Lehi’s Calling (Prayer)

In Nephi’s summary of his father’s record, Lehi is introduced to a council of divine beings and receives a prophetic commission (1 Nephi 1). In several ways, the details of Lehi’s heavenly encounter follow the pattern of prophetic call narratives found in biblical and pseudepigraphic literature.¹ One feature of this call pattern is the intercessory prayer, in which a prophet prays to the Lord on behalf of others, often in response to their wickedness and impending destruction.  

The introduction to Lehi’s prophetic calling situates him in Jerusalem in “the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah” (1 Nephi 1:4).² As noted by John W. Welch, this “was undoubtedly an unforgettably troubling year.”³ The Babylonians had recently besieged and conquered Jerusalem, and “in that same year there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed” (v. 4). In this turbulent setting “Lehi … went forth [and] prayed unto the Lord, yea, even with all his heart, in behalf of his people” (1 Nephi 1:5).

According to Blake Ostler,

The intercessory prayer motif is absent from all of the biblical accounts of the call form (though intercessory prayers are found elsewhere in the Old Testament outside the context of the prophetic call). The prayer is also a well-established motif in the pseudepigraphic accounts. In these accounts, the prophet’s prayer is always motivated by concern for his people. While Lehi is distraught over the wickedness and impending disaster about to befall Jerusalem, the pseudepigraphic authors look back to the fall of Jerusalem and mourn Israel’s failure to heed the Lord’s warnings. God responds to the prayer by sending an otherworldly mediator and by showing the visionary the history of the world and eventual eschatological redemption of Israel, granting solace in the face of disaster.⁴

The pseudepigraphic texts Ostler refers to are a body of primarily Jewish and Christian writings which were composed approximately between 200 BC–AD 200 and were attributed to prominent figures in Israelite history. While the earliest of these writings date to several centuries after Lehi’s day, many of them reflect and perpetuate cultural traditions and genres of earlier Jewish writings, including the prophetic call pattern.⁵

For instance, in the introduction to the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra, the prophet Ezra declared, “I wish to plead with God concerning the Christian people.” A few lines later Ezra cried: “Have pity upon the works of your hands, merciful and greatly pitying one. Condemn me rather than the souls of the sinners, for it is better to punish one soul and not to bring the whole world to destruction.”⁶

The introduction of 3 Baruch reads as follows: “I Baruch (was) weeping in my mind and considering the people and how King Nebuchadnezzar was permitted by God to plunder his city, saying, ‘Lord, why have you set fire to your vineyard and laid it waste? Why have you done this?’” A concern for Jerusalem’s destruction was the subject of Lehi’s intercessory prayer as well. The Lord then sent an angel to Baruch who declared, “your prayer has been heard before [God] and has entered the ears of the Lord God.”⁷

In the Testament of Levi, the author reports:

As I was tending the flocks in Abel-Maoul a spirit of understanding from the Lord came upon me and I observed all human beings making their way in life deceitfully. Sin was erecting walls and injustice was ensconced in towers. I kept grieving over the race of the sons of men, and I prayed to the Lord that I might be delivered.⁸

In the early chapters of the Apocalypse of Abraham, Abraham expresses his concerns for his father’s worship of false idols and then states: “And it came to pass as I was thinking things like these with regard to my father Terah in the court of my house, the voice of the Mighty One came down from the heavens in a stream of fire, saying and calling, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And I said ‘Here I am.’”⁹ Thus, once again a prophetic call was given in response to a righteous man being troubled by and pondering upon the wickedness of others.¹⁰

Conclusion

While intercessory prayers and prophetic call narratives are both found in the Bible,¹¹ they aren’t found there together. This means Joseph Smith couldn’t have known that this motif belongs to the prophetic call pattern simply by reading his King James Bible. As Ostler concluded,

it appears that the call form as it is presented in the Book of Mormon evidences at least some awareness of the apocalyptic expansion of that form as is evidenced by its presence in the later pseudepigrapha. If the scholars of Joseph Smith’s own day were ignorant of the call form, what are the chances that he could have detected the essential pattern … and included in his version elements that were present only in the yet unknown pseudepigrapha?¹²

Stephen O. Smoot, “The Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 27 (2017): 155–180.

John W. Welch, “The Calling of Lehi as a Prophet in the World of Jerusalem,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, ed. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely (Provo: FARMS, 2004), 421–448.

John W. Welch, “Lehi’s Council Vision and the Mysteries of God,” in Reexploring the Book of Mormon: A Decade of New Research, ed. John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1992), 24–25.

Blake T. Ostler, “The Throne-Theophany and Prophetic Commission in 1 Nephi: A Form Critical Analysis,” BYU Studies Quarterly 26, no. 4 (1986): 67–95.

BibleGenesis 20:71 Samuel 7:5–9Jeremiah 14:11Book of Mormon1 Nephi 1:4–6

Bible

Genesis 20:7

1 Samuel 7:5–9

Jeremiah 14:11

Book of Mormon

1 Nephi 1:4–6