Where we are
Alma 26 is a psalm dropped into the middle of a history. After chapters of war and martyrdom and the grim fulfillment of Abinadi's prophecy, the narrative stops, and Ammon sings. The sons of Mosiah — Ammon, Aaron, Omner, and Himni — are near the close of the fourteen years they have spent among the Lamanites, the mission they undertook in Mosiah 28 because they could not bear that any soul should perish. They have seen the conversion of King Lamoni, of Lamoni's father the great king over all the land, of whole cities, of thousands who have buried their weapons and become the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. And the weight of what they have witnessed comes out of Ammon as a hymn.
The chapter has a clear shape. It opens with Ammon's question to his brethren — how great reason have we to rejoice — and his answer in the imagery of harvest: the field was ripe, they thrust in the sickle, the sheaves are gathered into the garners safe from the storm (vv. 1–9). Then comes the interruption: Aaron rebukes Ammon, I fear that thy joy doth carry thee away unto boasting, and Ammon answers with the doctrinal heart of the chapter — I do not boast in my own strength... but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things (vv. 10–16). From there Ammon turns to memory: he recalls the awful sinful state they were snatched from, the scorn they faced when they set out, the privations and beatings and imprisonments they endured, and the comfort the Lord gave when they were ready to turn back (vv. 17–30). He closes by surveying the fruit — a people who would rather die than kill, who have buried their weapons in love — and lands on the doctrine that God is mindful of every people, his bowels of mercy over all the earth (vv. 31–37).
The verses that carry the chapter are these. Verse 12 is the paradox the whole hymn turns on: I know that I am nothing... but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things. Verse 13 is the cornerstone line: how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of hell. Verse 16 is the doctrine of holy glorying: who can glory too much in the Lord? Verse 22 is the promise to all who repent and pray: unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God. And verse 37 is the universal close: God is mindful of every people... his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. This is the most theologically rich treatment of joy in the Book of Mormon, and the question it exists to answer is the one Aaron raises out loud: how does a person rejoice greatly in what God has done through him without the rejoicing curdling into pride? Ammon's whole answer is that the joy and the humility are not in tension. They are the same thing seen from two sides.
The harvest song (verses 1–9)
And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the land of Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings? — Alma 26:1
Ammon begins not with a claim but with a question, and the question contains a memory: could we have supposed when we started? He is measuring the distance between what they hoped for and what they received. When they left Zarahemla, the most they dared imagine was that they might save some few of their souls (he will say so in verse 26). What they got was thousands. Joy, in Ammon's mouth, begins as astonishment — the gap between the modest hope and the immense gift. He is not rejoicing because things went as planned. He is rejoicing because they went so far past the plan that no one could take credit for it.
Behold, I answer for you; for our brethren, the Lamanites, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God! And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work. — Alma 26:3
Notice how carefully Ammon assigns the agency. The Lamanites are brought to the light — passive; God brings them. And the blessing bestowed upon us is not that we did a great work but that we have been made instruments in the hands of God. The grammar is the doctrine. Ammon never once in this chapter is the subject of a saving verb. He is the instrument, the sickle in the harvester's hand. A sickle that began to congratulate itself on the size of the harvest would be absurd, and Ammon knows it. He has already, in the third verse, put himself in the only place from which great joy is safe: the place of the tool that did not wield itself.
Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labor; and behold the number of your sheaves! — Alma 26:5
The harvest imagery here is older than Ammon and will outlast him; it is the Lord's own favorite figure for the gathering of souls. But Ammon's version holds two things together that pride would pull apart. The field was ripe — God prepared it; the ripeness is not the laborers' doing. And yet — ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might... all the day long did ye labor. The labor was real and strenuous and theirs. Ammon does not pretend the work cost nothing or that they were passive. He insists they reaped with their might. Holy joy is not the denial that we worked hard. It is the recognition that the harvest was ripe before we ever lifted the sickle, so that even our hardest labor was a response to a readiness God created. The sheaves are real, and they are many, and they are not finally ours.
Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them... But behold, they are in the hands of the Lord of the harvest, and they are his; and he will raise them up at the last day. — Alma 26:6–7
The sheaves are gathered into the garner so that the storm cannot reach them. Ammon's joy is not only about the size of the harvest but about its safety. These converts are not merely many; they are kept. They are in the hands of the Lord of the harvest, and they are his. This is the doctrine of the secure soul: a person truly gathered in is gathered into a place the last-day storm cannot penetrate. Ammon rejoices because the people he loves are not only saved now but safe forever. The garner is not a metaphor for present comfort; it is the resurrection — he will raise them up at the last day.
For if we had not come up out of the land of Zarahemla, these our dearly beloved brethren, who have so dearly beloved us, would still have been racked with hatred against us, yea, and they would also have been strangers to God. — Alma 26:9
Here is the tenderest note in the opening hymn, and it is the note that justifies the joy. Ammon's gladness is not abstract. It is for specific people he now loves and who love him — our dearly beloved brethren, who have so dearly beloved us. Fourteen years ago these were the people the Nephites called bloodthirsty savages, the people Ammon's own countrymen wanted to exterminate. Now they are the people Ammon's heart breaks open for. The repetition dearly beloved... so dearly beloved is the sound of a man who cannot believe these are the same people. The missionary's joy, at its root, is relational: it is the joy of having loved enemies until they became family.
Aaron's rebuke and the doctrine of holy boasting (verses 10–16)
And it came to pass that when Ammon had said these words, his brother Aaron rebuked him, saying: Ammon, I fear that thy joy doth carry thee away unto boasting. — Alma 26:10
This is one of the most valuable interruptions in scripture, and we should be grateful Mormon kept it. Aaron is not a cynic. He is a faithful man watching his brother soar and feeling the old danger of it — that exultation is a short step from self-congratulation, that a man on fire with joy can slide into glorying in himself without noticing the line he crossed. Aaron's caution is sound doctrine; pride often wears the costume of gratitude. The chapter does not dismiss his warning. It takes it seriously enough to answer it in full. Everything Ammon says next is, in a sense, his defense before his brother — and the defense is so complete that it has become the Book of Mormon's settled teaching on the difference between holy joy and pride.
But Ammon said unto him: I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God. Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things. — Alma 26:11–12
This is the hinge of the chapter, and it resolves Aaron's fear not by dampening the joy but by locating it. Ammon does not say, you are right, I should rejoice less. He says, in effect, my joy is full, and here is why it is safe. The safety is in two clauses held together. I know that I am nothing — that is the floor. In his strength I can do all things — that is the ceiling. And the space between them is where holy joy lives. A man who only knew he was nothing would despair. A man who only knew he could do all things would be insufferable. Ammon knows both at once, and the two truths do not cancel; they combine into a joy that has no self in it to be proud. I am nothing is not self-loathing; it is accurate creature-knowledge, the same thing Moses said on the mountain (man is nothing, Moses 1:10) and Mosiah's people said in the dust (Mosiah 4:5). And it is precisely because he is nothing that he can do all things — there is no contradiction, because the doing is in his strength, not Ammon's. The boast is real and loud, and it is entirely aimed away from himself.
Behold, how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of hell; and they are brought to sing redeeming love, and this because of the power of his word which is in us, therefore have we not great reason to rejoice? — Alma 26:13
This is the verse the chapter is remembered for, and it earns its place. Ammon names the harvest in its truest terms: not converts gained or baptisms recorded but thousands loosed from the pains of hell. The verb loosed is the language of a prisoner's chains struck off — the same liberation Isaiah promised, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound (Isaiah 61:1). These thousands were bound; God loosed them; and the proof of their loosing is that they are brought to sing redeeming love — the same song Alma 5:26 made the test of conversion. Ammon's joy has finally found its full size in this verse, and notice that even at its largest it stays redirected: it is because of the power of his word which is in us — his word, not Ammon's eloquence. The in us matters; the word was in them, working through them, but it was never of them. The thousands were loosed by a power that merely passed through the missionaries on its way to the captives.
Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love. — Alma 26:15
Ammon describes the change as an exchange of one encircling for another. They were encircled about with everlasting darkness; now they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love. The image is total enclosure both times — a soul is always surrounded by something, held in by something. Conversion does not move a person from being encircled to being free; it moves them from one circle to another, from darkness that closes in to love that holds. Encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love is one of the most beautiful phrases Ammon ever spoke, and it answers the question of what salvation feels like from inside: not the absence of a boundary but the presence of an embrace.
Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel. — Alma 26:16
Here Ammon completes his answer to Aaron. Who can glory too much in the Lord? It is a real question with a real answer: no one can. There is no excess in praise of God. The sin Aaron feared is the sin of glorying too much in self, and against that sin there is no defense too strong. But glorying in the Lord has no ceiling, and to fear it is to misunderstand it. Ammon then turns the whole thing on its head: far from saying too much, he says, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel. The man Aaron worried was over-praising confesses that his praise falls infinitely short of his feeling. This is the final disproof of the charge of boasting. The boaster magnifies himself and runs out of things to say; Ammon magnifies God and runs out of language, because the subject is inexhaustible and the speaker is too small for it. His problem is not that he has said too much. It is that no amount could ever be enough.
The memory of where they were, and what it cost (verses 17–30)
Who could have supposed that our God would have been so merciful as to have snatched us from our awful, sinful, and polluted state? Behold, we went forth even in wrath, with mighty threatenings to destroy his church. — Alma 26:17–18
Ammon's joy now turns backward, and it goes first to his own sin. Before he was a missionary he was a persecutor — one of the four sons of Mosiah who, with Alma the younger, went about... seeking to destroy the church (Mosiah 27:10). He does not edit this out of his hymn. We went forth even in wrath, with mighty threatenings to destroy his church. The verb snatched is violent and exact — God did not coax them out of their wickedness; he seized them out of it, grabbed them from the edge as you would grab a child from a fire. Ammon's joy in the Lamanites' conversion is inseparable from his memory of his own. He rejoices over thousands loosed from the pains of hell because he knows what those pains are; he was bound in them himself, and snatched out. The missionary who has been forgiven much loves the lost much; Ammon's whole fourteen-year labor flows out of the wonder that he, the church-destroyer, was spared.
Oh, my soul, almost as it were, fleeth at the thought. Behold, he did not exercise his justice upon us, but in his great mercy hath brought us over that everlasting gulf of death and misery, even to the salvation of our souls. — Alma 26:20
The memory nearly overwhelms him — my soul, almost as it were, fleeth at the thought. What undoes Ammon is not the danger of the mission but the contemplation of the justice he deserved and did not receive. He stands and looks back at that everlasting gulf of death and misery he was carried over, and the looking nearly takes his breath. Real gratitude has this quality: it does not domesticate what we were saved from. Ammon will not let the gulf shrink in memory into a manageable thing. He keeps it the size it actually was, and the size of it is what makes the mercy that crossed him over almost more than he can hold.
And now behold, my brethren, what natural man is there that knoweth these things? I say unto you, there is none that knoweth these things, save it be the penitent. Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God. — Alma 26:21–22
Ammon pauses the memoir to state a principle. The things he has been saying — the gulf, the snatching, the matchless love — the natural man cannot know them. They are not available by reasoning or by listening to a clever sermon. They are given, and given on conditions: to the one who repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually. This is a quiet but radical claim about how knowledge of God works. The mysteries are not locked behind intelligence; they are locked behind repentance. A penitent unschooled Lamanite knows them; a brilliant natural man does not. And the promise widens: such a one will be given to reveal things which never have been revealed and to bring thousands of souls to repentance. The penitent is not only a knower but becomes, as Ammon has become, a means of others' salvation. The chain is open-ended — the saved become the savers of thousands more.
Now do ye remember, my brethren, that we said unto our brethren in the land of Zarahemla, we go up to the land of Nephi, to preach unto our brethren, the Lamanites, and they laughed us to scorn? — Alma 26:23
Ammon now remembers the scorn. When the sons of Mosiah announced they would go convert the Lamanites, their own people laughed us to scorn. He quotes the mockery almost verbatim in the next verse — do ye suppose that ye can bring the Lamanites to the knowledge of the truth? — a people whose hearts delight in the shedding of blood... whose ways have been the ways of a transgressor from the beginning. And the Nephites' counsel was not merely doubt but extermination: let us take up arms against them, that we destroy them. Ammon is setting up a contrast he does not even need to spell out. The Nephites looked at the Lamanites and saw people fit only to be killed. The sons of Mosiah looked at the same people and went to save them. The chapter has already shown us the fruit of the second vision — thousands loosed from hell. The scorn of verse 23 is the unbelief that the harvest of verse 13 silenced.
But behold, my beloved brethren, we came into the wilderness not with the intent to destroy our brethren, but with the intent that perhaps we might save some few of their souls. — Alma 26:26
This is the verse that should be set beside verse 13, because the two together measure the whole gift. They came hoping to save some few. God gave them thousands loosed from the pains of hell. The modesty of the hope is the key to the joy. Ammon and his brothers did not march into Lamanite country expecting a great harvest; they would have counted the mission a success if a handful believed. That is the posture the Lord can use — laborers willing to spend fourteen years for some few. The thousands came precisely to men who were not demanding thousands. The joy of the chapter is so large because the expectation was so humble; everything beyond some few is pure gift, and almost all of it was beyond some few.
Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success. — Alma 26:27
The hymn admits the low point. There was a moment — Ammon does not hide it — when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back. The men who converted thousands nearly quit. What kept them was not their own resolve but a word from the Lord, and notice what the word promised and what it did not. It did not promise relief: bear with patience thine afflictions. The afflictions would continue. It promised only success on the far side of patient endurance. The Lord's encouragement to a discouraged missionary is rarely it will get easier. It is endure it, and I will give the harvest. Ammon and his brothers stayed, and bore, and the success came — but it came after the depression and through the affliction, not instead of them.
And we have entered into their houses and taught them, and we have taught them in their streets... and we have been cast out, and mocked, and spit upon, and smote upon our cheeks; and we have been stoned, and taken and bound with strong cords, and cast into prison; and through the power and wisdom of God we have been delivered again. — Alma 26:29
Ammon catalogs the cost, and the catalog reads like a foreshadowing of the apostle Paul's own list of sufferings — cast out, mocked, spit upon, struck, stoned, bound, imprisoned. This is what bear with patience thine afflictions looked like in the lived years. The joy of this chapter is not the joy of a man to whom things came easily. It is the joy of a man who was spat on and stoned and jailed and stayed, and who now stands on the far side of fourteen such years and finds that the harvest was worth every blow. Ammon's gladness has scar tissue under it. That is why it can bear the weight of who can glory too much in the Lord? — because the man saying it has paid in his own body for the right to say it.
The fruit, and the God who is mindful of every people (verses 31–37)
For behold, they had rather sacrifice their lives than even to take the life of their enemy; and they have buried their weapons of war deep in the earth, because of their love towards their brethren. And now behold I say unto you, has there been so great love in all the land? Behold, I say unto you, Nay, there has not, even among the Nephites. — Alma 26:32–33
Ammon points to the proof of conversion, and the proof is the buried weapons of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. He measures their love by what they will not do: they had rather sacrifice their lives than even to take the life of their enemy. And then he makes a claim that should have stung his Nephite readers: there has not been so great love in all the land... even among the Nephites. The despised Lamanites, the people the Nephites wanted to exterminate, have produced a love deeper than anything in the covenant nation that scorned them. This is Ammon's quiet rebuke of his own people's pride. The harvest was richer than the harvesters' homeland. The ones written off as savages have out-loved the chosen people. Grace is not impressed by pedigree.
Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began. — Alma 26:35
Ammon's claim keeps escalating, and here it reaches its peak: there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began. In a lesser speaker this would be the boasting Aaron feared. But Ammon has spent the whole chapter making it impossible to hear it that way. The reason their reason to rejoice is so great is not that they are great but that what God did through them is great — thousands loosed from hell, a people made to out-love the Nephites, enemies turned to family. The superlative is aimed entirely at the size of God's work, not the stature of the workers. And immediately Ammon adds the disclaimer that disarms it completely: if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation. He will own the word boasting rather than dim his joy — but the thing he boasts is my God, and the joy is my salvation, not his achievement.
Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen. — Alma 26:37
The hymn ends where it had to end — not with the Lamanites or the Nephites but with the breadth of God. God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in. The whole experience has taught Ammon a doctrine larger than his own nation: the Lord is not the private God of the Nephites. He numbereth his people in every land, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. The phrase bowels of mercy is the same Hebrew tenderness Alma will use of Christ in the very next preaching cycle (Alma 7:12) — rachamim, the womb-deep compassion of God. Ammon set out to save some few of one despised people and discovered, in the saving, that the mercy he was carrying was as wide as the world. That discovery is his final joy. He does not close on the harvest count. He closes on the character of the God who owns the harvest — mindful of every people, merciful over all the earth — and gives thanks, and says Amen.
How the chapter is built
Alma 26 is a psalm, and it has the shape of the great biblical thanksgiving psalms: a call to rejoice, the recital of what God has done, a turn through memory and trouble, and a closing ascription of praise. But Mormon has done something unusual in preserving it. He has kept the interruption. Most edited hymns come down to us seamless; this one keeps Aaron's rebuke (v. 10) sitting right in the middle, and the rebuke is the structural key. Everything before it is joy stated; everything after it is joy defended. Aaron's worry — thy joy doth carry thee away unto boasting — is the question the back half of the chapter answers, and it answers it not by reducing the joy but by anchoring it so deep in God that no self is left in it to be proud.
The chapter's architecture is a long oscillation between two poles that Ammon refuses to separate: I am nothing and in his strength I can do all things. He states the paradox at the center (v. 12), and then he keeps demonstrating it. The harvest is huge (v. 13) — but it is the power of his word which is in us. The reason to rejoice is the greatest since the world began (v. 35) — but the rejoicing is in my God. He was a church-destroyer (v. 18) — and he was snatched by mercy he did not earn. Over and over the chapter sets a mountain of glory beside a confession of nothingness, and the two do not topple each other; they hold each other up. This is the chapter's permanent gift to anyone who has ever done something good and feared to be glad about it: the joy and the humility are not rivals. Rightly understood, they are the same posture — a creature delighting out loud in what the Creator did through hands that could do nothing on their own.
And the chapter ends by widening past its occasion. It began as a missionary's gladness over one people in one land. It ends as a doctrine of God: mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in, his bowels of mercy... over all the earth. Ammon went to save some few Lamanites and came home knowing something true about the whole world. That is the deepest movement of the chapter — from the harvest in front of him to the heart of the God behind it. The hymn does not finally celebrate what Ammon did. It celebrates who God turned out to be, and it leaves the reader with the same question Ammon could not stop asking: if this is what God is like, have we not great reason to rejoice?