“It Grieveth My Soul”

Alan C. Miner

According to John Tanner, Jacob's style sets him apart from Nephi. Jacob simply sounds different: he employs a more intimate lexicon and assumes a more diffident posture toward his audience. Nephi "delights," even "glories" in plainness (2 Nephi 31:3; 33:6); he frankly rebukes and frankly forgives his brothers (see 1 Nephi 7:21). Jacob, by contrast, is pained to use "much boldness of speech" in addressing his brethren, especially in the presence of women and children "whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate before God" (Jacob 2:7). He prefaces his temple discourse by admitting that he feels "weighed down with much . . . anxiety for the welfare of your souls, Yea, it grieveth my soul . . ." (Jacob 2:3). This is vintage Jacob: intimate, vivid, vulnerable. A concordance verifies that words about feelings, like "anxiety," "grieve," "tender," occur with disproportionate frequency in his writings (Conkling 3-4). For example, half the [Book of Mormon's] citations of "anxiety" occur in the book of Jacob, and over two-thirds of the references to "grieve," "tender," and "shame" (or their derivatives) appear in Jacob's writings. He is the only person to use "delicate," "contempt," and "lonesome." Likewise, only Jacob uses "wound" to refer to emotional, not physical, injuries, as in the rest of the Book of Mormon. Similarly, he uses "pierce" or its variants frequently (four of the ten instances) and exclusively in a spiritual sense. Such lexical evidence suggests an author who lives close to his emotions. [John S. Tanner, "Literary Reflections on Jacob and His Descendants," in The Book of Mormon: Jacob through Words of Mormon, To Learn with Joy, pp. 259-260]

Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon: A Cultural Commentary

References