Where we are
Alma 29 is seventeen verses long, and it is almost entirely interior. There is no narrative here — no battle, no journey, no convert named. It is a man alone with a longing, watching that longing get too big, and bringing it back under the discipline of God's will. After the great public events of the preceding chapters — Korihor will come in the very next chapter, but in the book's order Alma has just been reflecting on the harvest of the sons of Mosiah's mission — the record stops and lets us hear Alma think. What we get is one of the two great psalms of the Book of Alma. Ammon sang his in chapter 26; this is Alma's, and the two belong side by side. Ammon's hymn is about joy that fears it has become boasting. Alma's is about desire that fears it has become rebellion. Both men are wrestling with the same problem from opposite sides: how does a soul on fire for God keep the fire holy?
The chapter has a simple shape, and it turns on a single hinge. It opens with the wish, stated as large as language can make it — O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people (vv. 1–2). Then comes the correction, immediate and surprising: But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me (v. 3). From there Alma reasons his way through why the wish was wrong — God grants to men according to their desires, decrees to them according to their wills, and sends to every nation its own teachers in its own tongue, so that wishing to override all of that is to quarrel with a just and wise God (vv. 4–8). And then, the wish surrendered, Alma finds where his joy actually lives: not in being an angel to all the earth but in being an instrument to bring some soul to repentance, and in watching his brethren reap their own harvest, a joy so great it nearly separates his soul from his body (vv. 9–17).
A few verses carry the chapter. Verse 3 is the hinge — I do sin in my wish. Verse 4 is the doctrine the whole correction rests on — God granteth unto men according to their desire, and decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills. Verse 6 is the resolution stated as a question — why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called? Verse 9 is where the redirected joy lands — this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy. And verse 16 is the emotional peak — the joy at his brethren's success carries Alma even to the separation of it from the body, as it were. The chapter exists to teach something most zealous disciples never quite learn: that the desire to save everyone, noble as it sounds, can become a refusal to trust the God who has arranged things so that no one of us has to.
The wish that would shake the earth (verses 1–2)
O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people! — Alma 29:1
This is one of the most quoted verses in the Book of Mormon, and it is almost always quoted as if it were the lesson. It is not the lesson; it is the thing the chapter is about to correct. But before the correction comes, we should feel how good the wish is. Alma has spent his life crying repentance, and he has seen what repentance does to a soul — he was himself harrowed up by the memory of his sins and then carried into joy so exquisite it matched the pain (Alma 36). He knows firsthand what is at stake for every person who has not yet turned to God. And so the wish pours out of him at full volume: not to reach a city, not even a nation, but every people — to have the trump of God, a voice to shake the earth. The imagery is the imagery of the resurrection morning, the angel's trump that wakes the dead. Alma wants to do for the living what that trump will do for the dead — to sound a blast so total that no soul anywhere could sleep through the call to repent.
Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth. — Alma 29:2
Notice what the wish is finally for. Not for Alma's renown, not for the satisfaction of having preached to all the world, but that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth. This is the wish of a man who cannot bear the thought of anyone being lost. Every unrepentant soul is, to Alma, a future grief — his own and theirs — and he wants to reach all of them at once so that none of that grief ever has to happen. It is the most generous wish a heart can hold. And it is precisely because the wish is so good that the next verse is so startling. Alma is not about to repent of selfishness or pride. He is about to repent of wanting to save everyone. The chapter's whole difficulty is right here: how can a desire this beautiful be a sin?
I do sin in my wish (verses 3–8)
But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me. — Alma 29:3
The turn is sudden and severe, and Alma does not soften it. I am a man — that is the first thing wrong with the wish. To be an angel with a voice to shake the earth is not Alma's station; he is a man, with a man's calling and a man's allotment, and to wish himself out of his humanity is to wish himself out of the place God put him. And do sin in my wish. The word sin is jarring against a desire so noble, and it is meant to be. Alma has caught something subtle in his own heart and named it honestly. The wish, however generous on its surface, contained a refusal — a refusal to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted. The Hebrew behind the idea of an allotted portion is the language of inheritance, the lot cast to give each tribe its piece of the land. Alma's allotment is his portion in the Lord's work, measured out to him and no larger. To want the whole earth's harvest for himself is, underneath the generosity, to despise the size of the portion God assigned.
I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction. — Alma 29:4
Here is the doctrine that makes sense of the correction, and it is one of the most important things the Book of Mormon says about agency. God granteth unto men according to their desire. The thing Alma wished to override — every soul's freedom to refuse — turns out to be the very thing God most carefully protects. A just God has set a firm decree: he gives to people what they actually want, whether it be unto death or unto life, and these decrees are unalterable, according to their wills. To wish for a trump loud enough that no one could refuse is to wish God would stop honoring the wills he has sworn to honor. It would not, in the end, be mercy; it would be coercion dressed as mercy. Alma sees that his beautiful wish, fully granted, would unmake the moral universe — it would save people against their desire, and a salvation forced past the will is not salvation at all. The word harrow is exact and self-aware: Alma's own sins were harrowed up in his memory (Alma 36:17), torn up like soil under the plow, and he will not now turn that same violence against the firm decree of God's justice.
Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience. — Alma 29:5
Alma deepens the doctrine. The condition of moral agency is that good and evil have come before all men — both are set in front of every accountable soul, and the soul chooses. And the one who knows the difference receives according to his desires. This is the answer to why Alma's wish was wrong: God's whole arrangement runs on desire. He does not override what people want; he ratifies it. Joy or remorse of conscience — the very fruit Alma wanted to spare the world is the fruit people choose for themselves. To wish it away is to wish away the freedom that makes the joy worth anything. Alma is learning, in real time, to trust the design. The same God who grants the penitent their salvation grants the hardened their destruction, and both grants are mercy, because both honor the soul's own choice.
Now, seeing that I know these things, why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called? Why should I desire that I were an angel, that I could speak unto all the ends of the earth? — Alma 29:6–7
The correction completes itself in two questions, and the questions are gentle now, almost relieved. Why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called? The fever has broken. Alma has reasoned his way from the trump of God back to the calling in front of him, and he finds it is enough. There is a deep rest in these verses — the rest of a man who has stopped trying to be more than he was made to be. The wish to speak unto all the ends of the earth is set down, not because the ends of the earth do not matter, but because they are not Alma's to carry. He has a work. It is the right size. And asking for a bigger one was, he now sees, a failure to trust the One who measured it.
For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true. — Alma 29:8
And here is the consolation that makes the surrender bearable. Alma does not have to be the angel to all the earth, because the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word. The earth is not waiting on Alma. God has his teachers everywhere, each speaking in the language of the people he was sent to, each given all that he seeth fit that they should have. This is a remarkably generous theology of how God works among the nations — not one prophet shouting at the whole world, but countless laborers, each in his own field, each in his own tongue, all of it in wisdom. Alma's wish would have made him a bottleneck; God's actual arrangement is a thousand streams. The verse quietly rebukes every form of spiritual imperialism: the Lord is already at work in every nation, in its own language, and the disciple's job is to tend his portion and trust the Husbandman with the rest of the field.
Where the joy actually lives (verses 9–17)
I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy. — Alma 29:9
With the wish surrendered, Alma discovers what his joy was really made of, and the discovery is the heart of the chapter. He does not glory in the trump of God or the voice of thunder he wished for; he glories in that which the Lord hath commanded me — the actual, assigned, ordinary work. And watch the scale collapse from the grand to the precious: from every soul and all the ends of the earth down to some soul. The wish wanted everyone; the joy is content with one. That perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance — the word perhaps is the mark of a healed heart. Alma is no longer demanding the whole harvest; he is hoping, humbly, to be of use for even one. And he calls this — being a tool in God's hand for a single soul — my glory and my joy. The same word glory that pride uses, Alma has scrubbed clean: I do not glory of myself. This is the identical resolution Ammon reached in Alma 26:11–12, the boast aimed entirely away from self. The two psalms arrive at the same place from different roads.
And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me. — Alma 29:10
Now we learn why the conversion of others moves Alma so deeply: it makes him remember his own. Then do I remember what the Lord has done for me. Alma cannot watch a soul turn to God without being thrown back to the night his own soul turned — the three days of darkness, the angel, the merciful arm... extended towards me. His joy in others' repentance is gratitude for his own, multiplied. Every penitent he sees is a mirror of the church-destroyer he once was and the mercy that caught him. This is the secret engine of all real missionary joy: the one who has been forgiven much cannot help but rejoice when another is forgiven, because he is watching his own rescue happen again in someone else. The memory of grace received is what makes the sight of grace given unbearable in the best way.
Yea, and I also remember the captivity of my fathers; for I surely do know that the Lord did deliver them out of bondage, and by this did establish his church; yea, the Lord God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did deliver them out of bondage. — Alma 29:11–12
Alma's memory widens from his own deliverance to his people's. He remembers the captivity of my fathers — the bondage in the land of Helam, Alma the Elder's people under Amulon, delivered by the God who made their burdens light (Mosiah 24); and behind that, the deeper memory all the Nephites carried, the deliverance from Egypt by the God of Abraham... Isaac... and... Jacob. The same God did both. Alma is doing what the whole law of Moses trained Israel to do: to read every present mercy through the founding mercy of the Exodus, to know the God who is saving you now by the God who saved your fathers then. His joy in conversions is anchored in a long memory of a delivering God — the same arm reaching out across centuries, out of Egypt, out of Helam, out of Alma's own darkness, and now into the hearts of the penitent he watches turn.
But I do not joy in my own success alone, but my joy is more full because of the success of my brethren, who have been up to the land of Nephi. — Alma 29:14
This is the verse that finally heals the wish completely. The wish of verse 1 was, for all its generosity, a wish about Alma — that I were an angel, that I could reach everyone. Here Alma's joy has moved entirely outside himself: my joy is more full because of the success of my brethren. He is gladder about what the sons of Mosiah accomplished in the land of Nephi than about anything he did. This is the opposite of the bottleneck the wish would have made him. A man who wanted to be the one voice to all the earth could not have written this sentence; he would have envied the harvest of others. Alma rejoices in it, and rejoices more in it than in his own. The cure for the wish to do everything is the joy of watching someone else do their part — and meaning it.
Now, when I think of the success of these my brethren my soul is carried away, even to the separation of it from the body, as it were, so great is my joy. — Alma 29:16
The chapter reaches its emotional summit, and it is a strange and wonderful image. The joy of his brethren's success nearly tears Alma's soul loose from his body — the separation of it from the body, as it were. This is the language of death and of vision both; it is what overwhelming glory does to a mortal frame, the same near-translation Ammon felt when he was overcome (Alma 27:17). Alma began the chapter wishing for a voice that would shake the earth; he ends it with a joy that shakes him, that almost shakes his spirit out of its tabernacle. The energy that wanted to go outward to all the world has turned into a joy so intense it goes upward instead, nearly carrying him out of the body. And the joy is not for his own harvest. It is for theirs. The man who feared his desire had become a sin has found the desire's true and holy form: not to be the angel to everyone, but to be undone with gladness at the salvation God works through other hands.
And now may God grant unto these, my brethren, that they may sit down in the kingdom of God; yea, and also all those who are the fruit of their labors that they may go no more out, but that they may praise him forever. — Alma 29:17
The psalm closes as a blessing and a prayer, and the wish has been completely transformed. Alma is still wishing — but now he wishes that his brethren may sit down in the kingdom of God, and that all those who are the fruit of their labors may go no more out. The phrase go no more out is the language of the secured soul, the sheaf gathered into the garner where the storm cannot reach it (Alma 26:6); it echoes the promise to him that overcometh, that he shall go no more out of the temple of God (Rev. 3:12). The man who wanted to cry repentance to every soul on earth has learned to entrust those souls to God and to pray, instead, for the permanence of the harvest others gathered. That it may be done according to my words, even as I have spoken. Amen. The wish that began as a quarrel with God's decree ends as a prayer folded perfectly into God's will — the same desire, finally holy, because it has stopped demanding and started blessing.
How the chapter is built
Alma 29 is built on a single sharp reversal, and everything in the chapter is positioned around it. The first two verses go up — they climb to the most extravagant wish in the book, the trump of God, the voice to shake the earth, every soul, all the ends of the earth. Verse 3 turns the whole thing over with five words: I do sin in my wish. And then the rest of the chapter comes back down, slowly and deliberately, from the cosmic to the assigned, from every people to some soul, from being an angel to being a man content with his portion. The architecture is a descent, and the descent is the doctrine. The chapter is teaching that the movement from grandiose holy ambition to contented holy labor is not a loss but a healing — that the lower, smaller, assigned thing is the higher thing, because it is the thing God actually gave.
The chapter is also, structurally, the deliberate companion to Alma 26, and the two were almost certainly meant to be read together. Ammon's hymn and Alma's psalm sit only three chapters apart, both in the same band of years, both meditating on the joy of the missionary harvest, both wrestling a great emotion back into humility. Ammon's danger was that his joy would become boasting; Alma's danger was that his desire would become rebellion. And both men solve their problem with the identical move: they aim the energy entirely away from self and onto God and onto others. Ammon glories in my God; Alma glories in that which the Lord hath commanded and in the success of my brethren. Read alone, Alma 29 is a beautiful corrective on contentment. Read beside Alma 26, it is half of a matched pair — two of the Lord's most effective servants showing, from two angles, what a sanctified ambition looks like.
And the chapter quietly resolves its own opening image. Alma wished to be an angel — a mal'akh, a messenger sent from God. By the end he has not become an angel; he has become content to be a man. But the irony the Hebrew carries is that a man sent with God's message already is a mal'akh, a messenger, only in mortal form. Alma did not need a different nature; he needed to see that the nature he had was already the thing he longed for, allotted to him by a just God. The chapter ends with him blessing others and folding his wish into God's will — and that final posture, the assigned man content with his portion and overflowing with joy at his brethren's harvest, is the truest picture of the holy desire the chapter set out to test. The wish to shake the earth was not killed. It was converted.