Alma 11: Six Onties Is Forty-Two Days of a Judge's Pay

There's a Book of Mormon reading chart taped inside the cover of one of my old paperbacks, handed out by a ward years ago, and next to Alma 11 somebody printed "verses 21-46 if short on time." The first twenty verses are a price list, the thinking goes, and a person can do without a price list.

I don't buy that. Those twenty verses are close to half the chapter, and the bribe in verse 22 is only a number until you've done the sums in verses 5 through 13. With the sums it's a specific amount of money, and the amount turned out to be more interesting than I expected.

How much is six onties of silver?

Start with the judge's pay. Verse 3 says "a senine of gold for a day, or a senum of silver, which is equal to a senine of gold." So the unit under everything is one day of a judge's time.

The silver goes up from there. An amnor "was as great as two senums" (verse 11) and an ezrom is "as great as four senums" (verse 12). Then this:

And an onti was as great as them all. (Alma 11:13)

I read "them all" as the three before it, so 1 plus 2 plus 4 makes seven senums to an onti. The gold has the same shape in verses 8 through 10: a seon is twice a senine, a shum twice a seon, and a limnah is "the value of them all," seven senines again. Whoever set this up liked doubling enough to do it twice.

Now to verse 22, which is where all of this has been headed.

Behold, here are six onties of silver, and all these will I give thee if thou wilt deny the existence of a Supreme Being. (Alma 11:22)

Six times seven is forty-two, so Zeezrom is holding out forty-two days of a judge's wages, in a form you could see on a table.

The small end of the scale is the part I like. A shiblon is half a senum (verse 15), a shiblum is half of that, and a leah is half of a shiblum (verse 17), which makes a leah an eighth of a day's wage. Somebody in that culture priced things at an eighth of a day. A shiblon bought "half a measure of barley," so a senum bought a whole one, and six onties was a great deal of grain.

Who was paid by the case?

Not the judges, at least not by what verse 1 says. They "should receive wages according to the time which they labored." Verse 2 describes the work, and it's an orderly system in which a man owes and won't pay, the judge sends officers, and he's compelled to pay "or be stripped, or be cast out from among the people as a thief and a robber."

Verse 20 is about people paid some other way, and it says what that way did to them.

It was for the sole purpose to get gain, because they received their wages according to their employ, therefore, they did stir up the people to riotings, and all manner of disturbances and wickedness, that they might have more employ. (Alma 11:20)

"Employ" is a word Mormon already used one chapter back. Alma 10:32 says "the object of these lawyers was to get gain; and they got gain according to their employ," and the man named one verse earlier, in 10:31, is Zeezrom, "one of the most expert among them, having much business to do among the people." So the pay by volume belongs to the lawyers, and Zeezrom is their best.

I worked at a company in Orem a long time ago where a quarterly bonus pool was split by tickets closed. There was a dashboard on a TV by the kitchenette. A developer named Trent found one misspelled word in an error message, and it turned out to be in fourteen files, so he filed fourteen tickets. Each was titled something like "Typo in label, settings page." His count that month beat anybody's from the whole quarter before. My share of the pool came in smaller than the last one and I didn't say anything to anyone. What I remember is the number on the TV going up while I stood there with a coffee. Nobody was fired over it, and the pool kept being split the same way for a good while after.

Did Zeezrom ever plan to pay?

Amulek says no. In verse 24 he tells Zeezrom, "thou knowest that there is a God, but thou lovest that lucre more than him," and in verse 25 he explains how he knows:

Thou saidst unto me—Behold these six onties, which are of great worth, I will give unto thee—when thou hadst it in thy heart to retain them from me; and it was only thy desire that I should deny the true and living God, that thou mightest have cause to destroy me. (Alma 11:25)

On Amulek's account the forty-two days were never going to leave Zeezrom's hands. The silver is bait, and what Zeezrom wants is a denial he can use as cause. The chapter doesn't record Zeezrom admitting any of it. His next line is a question, "Thou sayest there is a true and living God?" (verse 26).

Amulek uses the word lied twice, here and again in verse 36. Zeezrom has told the crowd that Amulek speaks "as though he had authority to command God," and Amulek answers, "Behold thou hast lied." The first lie was about money and the second was about a sentence, and he names both to Zeezrom's face with the crowd listening.

Questions alone aren't the trouble, since Alma 5 is mostly questions and I wrote about the one people quote most, can ye feel so now. Zeezrom's questions differ because he already knows what he'll do with each answer, and verse 35 shows him doing it.

How does the chapter stop?

Count the questions from verse 26 on. Is there a true and living God, is there more than one, how do you know, who is he that shall come, shall he save his people in their sins, is the Son of God the very Eternal Father. Six questions, and Amulek's answers are mostly a word or two until verse 34, where "he shall not" gets a reason attached. Then the answers get long, and from verse 41 through 45 Amulek is on the resurrection and the bar of Christ, with Zeezrom out of questions.

Mormon ends it with a verse that has nothing in it but reactions. The people "began again to be astonished, and also Zeezrom began to tremble." Then comes "this is all that I have written" (verse 46), as if he'd stopped copying at that point and put the pen down. A man who walked in holding forty-two days of silver is shaking at the end of it, and the chapter leaves him there.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much was the bribe worth in Alma 11?

Six onties of silver. An onti is seven senums if "them all" in verse 13 means the three listed before it, and a judge got a senum a day (verse 3), so forty-two days of a judge's wages. The chapter doesn't state that total. It comes from the verses.

Do I need to memorize the Nephite coins?

No. I can't name them in order without looking. Read verses 5 through 13 once with a pencil, write 1, 2, 4 and 7 next to the silver, and you have everything verse 22 needs.

Was Zeezrom really a lawyer?

Alma 10:31 introduces him among the lawyers, "one of the most expert among them." Alma 11 never uses the word, but it's the same man, and the "much business" and the pay "according to their employ" come from chapter 10. Read the two chapters together.

What does Amulek mean that Christ can't save people in their sins?

He gives his own reason in verse 37: "he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven." That's the whole argument and he doesn't add to it.

What to read first

If you're in Alma 11 this week, read verses 1 through 3 and then verse 20, in that order, before you get to Zeezrom. Work out verse 22 on a scrap of paper. It takes about two minutes, and then verse 24 will be talking about something with a size.

— D.