At this point, Nephi2 had served exactly ten years as chief judge, and then he gave the judgment seat to Cezoram in the sixty-second year of the reign of the judges. The laws had become corrupted, so he stepped down—just as his great-grandfather Alma had done to try to address the root problems underlying political and social troubles. Alma had served for nine years as the chief judge and, realizing that the word of God was mightier than the sword, desired to see if preaching the word would have a better effect. Nephi2 had been in the position of chief judge for ten years and was merely twenty-five years old when he gave up the position, and he choose to go on a mission, again just like his great-grandfather had done. He and his brother, Lehi, dedicated themselves to preaching the word of God for the remainder of their days, traveling around the Land of Nephi.
Would it have been hard for Nephi2 to relinquish that kind of political control and walk away from being the leader of his nation? Would he have felt as though he was abandoning ship? He handpicked his successor, a man named Cezoram. The new appointment did not go out for a vote of any kind—at least it is not mentioned in the record. We have no idea who Cezoram was, but with a name with a root word “zoram,” chances are he was a Zoramite with a prefix, “Ce-Zoram.”
In the sixty-sixth year of the reign of the judges, Cezoram was murdered. This makes one wonder if Nephi would have been murdered if he had stayed in office. However, he had strong family credentials and maybe he would have been a more difficult target. These various scenarios can be pondered several ways, leaving us to wonder if Nephi2 himself fretted over what he should do when he decided to focus his attention on the land of Nephi. This could not have been an easy decision for him.
In Helaman 5:4, the record bluntly states that Nephi2 was weary of iniquity. I do not know of any other prophet who was described as being “weary.” Yet, it is understandable that he reached a point of frustration and weariness with the situation he was up against. So, Nephi2 and his brother, Lehi, answered the call, which perhaps their father had inspired them to think about, to preach the word of God.
And, what a great brother Lehi was—he chose to go with his brother. Being the second son of Helaman2, Lehi could likely have chosen to take over the judgment seat. Undoubtedly, he was always in his older brother’s shadow. Lehi could have stepped out of that shadow and taken hold of power that could have been his. Instead, he chose to go with his brother and preach the gospel.
We encounter Nephi2 at the beginning of chapter 5. He will be the colossus of prophecy and the central figure all the way through to the end of chapter 11—seven entire chapters. Fully half of the Book of Helaman is about this man Nephi2 and what an amazing man he was! Yet, I venture to say, like Moronihah, we do not talk about Nephi2 very much. Why are these men in the Book of Helaman so obscure? Why do we not know their stories very well? We know the stories of Moroni and the stripling warriors, and we know the story of Alma and Amulek. Why aren’t we as familiar with these Helaman narratives? Are we just too tired when we get to the Book of Helaman? Are the stories not as easy to condense into short form?
Perhaps one reason these stories are less familiar to us is that the narrative of the entire Book of Mormon is suddenly transposed during this period of time. The supposed good guys (in Zarahemla) are now the bad guys, and the bad guys (the Lamanites) become the good guys. We may not be comfortable with the reversal. The Lamanites who convert are deeply converted, and Samuel the Lamanite, who is introduced at the end of the Book of Helaman, was one of those amazing converts. He may have been one of hundreds, for all we know. We will talk about that later, when we get to the Samuel narrative. The point is, there was a lot of very effective preaching now being done by Lamanites to the Nephites right in the center of the land of Zarahemla.
Bear in mind that as Nephi2 was serving as a missionary, he was not an ordinary 19-year-old missionary. He was the high priest. No doubt, he had been working in the temple every day—sacrificing and seeing that the ordinances were properly performed. Think of the strength that would have given him. In a modern-day analogy, it is similar to the prophet serving a lifetime mission, calling upon the powers of heaven to assist his efforts. The Lord will bless every missionary, but some leaders have a special calling, with special authority and with special powers. Fortunately, we have those general authorities among us today. We have people who have accepted the call to spend the rest of their days in service to the Lord, teaching and preaching the gospel—the prophet, the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, and the First Quorum of Seventy. These men serve lifetime appointments.