Day three - 1st Nephi 7-9 (6/10/09)

First of all I found this interesting explanation for what happens in chapter 7. This is from the institute student manual...

“After the Lord counseled Lehi ‘that his sons should take daughters to wife, that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise’ (1 Nephi 7:1), Lehi immediately sent back to Jerusalem for Ishmael and his family. Our present Book of Mormon does not indicate exactly why Ishmael’s family was selected (except that it included at least five unmarried women!), but perhaps the following statement provides additional important reasons for this selection:

“‘Whoever has read the Book of Mormon carefully will have learned that the remnants of the house of Joseph dwelt upon the American continent; and that Lehi learned by searching the records of his fathers that were written upon the plates of brass, that he was of the lineage of Manasseh. The Prophet Joseph informed us that the record of Lehi, was contained on the 116 pages that were first translated and subsequently stolen, and of which an abridgment is given us in the first Book of Nephi, which is the record of Nephi individually, he himself being of the lineage of Manasseh; but that Ishmael was of the lineage of Ephraim, and that his sons married into Lehi’s family, and Lehi’s sons married Ishmael’s daughters, thus fulfilling the words of Jacob upon Ephraim and Manasseh in the 48th chapter of Genesis, which says: “And let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the land.” Thus these descendants of Manasseh and Ephraim grew together upon this American continent. . . .’ (Erastus Snow, Journal of Discourses, 23:184–85. Italics added.)” (Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon, pp. 99–100).

Chapter 8
Oh this is a great part of the story! As soon as I started reading chapter 8 I remembered a few things from this past year of seminary. As you read about Lehi's dream see if you can see a comparison or similarity with the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Interesting stuff! Also in April BYUTV showed a talk that John Bytheway gave and the part that I watched he talked about how one of the titles for Satan is he's the "prince of the power of the air" - that comes from Ephesians 2:2. John B. went on to talk about being grounded. He talked about the large and spacious building and how it is floating on air (hello who is the prince of the power of the air?). Isn't that cool??? I just love this connection.
The link below will take you to the institute manual and you can see a good chart that explains Lehi's vision.
http://www.ldsces.org/inst_manuals/bm-in-sm1996/manualindex.asp