Alma 2: The Nephites Won, and It Cost 6,562 Men

Brother Hollis said it kindly. We were a few weeks into the Book of Mormon in a Sunday class I was teaching, and he raised his hand with a pen still in it and said the thing to watch for in all the war chapters is that the righteous side always comes out on top. Heads went up and down. I wrote "righteous win" on the whiteboard, because I was behind on time and it was tidy, and moved on to the next question.

I don't buy it.

Alma 2 is the chapter I'd hand to anyone who says it, because the Nephites do win here and the chapter spends more words than you'd expect on what the winning looked like. "Always comes out on top" is a sentence that works from a distance.

Up close it's thirty-eight verses and a great many dead.

Why did Amlici still get a crown after losing the vote?

Amlici arrives with a résumé that starts with being "a very cunning man, yea, a wise man as to the wisdom of the world" (Alma 2:1), and he's "after the order of the man that slew Gideon by the sword," which ties him back to the loose thread from Alma 1. By verse 2 he has drawn off enough people to be "very powerful," and they want him made king.

Verse 3 is where I'd slow down, since the people of the church are alarmed and the reason given is that "according to their law that such things must be established by the voice of the people." So there's a procedure and everybody knows it. Verse 5 shows it running, with the people assembling "every man according to his mind" in separate bodies and having "much dispute and wonderful contentions one with another." Verse 6 has their voices "laid before the judges." It all sounds orderly and a little dull, and then this:

And it came to pass that the voice of the people came against Amlici, that he was not made king over the people.

Alma 2:7

The winning side gets one sentence of joy in verse 8, and the sentence turns on a "but," because Amlici "did stir up those who were in his favor to anger against those who were not in his favor." By verse 9 his people have gathered and consecrated him king anyway. In verse 10 he commands them to "take up arms against their brethren," and the text goes on calling the other side brethren even while verse 11 hands out the new names.

The vote gets verses 5 through 7 and the aftermath gets the other thirty-one.

What I take from it is plain enough, which is that a count of voices only closes a question when both sides agreed beforehand that it would, and Amlici's side agreed right up until the count went the wrong way. The chapter also doesn't pretend the Nephites might have talked their way out of it. They arm themselves with everything in verse 12, they appoint "captains, and higher captains, and chief captains" in verse 13, and nobody in the text hesitates.

I'm not going to draw a line from there to anything going on now.

How many Nephites died in Alma 2?

The first battle is on the hill Amnihu, east of the river Sidon, with Alma "at the head of his armies" (Alma 2:16). Then two verses that tend to get read as one:

And they began to slay the Amlicites upon the hill east of Sidon. And the Amlicites did contend with the Nephites with great strength, insomuch that many of the Nephites did fall before the Amlicites.

Alma 2:17

Nevertheless the Lord did strengthen the hand of the Nephites, that they slew the Amlicites with great slaughter, that they began to flee before them.

Alma 2:18

The "nevertheless" in verse 18 only means something because of verse 17. The Nephites aren't ahead and then given a boost. They're losing ground, and then they aren't. Read straight from the setup into the Lord strengthening them and the middle drops out, and the middle is where the hill actually was.

The Nephites chase the Amlicites "all that day" (verse 19), and when it's over the chapter states the cost, with twelve thousand five hundred thirty and two Amlicites dead and "six thousand five hundred sixty and two souls" of the Nephites. Add them and you get 19,094, so the Nephite dead are just over a third of everybody who fell on that hill, and they were the side that won. That's a victory in the sense that the Nephites were still standing when it stopped, and I'd say it that carefully.

Alma has his people pitch their tents for the night in the valley of Gideon, "the valley being called after that Gideon who was slain by the hand of Nehor with the sword" (Alma 2:20), which is a detail I'd never have invented. The winners sleep in a valley named for the man whose killing started all this, and Alma sends out spies, four of them by name: Zeram, Amnor, Manti and Limher. They come back the next morning "in great haste, being greatly astonished, and struck with much fear" (Alma 2:23).

What they found was worse than what the Nephites had just beaten. A numerous host of Lamanites had joined the Amlicites in the land of Minon and were already on the people there, who were "fleeing before them with their flocks, and their wives, and their children, towards our city" (Alma 2:25). The big win had bought one night of sleep, and by verse 26 the camp is packed and moving toward Zarahemla.

The enemy at the river is "as numerous almost, as it were, as the sands of the sea" (Alma 2:27), a figure of speech with no count attached. The only numbers the chapter bothers to give are from the first day, and they're all dead men.

What did Alma pray for in the middle of the fight?

Before the second fight the Nephites "prayed mightily" to be delivered, and the Lord "did hear their cries, and did strengthen them" (Alma 2:28). That's a people's prayer, offered ahead of time.

Then the chapter narrows to one man. Alma meets Amlici "with the sword, face to face" (Alma 2:29), and what he says is this:

And it came to pass that Alma, being a man of God, being exercised with much faith, cried, saying: O Lord, have mercy and spare my life, that I may be an instrument in thy hands to save and preserve this people.

Alma 2:30

One sentence, said with someone else's blade in reach. He asks to be spared and then gives his reason, which is that he'd like to be useful, and that second half is worth a look. He doesn't ask for victory or for the other man to fall. He asks to live as an instrument, and the verbs that follow are "save and preserve this people."

Then, in verse 31, "he contended again with Amlici; and he was strengthened, insomuch that he slew Amlici with the sword." The prayer didn't replace the fighting. He prayed and picked the sword back up, and the strength shows up inside the second round and not before the first. That's a different order than most of us would write the story, and the order is the part I trust.

This is the Alma an angel went after in Mosiah 27, in the account where the angel came for his father's prayers, and by Alma 2 he's chief judge and the man at the head of the army.

The king of the Lamanites flees and sends his guards in his place, and Alma "slew and drove them back" (Alma 2:33). Then the chapter gives you the job after the job. He clears the west bank of the Sidon by throwing the Lamanite dead into the water "that thereby his people might have room to cross" (Alma 2:34). Nobody is going to put that on a bookmark. It reads like the logistics of a battle, written down by someone who knew what a crossing needed.

What do the bones in verse 38 add?

The Lamanites and Amlicites scatter west and north into the wilderness called Hermounts, "that part of the wilderness which was infested by wild and ravenous beasts" (Alma 2:37). Verse 38 says many of them died there of their wounds and were devoured by the beasts "and also the vultures of the air," and then:

and their bones have been found, and have been heaped up on the earth.

Alma 2:38

It's the last line of the chapter. Nothing after it tells you what to feel, and there's no summary of what the Nephites learned. The bones are left lying where the chapter stops.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was there a vote on a king in Alma 2?

It was their law that "such things must be established by the voice of the people" (Alma 2:3), so the question of Amlici had to go to the people whether anyone liked it or not. The voices were then "laid before the judges" (Alma 2:6), which tells you the judges did the counting.

Who were the Amlicites?

They were the followers of Amlici, who take his name in verse 11 while "the remainder were called Nephites, or the people of God." In verse 1 Amlici is tied to the order of the man who killed Gideon, so the group has roots in the trouble from Alma 1. Alma 3 comes back to them, and I'd leave the rest for that chapter.

Did Alma pray for the Nephites to win?

He prayed to be spared so he could be an instrument "to save and preserve this people," which isn't quite the same request. The people prayed in verse 28 to be delivered, and the text says the Lord heard that too. I wouldn't build much more on it than the verses carry.

Is this the same Alma from the Mosiah chapters?

It's Alma the younger, the chief judge. His father, the older Alma, is the high priest facing a hard judgment he can't settle alone in Mosiah 26, where Alma didn't know and asked. The son in Alma 2 holds the judgment seat and the army both.

If you're reading this chapter with a class or a family, read verse 17 out loud before verse 18, and read verse 19 right after it. Then keep going to verse 38 and don't stop at the prayer.

— D.