Ammon expands the definition of the seer. The seer is two different kinds of connection to the power of the Spirit. A seer is a revelator and a prophet. What is the difference between these two? The prophet is one who sees the future. A revelator is, by definition, one who reveals. What that one reveals is the will of the Lord by making understandable that which is hidden to others. In this particular case, Ammon and Limhi would presume that the revelator would make understandable the patterns of the past that teach the future. The will of the Lord past, present, and future, would be known through the revealing of that which is hidden – in this case in an unreadable text.
We now have three terms, which modern usage lists as prophet, seer, and revelator. The seer, as Ammon defined him, was the one who possessed the interpreters. The interpreters were the aids to not only translation, but to the revealing of the hidden. Note the way Ammon describes the seer:
Mosiah 8:13 …he has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters, and no man can look in them except he be commanded, lest he should look for that he ought not and he should perish. And whosoever is commanded to look in them, the same is called seer.
At the end of the verse is the simple definition of the seer as the possessor of the interpreters. Look, however, at what the interpreters do. Of course the seer can use them to “translate all records that are of ancient date…”, but they are so powerful that their use must be restricted. They operate only on command of God, for if they were to work all of the time, one might “look for that he ought not…” It is this statement that shows the true nature of the interpreters as the tool of the revelator. If the interpreters dealt only in ancient languages, what kind of out of control linguist might we imagine? What destruction to his soul might occur if one translated a Hittite grocery list? The power of the interpreters is not simply in translation, but rather in revelation. One without the spirit might see in them information that he would be tempted to use unrighteously. One might understand that which he should not. Through the past, one might see the future clearly enough to abuse that vision.