my brethren" (1 Nephi 5:4). This was a knowledge
that the false prophets in Jerusalem did not have. "For my people is
foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have
none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no
knowledge" (Jeremiah 4:22). Lehi's declaration that he knew of "the
goodness of God" reflects what he had learned in his vision of the heavenly
council, where he "had read and seen many great and marvelous things"
and learned of God's "power, and goodness, and mercy" (1 Nephi 1:14).
Like the false prophets at Jerusalem, Laman and Lemuel were ignorant of the
Lord and his ways (1 Nephi 2:12; 15:3). The false visionaries would not hearken
to the message of Jeremiah and were cast out of God's presence (Jeremiah 23:39).
A similar judgment awaited Lehi's sons if they continued to reject the teachings
of true visionary men like Lehi and Nephi (1 Nephi 2:21).
[From Matthew Roper, “Lehi as a Visionary Man,” Insights: An Ancient Window 27/4 (2007): 2-3].
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