Hugh Nibley
“Both Shiz and Coriantumr as they moved about on their endless campaigns ’swept off the inhabitants before them, all they that would not join them’ (Ether 14:27). This is the classic Asiatic method of forced recruiting: ’If the neighbouring province to that which they invade will not aid them,’ says an eyewitness of the Tartar technique, ’they waste it, and with the inhabitants, whom they take with them, they proceed to fight against the other province. They place their captives in the front of the battle, and if they fight not courageously put them to the sword.’ In such a way the Asiatic war-lords from the beginning ’[swept] the earth before [them]’ like Shiz (Ether 14:18),…forcing all that lay in their path to become part of them. ’I counted them among my people,’ says the Assyrian conqueror of one nation after another.” (Lehi in the Desert & the World of the Jaredites, p. 203)