Redaction: A seldom-asked question about the book of Ether is Moroni’s rules for including or omitting material. In verses 3–4, Moroni announced that he is not giving us the entire story. He leaves out accounts of creation and Adam, but he recounts in detail the story of Jared and his brother and their group’s migration—not, I would argue, because it is the next narrative in Ether’s record or because the brother of Jared’s powerful faith is appealing, but because it directly parallels the Nephites’ origin story. Both Mosiah2 and Moroni would have been impressed with the similarities. Both stories begin in important cities in crisis in the Old World, and both groups are divinely led to the New World as their “promised land.” I hypothesize that either Mosiah in his translation emphasized these parallels and/or Moroni’s retelling did.
This verse is a good example of specific parallels. First, Jared fears the possibilities that Yahweh “will drive us out of the land.” Jared may have seen the danger that more than their language might be confounded if they remained. Nothing in either this account or its biblical counterpart suggests that they would be “driven” out. However, the Nephites (Lehites) were definitely forced out of Jerusalem, so I hypothesize that this detail was read into the Jaredites’ story by Mosiah and/or Moroni. It is a literary parallel rather than a historical one.
Jared hopefully suggests to his brother that Yahweh might see that they reach “a land which is choice above all the earth.” Naturally, once Jared contemplated the possibility of departure, his next speculation would be a possible destination, and certainly he would have wanted a desirable one. However, this detail is again so directly parallel to the Nephite foundational stories that Mosiah and/or Moroni may have heightened the similarities.
Jared adds another detail—this time initiating the offer of a covenant with Yahweh, still about this hypothesized promised land: “Let us be faithful unto the Lord, that we may receive it for our inheritance.” This parallel is not only to the Nephite story but to Abraham’s. Yahweh covenanted with Israel that they would have a promised land. Both the Nephite and the Jaredite record emphasize their continuation as part of Yahweh’s promised land covenant, even when different lands were involved.