The Queen Sent and Desired Ammon to Come

George Reynolds, Janne M. Sjodahl

According to the Lamanite custom, which undoubtedly was accompanied by wailing and incantation—the use of verbal charms, spoken or sung—the wife of King Lamoni, his sons and daughters, watched over the bedside for two days and two nights while in the outer chamber his servants mourned so as to satisfy the demands of their superstitious minds.

To them it seemed an unending period of time, waiting, and guarding what appeared to be the remains of their father and king. The hours were long, yet there was no change in his countenance. Some thought him dead, others that the power of the Great Spirit was upon him. Still others affirmed that an evil power possessed him. All were confused. But at the end of two days they resolved to lay him away in a sepulchre that had been prepared to bury the dead.

Despair and anguish took possession of the queen. She hovered over the bed where her monarch lay motionless. To and fro she came and went, looking for some sign that he was not dead. At last, when nearly all hope had vanished, she remembered hearing of Ammon, of his lofty reputation and of his great renown. Her servants had told her of a strange God, and that Ammon was His prophet, acting for Him and doing marvelous works in His name. She sent for him that he might come and bring help when all else had failed. Ammon did not fail. He immediately obeyed her command, and listened to her woes with all the humility of her lowest subject.

The queen told Ammon what had happened and what was still happening, that some of the king’s retainers said he was dead, and attempted to prove their assertion by further saying that he stinketh. “He ought to be placed in the sepulchre,” she told Ammon they said unto her. But the queen was not as yet ready to believe the end of her beloved husband had come. In the hot climate where the body quickly yields to the severe demands of death, we may well imagine that that course had taken its place with the king in the minds of some when with an acute sense of smell, they affirmed, “He stinketh.” But to the queen who was nearest to the king during his hour of travail, and who could easily discern it, said, “to me he doth not stink.” Go into his chamber wherein the king is abed, see him for yourself, then tell me what I should do, the queen pleaded with Ammon.

Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3

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