Where we are
Alma 21 is Mormon's flashback to the harder field. While Ammon was building his ministry in Ishmael through household conversion and royal favor, Aaron — the brother who should have been king — was getting cast out of synagogues, driven from city to city, and finally thrown into prison. The chapter is a careful editorial counterweight to the Lamoni narrative. Mormon does not want the reader to remember the Sons-of-Mosiah mission only by Ammon's success. The same mission, in the same year, was also the mission of Aaron — and Aaron's experience was Pauline in its hardship.
The chapter also contains some of the Book of Mormon's most important political-religious history. The two anti-Christ orders of the Lamanite confederation — the order of Nehor and the priestly tradition of Noah — have built themselves a city together. They have named it Jerusalem. They have built synagogues in it after the manner of the Nehors. The chapter is the canonical introduction of the Amalekites and Amulonites — two apostate sub-peoples who will be the engine of the most violent anti-gospel actions in the Sons-of-Mosiah arc, all the way through Alma 24's slaughter at Idumea.
The chapter has five movements: (1) the geography of the apostate cities and the introduction of the Amalekites and Amulonites (vv. 1–4); (2) Aaron in the Amalekite synagogue (vv. 5–10); (3) the move to Ani-Anti and then to Middoni (vv. 11–14); (4) the imprisonment of Aaron, Muloki, and Ammah (vv. 14–17); (5) Ammon and Lamoni arrive and the brethren are delivered (vv. 18–23).
Five verses carry most of the weight: v. 4 (the synagogues built after the order of the Nehors); v. 5 (the synagogue man's what is this that thou hast said? Believest thou that the Son of God shall come?); v. 9 (Aaron's I will declare unto you the scriptures); v. 13 (the catalog — they did suffer all manner of afflictions, and were persecuted by all those who were not of their faith); v. 23 (Lamoni's whatsoever thing thou desirest of me, I will grant unto thee).
The geography of the apostate cities (verses 1–4)
Now when Ammon and his brethren separated themselves in the borders of the land of the Lamanites, behold Aaron took his journey towards the land which was called by the Lamanites, Jerusalem, calling it after the land of their fathers' nativity; and it was away joining the borders of Mormon. — Alma 21:1
The first city Aaron enters is called Jerusalem. The Lamanites have named it for their fathers' nativity — for the city in the old country. The Book of Mormon's clearest text on the persistence of the Old World city-names in the New World is in this verse. The Lehite memory is in the place-names. The Lamanites have not forgotten that their ancestors came from Jerusalem; they have built a city and given it the name. The geography is also worth noting: away joining the borders of Mormon — near the waters of Mormon where Alma the Elder baptized the believers of Mosiah 18. The site of the Nephite renewal is across the border from the site of the Lamanite apostasy.
Now the Lamanites and the Amalekites and the people of Amulon had built a great city, which was called Jerusalem. — Alma 21:2
Three peoples built the city together. Lamanites by blood; Amalekites by apostasy from Nephi; Amulonites by descent from the priests of Noah. The verse is one of the canon's most compact statements of the political-religious geography of the Lamanite confederation. Mormon will keep these three groups distinct for the rest of the Sons-of-Mosiah arc — and the Amalekites and Amulonites will be the consistent villains. The Lamanites by blood will mostly convert. The Amalekites and Amulonites mostly will not.
Now the Lamanites of themselves were sufficiently hardened, but the Amalekites and the Amulonites were still harder; therefore they did cause the Lamanites that they should harden their hearts, that they should wax strong in wickedness and their abominations. — Alma 21:3
Mormon-the-editor names the dynamic plainly. The Lamanites were hardened; the Amalekites and Amulonites were harder; and the latter pushed the former further. The Book of Mormon's clearest text on the doctrine that apostate Israelites (the Amalekites had once been Nephite Christians) become more dangerous than the never-converted neighbors is in this verse. The pattern is old: those who have once tasted the gospel and rejected it carry an active opposition that the merely uninformed do not. Hebrews 6:4–6 — for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened… if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh — names the same doctrine in apostolic form. The Amalekites are the Book of Mormon's clearest pre-Hebraic illustration of it.
And it came to pass that Aaron came to the city of Jerusalem, and first began to preach to the Amalekites. And he began to preach to them in their synagogues, for they had built synagogues after the order of the Nehors; for many of the Amalekites and the Amulonites were after the order of the Nehors. — Alma 21:4
The synagogues are after the order of the Nehors. The Book of Mormon is precise about this: the Lamanite apostates have not built temples in the Lamanite tradition; they have built synagogues, and they have built them in the Nehorite order. The order of Nehor was the priestcraft Alma the Younger executed Nehor himself for in Alma 1 — the doctrine of paid clergy, the rejection of works-righteousness, the assertion that all men will be saved. The Amalekites have crossed into Lamanite territory and built up the very heresy Alma destroyed in Zarahemla. The chapter is one of the Book of Mormon's clearest texts on the doctrine that destroyed heresies migrate. They cross borders. They find new ground. The Nehor-order is alive and well in Jerusalem-of-the-Lamanites long after Nehor himself is dead.
Aaron in the synagogue (verses 5–10)
Therefore, as Aaron entered into one of their synagogues to preach unto the people, and as he was speaking unto them, behold there arose an Amalekite and began to contend with him, saying: What is that thou hast testified? Hast thou seen an angel? Why do not angels appear unto us? Behold are not this people as good as thy people? — Alma 21:5
The Amalekite's questions are exactly the questions Korihor will use in Alma 30:6–18. Why do not angels appear unto us? Behold are not this people as good as thy people? The form is the standard skeptic's form — show me the angel, and until then, what makes your testimony better than my unbelief. The Book of Mormon will record the same questions twice, once here at Jerusalem-of-the-Lamanites and once at Zarahemla. The order of Nehor speaks the same language in both places.
Thou also sayest, except we repent we shall perish. How knowest thou the thought and intent of our hearts? How knowest thou that we have cause to repent? How knowest thou that we are not a righteous people? Behold, we have built sanctuaries, and we do assemble ourselves together to worship God. We do believe that God will save all men. — Alma 21:6
The Amalekite confession is the full Nehor creed: we do believe that God will save all men. The Book of Mormon's clearest text on universal-salvation doctrine as the engine of Nehorite apostasy is in this verse. The Amalekite does not deny God; he claims God will save everyone, and therefore there is no need to repent, no need to change, no need to seek the Lord. The doctrine is comfortable. It is also, the chapter implies by what follows, the doctrine of a man who is about to throw a Nephite missionary out of his synagogue.
The list of complaints is also worth noting. We have built sanctuaries; we do assemble; we worship God. The Amalekites are religious. They have buildings, congregations, services. The Book of Mormon is careful to distinguish, in this verse, between religious practice and the gospel. The Amalekites have the practice without the substance. They are doing church without doing repentance.
Now Aaron said unto him: Believest thou that the Son of God shall come to redeem mankind from their sins? And the man said unto him: We do not believe that thou knowest any such thing. We do not believe in these foolish traditions. We do not believe that thou knowest of things to come, neither do we believe that thy fathers and also that our fathers did know concerning the things which they spake, of that which is to come. — Alma 21:7–8
Aaron's question is the question. Believest thou that the Son of God shall come to redeem mankind from their sins? The Amalekite's answer is no — and the form of the no is to dismiss the tradition of the fathers. The Lehite-Nephite tradition is foolish. The fathers did not really know what they spoke. The Book of Mormon's clearest text on the apostate's typical attack — discrediting the testimony of the fathers — is in this exchange.
Now Aaron began to open the scriptures unto them concerning the coming of Christ, and also concerning the resurrection of the dead, and that there could be no redemption for mankind save it were through the death and sufferings of Christ, and the atonement of his blood. — Alma 21:9
Aaron preaches the full gospel anyway. Three things: the coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the atonement by his blood. The verse is one of the Book of Mormon's clearest pre-Bethlehemic texts on the explicit pre-Christian articulation of Christ's death and resurrection as the means of redemption. Aaron is not allegorizing the brass plates. He is preaching the gospel as the gospel.
The phrase opened the scriptures is also the Lukan phrase Luke 24:32 will use of Christ on the Emmaus road: did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? Aaron, in the Amalekite synagogue, is doing what Christ will later do on the Emmaus road — opening the scriptures to show the things concerning Christ. The Book of Mormon's clearest pre-Lukan text on the Emmaus-pattern of scriptural exposition is in this verse.
And it came to pass that as he was thus preaching unto them, they were angry with him, and began to mock him; and they would not hear the words which he spake. Therefore, when he saw that they would not hear his words, he departed out of their synagogue, and came over to a village which was called Ani-Anti, and there he found Muloki preaching the word unto them; and also Ammah and his brethren. And they contended with many about the word. — Alma 21:10–11
The Amalekite synagogue rejects him. Aaron leaves. The Book of Mormon is unsentimental about this. The synagogue mocked Christ in Galilee; the Amalekite synagogue mocks Aaron in Jerusalem-of-the-Lamanites; the form of the rejection is the same. Aaron does what Christ will later tell the Twelve to do: he shakes the dust off his feet and goes to the next village.
The move to Ani-Anti and Middoni (verses 11–14)
And it came to pass that they would not hearken unto the words of Aaron and his brethren, but they were stiffnecked and hardhearted; and they did not call upon the Lord their God. And the people of Ani-Anti and Aaron and his brethren and also Muloki and Ammah were not in the spirit of contention; nevertheless, they had to contend much for the word's sake. — Alma 21:11–12 (paraphrastic)
The chapter records, with unsoftened plainness, that Ani-Anti also rejected the message. The four missionaries — Aaron, Muloki, Ammah, and their brethren — had to contend much for the word's sake. Jude will later use exactly the same phrase: earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). The contending was not chosen; it was required by the work. The Book of Mormon's clearest pre-Judic text on what contending for the word looks like in practice is the months of fruitless preaching in Jerusalem and Ani-Anti.
Therefore they went on to the land of Middoni; and there it came to pass that they did suffer all manner of afflictions, and were persecuted by all those who were not of their faith; therefore, they had to contend with many. — Alma 21:13
The catalog is the catalog Paul will give of his own mission: we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed (2 Cor. 4:8–9). Aaron and his brothers carry the same Pauline weight, eighty years before Paul writes the letter. All manner of afflictions… persecuted by all those who were not of their faith. The Book of Mormon insists, in this verse, that the Lamanite mission was not all the Ishmael narrative. It was also the Middoni narrative.
Yea, they had to contend much for the word's sake; and they were also cast into prison, and bound with strong cords, and kept in prison for many days, and many of them suffered other ill-treatments before they were delivered by Lamoni and Ammon. — Alma 21:14 (cluster with 21:14–17)
The prison detail is the detail Mormon is going to come back to. Aaron and Muloki and Ammah are in chains; their skins are wearing away (Alma 20:29); they are hungry and thirsty. The Lord has not delivered them by an earthquake, as he did Alma and Amulek in Ammonihah, and as he will later deliver Peter from Herod's prison (Acts 12:7) and Paul from the Philippian jail (Acts 16:26). For Aaron, the deliverance comes by a Lamanite king on horseback — the king Ammon disarmed in the chapter before. The Lord delivers his servants by many means; sometimes it is angels and earthquakes, and sometimes it is a friend who rides up to the prison door with a covenant of free passage in his pocket.
The deliverance and Lamoni's covenant (verses 18–23)
And those whom Lamoni and Ammon found in prison were Aaron and Muloki and Ammah. Now those whom Lamoni had taken to be his servants conducted them as they desired. And they delivered them and they were brought from prison; and they were exceedingly weak, having suffered much hunger, thirst, and fatigue. — Alma 21:15–16 (cluster of vv. 18–22 in modern editions)
The brothers are weak. Mormon notes it twice — in Alma 20:29 and again here. Exceedingly weak. The chapter does not want the reader to imagine that the gospel mission is glamorous. The men coming out of the prison are weak, hungry, thirsty, and tired. The Lord delivered them in his time, by means he chose, and they bore the months of waiting as they had been told they would: patiently in long-suffering and afflictions.
And it came to pass that Lamoni did say unto Ammon: I will go with thee unto the land of Middoni; and there the king of the land will confer with thee, that thou mayest depart out of the land. Behold, now it came to pass that king Lamoni did say unto Ammon: Thou shalt go in unto my father and preach unto him these glad tidings, and perhaps thou mayest bring him unto the knowledge of the truth. — Alma 21:18 (paraphrastic of vv. 18–22)
Lamoni already understands what the next step is. He knows his father has been disposed toward the gospel by Ammon's mercy on the road. He also knows that his father is now waiting for someone to come and preach to him. Lamoni names the right man: not Ammon, but Aaron. The chapter is setting up what Alma 22 will do — Aaron, the brother who has suffered all these months in prison, will be the one to preach to the great king. The chapter is one of the Book of Mormon's clearest texts on the doctrine that the harder mission is the one that prepares the missionary for the harder convert.
But Aaron and certain of his brethren went forth from city to city, and from one house of worship to another, establishing churches, and consecrating priests and teachers throughout the land among the Lamanites, to preach and to teach the word of God among them; and thus they began to have great success. — Alma 21:22
The chapter quietly notes that the work has begun to multiply. Aaron is not just going to preach to one king; he is establishing churches in city after city, consecrating priests and teachers — the same Mosian protocol Alma the Elder used at the Waters of Mormon and that Alma the Younger used at Sidom. The pattern is portable. The Lamanite mission is becoming a Lamanite church.
And king Lamoni would not suffer that Ammon should serve him, or be his servant. But he caused that there should be synagogues built in the land of Ishmael; and he caused that his people, or the people who were under his reign, should assemble themselves together. And he did rejoice over them, and he did teach them many things. And he did also declare unto them that they were a people who were under him, and that they were a free people, that they were free from the oppressions of the king, his father; for that his father had granted unto him that he might reign over the people who were in the land of Ishmael, and all the land round about; and he also declared unto them that they might have the liberty of worshiping the Lord their God according to their desires, in whatsoever place they were in, if it were in the land which was under the reign of king Lamoni. — Alma 21:21–22 (paraphrased; cf. 21:21–23)
The verse contains the Book of Mormon's clearest text on what the Lamoni-Ammon covenant produced in practice: religious liberty within the king's territory. They might have the liberty of worshiping the Lord their God according to their desires. The Book of Mormon describes, in plain language, a king who used his throne to guarantee his people's right to worship as they chose. The principle is centuries older than its modern political articulation. The chapter is one of scripture's quietest but clearest texts on the doctrine that the gospel does not require coercion to spread; it requires only the absence of coercion against it.
And it came to pass that Ammon and king Lamoni journeyed from there to the land of Ishmael, the land of his inheritance. And Aaron and Muloki and Ammah and their brethren took their journey towards the land of Nephi. — Alma 21:23 (paraphrastic of vv. 22–23)
The chapter ends with the two parties going their separate ways. Ammon and Lamoni return to Ishmael — Lamoni's kingdom, where the household is converted and the church is forming. Aaron and his brothers take their journey to the land of Nephi. Their mission is not yet finished. They will go to the great king's palace. They will preach the gospel to the man Ammon disarmed. That is Alma 22.
The chapter's architecture
Five movements. The geography of the apostate cities. The synagogue rejection at Jerusalem. The move through Ani-Anti to Middoni. The imprisonment. The deliverance and the next assignment.
The chapter is Mormon's pastoral check on any romanticized reading of the Sons-of-Mosiah mission. Ammon's narrative in Alma 17–19 is one of the great triumph-stories of the canon: a Nephite prince becomes the servant of a Lamanite king, defeats the scatterers, converts the household, the queen rises to confess Christ, the king preaches the same morning. Aaron's narrative — Alma 21 — is its quiet counterweight. The Amalekite synagogue. The mockery. The move from city to city. The prison. The chains. The weak skin. The deliverance not by angels but by a friend on horseback. Mormon refuses to let the reader remember only the half that was easier to read.
The chapter is also the canonical introduction of two of the most persistent villains in the Book of Mormon: the Amalekites and the Amulonites. They are not Lamanites by blood; they are apostates. The Amalekites were once Nephite Christians; the Amulonites are the descendants of the wicked priests of Noah. The chapter teaches a doctrine the rest of the Book of Mormon will keep illustrating: those who have once heard the gospel and rejected it are more dangerous, not less, than those who have never heard it. The Amalekites and Amulonites will be the engine of Alma 24's slaughter of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies; they will be the engine of the wars of Alma 43–48; they will be the standing problem of the Lamanite mission throughout. They are introduced here.
Finally, the chapter is the textual hinge between Ammon's narrative and Aaron's. Alma 22 will pick up Aaron's thread: he will go to the great king's palace, preach the gospel from creation to Christ in much the same shape Ammon used at Ishmael, and the king will fall as if dead. The conversion of the great king is the chapter Mormon has been driving toward across Alma 17–21. Aaron — the brother whose months in prison the reader has just learned about — will be the one to deliver it.