“The Awful Consequences of Them”

Brant Gardner

This verse is problematic because it is so synoptic. Jacob simply tells us that he told his people "many more things." He is not clear as to when he told them these things. The verse may be read with equal plausibility as a summary of that particular speech event or as a reference to other speech events that have no other record than this verse.

Arguing for the continuation proposal, Jacob specifically mentions various sins that he discussed, and forbade them "telling them the awful consequences of them." This matches thematically with the rest of the speech, and suggests that he simply gave them "more of the same."

The second possibility is that Jacob actually concluded his sermon at the temple on that occasion with our current verse 11. This verse would then be a brief recognition that he did speak to them on other occasions, and that on other occasions he also remonstrated them, calling them to repentance.

While both are plausible, I opt for the second as the more logical choice. Jacob will not shy away from citing long texts as Zenos' allegory of the olive tree will attest. It would be rather odd for Jacob to provide the text of a sermon, and then stop short of the conclusion. Nephi appeared to have done this in 2 Nephi 32 but the suggestion there was that he saw his death approaching and gave up recording the sermon to record his departing testimony. There is no apparent reason for Jacob declining to finish his sermon. Combined with the certainty that he continued to teach his people even though other sermons are not included, this verse appears to refer to something other than the specific sermon. As a final argument the sermon is so well laid out with paralleling opposites, that tacking on other sins would seem to diminish the art of the speech.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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