Ammon expands the definition of the seer. The seer has two different kinds of connection to the power of the Spirit. A seer is both a revelator and a prophet. What is the difference between these two? The prophet is one who sees the future. A revelator makes understandable aspects of the Lord’s will which are hidden from others. In this particular case, Ammon and Limhi apparently assume that the revelator applies the patterns of the past that teach about the future. The will of the Lord—past, present, and future—would become known as the revelator reveals the contents of that which is hidden—in this case in an unreadable text.
We now have three terms: prophet, seer, and revelator. The seer, according to Ammon’s definition, is one who possesses the interpreters, aids not only to translation but to revealing the hidden: “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” (Mosiah 8:13).
Although Ammon concludes with a simple functional definition of the seer as the possessor of the interpreters, his description of the interpreters is more complex. They aid in “translat[ing] all records that are of ancient date,” but are so powerful that they cannot be used except by Yahweh’s direct commandment, since otherwise, one might “look for that he ought not.” Obviously this function goes beyond the translation of ancient languages. Why would a linguist’s soul be jeopardized by translating, for example, a Hittite grocery list? Clearly, the power of the interpreters is not simply in translation, but rather in revelation. One acting without the Spirit might use the interpreters to find information that he would be tempted to use unrighteously, to understand knowledge that is forbidden for good reason, and apply the lessons of the past to the exploit the future.