Where we are
Ether 1 opens the Book of Mormon's strangest and oldest record — a book within the book, reaching back not to Lehi's departure from Jerusalem but to the great tower of Genesis 11, more than fifteen centuries earlier. Moroni, having finished abridging his father's account, now takes up a second task: to give an account of those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the hand of the Lord upon the face of this north country (v. 1), from the twenty and four plates which were found by the people of Limhi (v. 2) — the plates of a vanished civilization, the Jaredites, who possessed this promised land long before the Nephites and were utterly destroyed. The chapter is Moroni's framing of this older record and the beginning of its narrative. It establishes that the Book of Mormon contains two complete cycles of a people rising and falling in the same promised land under the same divine decree — the Jaredites first, the Nephites second — and that both records were preserved to teach the same lesson to whoever should next possess the land.
The chapter has two parts. First, Moroni's frame and the genealogy (vv. 1–32): he explains that he gives only a part of the account... from the tower down until they were destroyed, leaving aside the creation-and-Adam portion that is had among the Jews (vv. 3–5); and he traces the lineage backward, generation by generation, from Ether the prophet-author all the way to Jared, who came forth with his brother... from the great tower (vv. 6–33). Second, the founding moment (vv. 34–43): as the Lord confounds the language and swears to scatter the peoples, Jared turns to his brother — a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord — and asks him to cry unto the Lord that their language not be confounded; the Lord has compassion and spares them and their friends; and at Jared's urging the brother of Jared asks where they should go, and the Lord promises to lead them to a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth and to raise up of their seed a great nation (vv. 34–43).
The verses that carry the chapter are these. Verse 33 fixes the setting — Jared and his brother came forth... from the great tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people. Verse 34 introduces the great man — the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord. Verse 35 records the first answered prayer — the Lord had compassion upon Jared; therefore he did not confound the language. And verse 43 holds the founding promise — I will go before thee into a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth... because this long time ye have cried unto me. The chapter exists to open the oldest record, to establish the Jaredites as the first cycle of the promised-land drama, and to introduce, in a moment of crisis, the man whose faith will become the center of the whole book of Ether — the brother of Jared, who is known to us not by his own name but by his relationship, and who is about to become the greatest example of faith in the Book of Mormon.
Moroni opens the record (verses 1–5)
And now I, Moroni, proceed to give an account of those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the hand of the Lord upon the face of this north country. — Ether 1:1
Moroni, whom we last saw alone and finishing his father's record, now begins a new and surprising labor. Having thought he was done — I had supposed not to have written more (he will say in Moroni 1:1) — he takes up the twenty-four plates of a destroyed people and abridges them for us. The opening word names the theme that will govern the whole book: those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the hand of the Lord. This is a record of a people who were destroyed, and Moroni, who has just finished recording the destruction of his own people, now turns to a far older destruction in the same land. The parallel is the point. The Jaredites and the Nephites are two complete enactments of the same drama — a people brought to a choice land, prospered, and then destroyed when ripened in iniquity. Moroni gives us the older story precisely because he has just lived the newer one, and he wants the next possessor of the land to see that the pattern is not an accident but a decree (Ether 2:9). He gives only a part of the account... from the tower down until they were destroyed (v. 5) — the rise-and-fall, which is the lesson.
The brother of Jared, highly favored (verses 33–43)
And the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words. — Ether 1:34
Here the great figure of the book enters, and notice how he is named — or rather, not named. He is the brother of Jared, defined by his relationship, his own name preserved only by later tradition (Mahonri Moriancumer, not given in the text). Scripture introduces one of its greatest men of faith almost anonymously, identifying him by whose brother he is. There is a lesson in the namelessness: the brother of Jared's greatness is not in his name or his renown but in his faith, and the text keeps the focus there. He is a large and mighty man — physically imposing — but the phrase that matters is a man highly favored of the Lord. And the first thing we see him do is pray on behalf of others. Jared turns to him in the crisis of Babel — the languages being confounded, communication collapsing, the people scattering — and asks him to cry unto the Lord. The brother of Jared's role is established in his first appearance: he is the one who prays, the intercessor whose faith moves heaven, and the chapter will show that faith working three times in succession.
And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon Jared; therefore he did not confound the language of Jared; and Jared and his brother were not confounded. — Ether 1:35
The first prayer is answered, and the pattern of the whole book begins. The brother of Jared cries, and the Lord had compassion. This is the founding miracle of the Jaredite people: in the very moment God is confounding all the languages of the earth and scattering humanity, one family's language is spared because one man prayed. The Jaredites exist as a distinct people because of an answered prayer at Babel. And the prayer immediately widens. Jared asks his brother to pray again, that he confound not their language of our friends (v. 36) — and the Lord spares them too (v. 37). Then a third time: that the Lord reveal whither we shall go and lead them to a choice land (vv. 38–39). Each prayer reaches further — first the brothers, then the friends, then the future — and each is answered. The brother of Jared is established as a man whose faith God answers, and whose prayers are characteristically for others: for his brother's household, for his friends, for the whole company's future. This intercessory faith is the seed of everything that will culminate on the mount Shelem in chapter 3.
And there will I bless thee and thy seed... a great nation. And there shall be none greater than the nation which I will raise up unto me of thy seed, upon all the face of the earth. And thus I will do unto thee because this long time ye have cried unto me. — Ether 1:43
The chapter ends with the founding promise, and its final clause is the key to the whole book: because this long time ye have cried unto me. The Lord's great blessing — a choice land, a great nation, none greater... upon all the face of the earth — is given in response to persistent prayer. This long time ye have cried unto me. The brother of Jared and his people did not receive the promise after a single petition; they received it after a long time of crying unto the Lord. This establishes the spiritual texture of the whole Jaredite founding: it is a people born of sustained, persevering prayer. And the promise itself sets up the tragic frame of the book. The Lord promises a great nation, none greater — and yet Moroni's opening verse has already told us this nation was destroyed by the hand of the Lord. The greatest of nations became one of the most utterly destroyed, and the gap between the promise of verse 43 and the destruction of verse 1 is the space the whole book of Ether occupies. The chapter ends on a promise the reader already knows will be forfeited — and that tension is the book's sermon.
How the chapter is built
Ether 1 is built as a deliberate mirror of the whole Book of Mormon's structure, set at its deepest layer. Moroni frames the Jaredite record exactly as the larger record is framed: a people brought by the Lord to a choice land, prospered into a great nation, and destroyed when ripened in iniquity. By opening the book of Ether with those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed (v. 1), Moroni signals that the reader is about to watch the same drama he has just finished narrating about the Nephites, only older and, in the end, even more total. The chapter's architecture — destruction announced first (v. 1), then the founding told in flashback (vv. 33–43) — places the end before the beginning, so that the whole story of Jaredite faith and promise is read under the shadow of a destruction the reader already knows is coming. This is Moroni's editorial method throughout: he tells us how it ends so that we read the rise with the fall always in view.
The chapter is also built around the device of the genealogy, and the long backward list (vv. 6–32) is doing more than record names. By tracing the line backward from Ether the author to Jared the founder, Moroni connects the prophet who wrote the record to the founder who began the people, binding the whole span of Jaredite history into a single lineage. The genealogy is a chain of transmission — the record and the covenant carried down through thirty generations — and its sheer length conveys the antiquity and continuity of the people. It also quietly makes a point about how faith is preserved: through families, generation to generation, a line of fathers and sons stretching from the tower to the destruction. The same concern for the keeping of the record across generations that animated Alma's charge to Helaman (Alma 37) is built into the form of this genealogy, which is itself an act of record-keeping reaching back to the beginning of the people.
And the chapter is built to introduce its hero in action rather than by description. We learn that the brother of Jared is a large and mighty man... highly favored of the Lord (v. 34) in a single phrase, and then immediately the chapter shows us what that favor means: he prays, and God answers; he prays again for others, and God answers again; he prays for the future, and God promises. The architecture introduces the brother of Jared not through a portrait but through three answered prayers in quick succession, establishing before any other thing that this is a man whose defining act is intercession and whose defining trait is a faith God responds to. Everything that will happen on the mount Shelem in chapter 3 — the unveiling of Christ to the man of greatest faith — is set up here, in the founding crisis, where we first watch the brother of Jared cry unto the Lord and the Lord have compassion. The chapter ends with the founding promise tied to persistent prayer (this long time ye have cried unto me), so that the reader understands from the start: this is a book about what faith and prayer can obtain, told through the man who obtained the most.