Helaman 5:5-7

Brant Gardner

It would not be surprising to learn that many Nephite fathers gave their sons final blessings. We have Lehi’s blessings as the first Nephi recorded them on the small plates, and we have Alma and his grandson, Helaman, also giving final blessings. It was probably a general practice, but either additional blessings were not recorded, or Mormon only chose to record those from Alma and Helaman (son of Helaman).

Helaman begins much as Alma did in the chapters dedicated to the blessings that he gave his three sons. Helaman desired “that [they] should remember to keep the commandments of God.” Doing so would invoke the positive promise of the land.

Also similar to Alma’s blessings, Helaman asks his sons to remember their ancestral fathers. Alma specifically spoke of the deliverance of the fathers from captivity, but Helaman only mentions Jerusalem. That was, however, one of the examples of deliverance Alma had used.

Helaman has another reason for bringing up the ancestral fathers, however. Lehi and his son Nephi left Jerusalem, and Helaman named his sons for those two illustrious ancestors. Therefore, he encourages them to live up to their names: “that it may be said of you, and also written, even as it has been said and written of them.”

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