“Jacob, King of the Conspirators”

Ed J. Pinegar, Richard J. Allen

In the period AD 29 to AD 30, the situation among the people of the land disintegrates to the point where they no longer have a central government: “And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combination of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets” (3 Nephi 7:6). A form of interdependent tribal management spreads across the land, each separate tribe caring for its own needs and relating to other tribes according to advantage—especially the advantage of counterbalancing the vicious insurgency sponsored by the secret combinations. The man selected by the secret brotherhood to be their leader and king is Jacob, “one of the chiefest who had given his voice against the prophets who testified of Jesus” (verse 10). The strategy adopted by Jacob and his minions is to retreat to their northern strongholds until their numbers can be enhanced by dissenters from the tribal organizations in sufficient numbers to enable them to contend against the same. Eventually, Jacob and his hordes are destroyed in the cataclysmic upheavals attending the death of the Savior. Thus is this evil Jacob dispatched (see 3 Nephi 9:9), and the cancerous degradation caused by his secret brotherhood eradicated—not to recur again until generations after the visit of the resurrected Lord.

Commentaries and Insights on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2

References