KnoWhy #233 | August 21, 2019

Why Did Moroni Write So Many Farewells?

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Scripture Central

“Behold I, Moroni, do finish the record of my father, Mormon.” Mormon 8:1

The Know

Turning the page of Mormon’s concluding farewell in Mormon 7, readers are introduced to a new author: “Behold I, Moroni, do finish the record of my father, Mormon” (Mormon 8:1). Full of sorrow, Moroni explained that his father was killed by the Lamanites and that he remained “alone to write the sad tale of the destruction of [his] people” (v. 3). Moroni’s remarks in Mormon 8–9 not only finish out his father’s record,1 but they also seem to function as his own farewell.2

Readers may wonder why Moroni would deliver a farewell address and then later go on to include an abridgment of the book of Ether, ten more chapters of a book bearing his own name, and two more farewell endings, one in Ether 12:38–41 and the other in Moroni 10:34. One consideration is that, as time progressed, his circumstances and perspectives may have changed and the agony of defeat may have dimmed and healed. In any event, Moroni may have welcomed the opportunity to convey different concluding messages that he felt the Book of Mormon deserved.3

First Farewell

Lost Nation by jmcartwork

At first, in Mormon 8–9, Moroni explained his uncertainty about the future, declaring “whether they will slay me, I know not” (Mormon 8:3), and “how long the Lord will suffer that I may live I know not” (v. 5). He reported that he couldn’t even write the intent of the record because he didn’t have “room upon the plates,” and as for “ore I have none, for I am alone” (v. 5). These verses may indicate that when writing his initial farewell, Moroni was feeling at a loss. He was running out of space and out of time, and he felt duty-bound to conclude his father’s record in case he suffered an untimely death.4

Under this sense of urgency, Moroni laid down the law. He issued a series of warnings to protect the record (Mormon 8:14–22), he prophesied about the conditions when the Lord would bring the record forth (vv. 26–30), he testified to future peoples (v. 35; Mormon 9:1, 7, 30), he asked a number of penetrating questions, and he declared four attestations of judgment (“still, still, still, still,” Mormon 9:14). He then challenged any who would oppose him (“who can stand?” “who can deny?” “who will despise?” Mormon 9:2–26), he stated almost two dozen commandments (vv. 27–31), he validated his work with attestations (vv. 31–35), and he concluded with three pleas that Jesus would nonetheless answer the prayers of the righteous saints, remember His covenant with the House of Israel, and bless them (v. 37). 

Second Farewell

Consequences of Two Kings by Brian C. Hailes

In the ensuing years, Moroni must have eventually found enough ore to create additional plates.5 At some point, he assumed that he would only add the book of Ether and therefore wrote his second farewell, including it in Ether 12. Here he was much less legalistic and much more conciliatory. Perhaps he had been sobered by the fate that befell not only the Jaredites but also his own people. Here he wanted the Gentiles and his brethren, the Lamanites, to know that he loved them (v. 38), that he had seen Jesus and learned from Him (v. 39), and that he commended Jesus unto them—that the grace of the Father and the Son may abide with them forever, as the Holy Ghost bears record (v. 40).

Final Farewell

After finishing his abridgment of the Jaredite history, Moroni returned a third time, reporting: “I had supposed not to have written more, but I have not as yet perished …. Wherefore, I write a few more things, contrary to that which I had supposed” (Moroni 1:1–4). He further explained, “I write a few more things, that perhaps they may be of worth unto my brethren, the Lamanites, in some future day, according to the will of the Lord” (v. 4).6 His submission “to the will of the Lord” is telling, suggesting that the Lord was involved—either through inspiration or direct revelation—in his decision to add his final chapters to the record.7

Moroni the Last Nephite by Minerva Teichert

At this point, Moroni included in his record the sacred words to be used in performing priesthood ordinances (Moroni 2–6), and he copied three letters from his father Mormon that are of great worth, regarding grace, gifts, faith, hope, love (Moroni 7), baptism (Moroni 8), and the atrocities for which the Nephites were obliterated (Moroni 9). 

Finally, he ended with a series of exhortations, begging people to remember, to ask, to deny not, and to come unto Christ, to be perfect in him by the grace of God (Moroni 10:32) and successful before the judgment bar of the great Jehovah (v. 34). Here, Moroni affirmed that God’s grace offers the way for all to become sanctified and no more confounded (vv. 31, 33).8

The Why

Moroni wrote his first farewell in the 400th year (see Mormon 8:6), approximately 15 years after the final battle at Cumorah (see Mormon 6:5), and his final farewell was delivered after the 420th year (see Moroni 10:1), 20 years after his first farewell.9 The lengthy gap between these conclusions is significant. For a substantial amount of time, Moroni was likely uncertain what would happen to him, and after his initial farewell, he had 20 years to think about the record and what he might add to its pages.

When readers recognize that Moroni’s three farewells were written at different stages of his life and in the context of different record-keeping projects, they can better understand the purpose and meaning of each one. In the first, he spoke with the voice of justice. In the second, he found himself moved by sympathy. As Steve Walker has observed, “Through this [second] closing scenario, stunned at the finality of it, we are staring over the shoulder of Moroni as he stares over the shoulder of the eyewitness, Ether, stupefied by the utter senselessness of this total destruction.”10

Moroni en la cueva by Jorge Cocco

In the third, Moroni turned the matter over to the will and grace of God. As Elder M. Russell Ballard has pointed out, “the Restoration is not an event, but it continues to unfold.”11 So too, with Moroni, his endings for the Book of Mormon also unfolded, as he was able to revisit and add point upon point to his concluding messages.

Moroni’s three separate farewells provide readers with three different opportunities to understand the purposes of the Book of Mormon through the eyes of Moroni, its last author and record keeper. As a solemn warning to us today, Thomas poetically described Moroni as a “holy wanderer on the border of life and death, on the boundary of meaning and meaninglessness, [who] passes a note to us regarding the collapse of our own house on the top of our own final Cumorah.”12

Remarkably, and in spite of the depravity of his own situation, Moroni was ultimately able to deliver a message of redemption, a promise that readers could be forgiven and become “holy, without spot” (Moroni 10:33). As Walker concluded, “That bottom-line hope, stunning amid the otherwise grim finalities, dramatizes the literary reach of the” entire Book of Mormon.13

Further Reading
Footnotes
Abridgment
Esther
Farewell
Padilla Gold Plates
Redaction
Book of Mormon

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