The next few chapters flash back to give an account of the work of Aaron and his brethren among the Lamanites at the same time Ammon was working with Lamoni. They traveled from city to city, while Ammon stayed put. Unlike Ammon, who was taken directly to teach Lamoni, Aaron and his companions fell among less noble individuals.
Around the first year of the reign of the judges in Zarahemla, they first went to a great city called Jerusalem that had been built by a coalition of the Lamanites, the Amalekites, and also the Amulonites! The Amulonites were descendants of Noah’s priests who defected to the Lamanites about forty years previously. The record points out, “Now the Lamanites of themselves were sufficiently hardened, but the Amalekites and the Amulonites were still harder” (21:3). These people had built “synagogues after the order of the Nehors” (21:4), and Aaron dared to preach there. He was taunted there by people who knew already that Aaron “had seen an angel” (21:5), when he and his brothers had been with Alma when they were stopped by the angel of the Lord. To have learned reports of this angelic appearance, these people in the city of Jerusalem must have had contacts among the followers of Nehor in Zarahemla.
The city of Jerusalem was “joining the borders of Mormon” (21:1), which geographically links this account back to the record of Alma the Elder, who had taken refuge with his people in the land of Helam, not far from this place, about halfway between the Waters of Mormon and the city of Zarahemla. It was near this place, in Helam, where Alma’s people had been oppressed by Amulon himself (Mosiah 24:8), before they could finally escape. In Mosiah 24:1, we learn that Amulon had gained “favor in the eyes of the king of the Lamanites” and had managed to get his men appointed to teach the Nephite language throughout that king’s land (Mosiah 24:4). It is no wonder that the Amulonites were thus strong in that area, and that Aaron and his brethren suffered greatly there. They were cast out from place to place until they arrived in Middoni (Alma 21:12), where they were thrown in prison and treated very badly (Alma 21:12), which is when and where Lamoni and Ammon had come and had gotten them released from prison (Alma 20:28).
One wonders, did Aaron and these missionaries walk into the city of Jerusalem and the nearby land of Middoni unwittingly? Did they know the recent history of Alma the Elder in that area? Did they know that the descendants of Amulon were there? And if so, how did they think they were going to make headway in that area? Maybe they knew that the Lamanites there had at least been taught the Nephite language. The record does not state how or why Aaron and his brethren chose the cities where they proselyted.
Aaron and his companions went into the synagogues, which were full of unfriendly people who were “after the order of the Nehor” (21:4), and they preached to them out of the scriptures. This was a different kind of experience from Ammon’s. He had his own hardships, but at least Ammon was dealing with a very noble person. King Lamoni was a believing person. He believed in the Great Spirit. He believed the words of Ammon.