“Land of Cumorah”

Alan C. Miner

In Mormon 6:6 we find some types and shadows that might have a precedent in the Old World. Mormon says he was,

commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would destroy them) therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.

Jeremiah was the Lord's prophet who was given the responsibility to testify of the fulfillment of many prophecies concerning the destruction of a Jewish nation that had forsaken their covenants with the Lord. Apparently, during the initial sacking of Jerusalem, Jeremiah, as the prophet of the people, was given some authority over the sacred items in the temple. Glenn Scott quotes the following details from 2 Maccabees:

Now it is found in the descriptions of Jeremiah, the prophet, that he commanded them that went into captivity, to take the fire [of the Temple], as it hath been signified, and how he gave charge to them that were carried away into captivity.

And how he gave them the law that they should not forget the commandments of the Lord, and that they should not err in their minds, seeing the idols of gold and silver, and the ornaments of them. And with other such like speeches, he exhorted them that they would not remove the law from their heart.

It was also contained in the same writing, how the prophet, being warned by God, commanded that the tabernacle and the ark should accompany him, till he came forth to the mountain where Moses went up, and saw the inheritance of God.

And when Jeremiah came thither he found a hollow cave, and he carried in thither the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door.

Then some of them that followed him, came up to mark the place, but they could not find it, and when Jeremiah perceived it, he blamed them, saying: the place shall be unknown, till God gather together the congregation of the people, and receive them to mercy.

And then the Lord will show these things, and the majesty of the Lord shall appear, and there shall be a cloud as it was also showed to Moses, and he showed it when Solomon prayed that the place might be sanctified to the great God. --( II Maccabees 1:1-8)

Scott A. Glenn, Voices from the Dust, p.32]

Could the prophet Mormon be a type and shadow of Jeremiah? In addition to having him hide the tabernacle and the ark, did the Lord command Jeremiah to hide up sacred records? And if Jeremiah did have access to those records, did he compile an abridgement detailing the rise and fall of his people because of disobedience to their covenants? Consider the following commentary from The Illustrated Bible Dictionary:

The book of Kings consists of an account of the Israelite monarchy written from a theological perspective and taking the history from its high point in the united monarchy to its low point in the [destruction and] Exile. . . The book of Kings is the closing part of the narrative which begins in Genesis and focuses on the story of Israel from her origins in Egypt [from which Israel was led by Moses through the wilderness to the Promised Land] to the ending of her political independence by the Babylonians. . . . We do not know the name of the author(s) of Kings, though the group which was responsible for the work is often described as the "Deuteronomists." This description reflects the view that Kings is not merely the last part of the story begun in Genesis; it is more specifically the last part of the "Deuteronomistic history," which begins with the book of Deuteronomy. On this view, the story from Joshua to Kings, known in the Hebrew Bible as the "Former Prophets," has been written or edited as a whole to show how principles declared in Deuteronomy worked out in Israel's history from the conquest, via the period of the judges and the united monarchy, to the Exile. (emphasis added) (The Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Vol. 2, pp. 856-857)

Note: It is also an interesting coincidence that one of the theories regarding the location of Mount Sinai (Horeb) places it in the proposed location of the Valley of Lemuel (the ancient land of Midian). And that in addition to Moses, this sacred mountain could have been visited by Nephi, Jeremiah, Elijah, Paul, and others. (See the illustrations below) [See the commentary on 1 Nephi 4:2; Helaman 6:10]

Mormon 6:6 (Types and Shadows: The Hill Cumorah and Horeb ) (Illustrations): The correlation of Mount Horeb (Mount Sinai) and its hidden treasures with a Mount Lawz near the northeastern shores of the ancient land of Midian (now Saudi Arabia) is the subject of a fascinating book entitled "The Gold of Exodus." The following are illustrations from that book:

(a) The Path of the Exodus

(b) Jabal al Lawz. Using the Bible as their guide, Williams and Cornuke found the visual proof they had been searching for--Jabal al Lawz was Mount Sinai.

[Howard Blum, The Gold of Exodus, pages not numbered]

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

References