“Becometh a Saint”

Alan C. Miner

McConkie and Millet make note that the word saint is tied to the Hebrew root kadosh, which means to separate, to be apart from, and to become sacred and holy (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon, p. 872). [Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. II, p. 153]

“Through the Atonement of Christ the Lord”

According to John Welch, since the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles fell at or around the same time in ancient Israel, it is possible to see influences from both of these holy days upon Benjamin's speech. . . . The hypothesis that Benjamin's speech embraces the themes of the Day of Atonement is initially suggested by the fact that Benjamin refers so often to the Atonement; he does so seven times (Mosiah 3:11,15,16,18,19; 4:6,7). The number may be purely accidental, but doing something "seven times" is saliently characteristic of rituals performed on the Day of Atonement and other purification ceremonies prescribed in the book of Leviticus. The priest's finger is dipped in the blood seven times; the blood is sprinkled seven times on the house, on the altar, and on the mercy seat (see Leviticus 4:6,17; 8:11; 14:7,16,27,51; 16:14,19). Milgrom asks, "Is it an accident that the sevenfold sprinkling is the seventh rite [in Leviticus 4:3-12] as well as in the purification of the scale-diseased person [Leviticus 14:24-25]?" Given "the frequency of the number seven" in the rituals of the law of Moses, Milgrom doubts that its occurrence is inadvertent or insignificant in the Bible. The same assumption applies in Benjamin's case. [John W. Welch, "The Temple in the Book of Mormon," in Temples of the Ancient World, pp. 352-353]

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

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