“Aha”

Alan C. Miner

In Alma 16:5 we find that the chief captain over the Nephite armies was named Zoram, and "he had two sons, Lehi and Aha." According to Hugh Nibley, the name "Aha" in Egyptian means warrior. It was a very common name. The first king of Egypt was called Aha. That was one of his epithets; he was Aha, the warrior. It's always written with a pair of arms, one holding a club and one holding a shield. That's the name Aha, which means "a leader in war." . . . The reader should note that in the Jaredite record we also find the name "Ahah" (Ether 1:9; 11:10). [Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 2, pp. 354-355]

Lehi and Ahah

In Alma 16:5 it says that Zoram, the chief captain over the armies of the Nephites, "had two sons, Lehi and Aha." According to John Tvedtnes, the names of Zoram's sons, Lehi and Aha, may have military significance. Lehi (also Ramath-Lehi) was the site where the great warrior Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass (Judges 15:9-17). And Aha may derive from an Egyptian term meaning "warrior," which is generally rendered "Aha" in the English transliteration of the name of the first Egyptian king. . . . Zoram and his sons may have descended from Zoram, the servant of Laban. Hugh Nibley has cited evidence that Laban was a high-ranking military officer in Jerusalem (see Lehi in the Desert, 97-99). His servant Zoram may also have been a soldier. (This is not precluded by the fact that he was a "servant" of Laban. By the time of Lehi, the Hebrew term for "servant" was most often used in reference to government officials.) [John A. Tvedtnes, "Book of Mormon Tribal Affiliation and Military Castes," in Warfare in the Book of Mormon, F.A.R.M.S., pp. 320,325]

“Zoram Had Two Sons, Lehi and Aha”

According to John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper, in recent years, ancient sites in and around Israel have yielded numerous ancient writings, many of which contain proper names. Although many of the names are known from the Bible and other ancient texts, others were unattested in ancient sources until recently. Included in the latter group are several Semitic names that appear in the Book of Mormon, one of which is the name "Aha" (Alma 16:5).

Among the finds are 43 bronze arrowheads uncovered in Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon that date from the 11th through the 8th centuries B.C. Each is inscribed with its owner's name in the old Canaanite/Hebrew script. Two arrowheads belonged to men bearing the name 'h' (Hebrew and its closes relatives were written without vowels). The name, which Israeli scholars say was vocalized 'Aha', derives from the word 'ah ("brother"). In the Book of Mormon, Aha is a son of the Nephite military leader Zoram. The name 'ah is hypocoristic, or the first element (usually the name of a deity) of a longer name. [John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper, "FARMS Update," Num. 131, in Insights: A Window on the Ancient World, December 1999, p. 2]

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

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