BOM Omni

Today’s reading, the (again very short) book of Omni, briefly mentions a number of extraordinarily important historical items.

We learn for the first time, for example, about Zarahemla and its people, the Mulekites.  Mosiah becomes the king of a unified Nephite/Mulekite state.  And we hear of the Jaredites, and of their last king, Coriantumr.

I choose, however, to concentrate on something that I find amusing.

Jarom, on whom I commented in his role as the author of the preceding book, wrote little.  But he was a complete chatterbox compared to the multiple authors of the thirty-verse book of Omni.

You might be pardoned, given that roster of authors — Omni, Amaron, Chemish, Abinadom, and Amaleki — if you imagine that omni is being used here in the Latin sense of “all.”  But it’s not.  My suspicion is that omni may be related, in some sense, to the triliteral Semitic root ’mn, which pertains to “belief,” “faith,” and “safety” or “security,” with the first-person singular possessive -1 attached.  (In Arabic, amni means “my security,” or something to that effect.)

Omni, claiming to be a wicked man, explicitly says that he’s writing on the plates only to fulfill the commandment of his father that he do so (verse 1).  And he adds three verses of little value.

Amaron adds only five verses, one of which indicates that he’s passing the plates on to his brother, Chemish.

Amusingly, this is the entirety of Chemish’s entry:

Now I, Chemish, write what few things I write, in the same book with my brother; for behold, I saw the last which he wrote, that he wrote it with his own hand; and he wrote it in the day that he delivered them unto me. And after this manner we keep the records, for it is according to the commandments of our fathers. And I make an end.  (verse 9)

I hope that you’re as impressed with the “manner” in which these remarkably unimpressive stewards of the plates “keep the records” as I am.

Amaleki does a bit better than his predecessors, but, mercifully, his undistinguished and ineffectual line dies out with him and he transfers the plates to King Benjamin.  And none too soon, either.  If this sorry group had continued as the custodians of the plates, we wouldn’t have a Book of Mormon.

Posted from Monterey, California