King Noah: The Ruinous Nature of Poor Leadership - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Eleven (Mosiah 11)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/11?lang=eng  

If there ever was a cautionary tale about how a bad example can lead a once-righteous people astray, this is it. Mosiah 11 is one of the most tragic chapters in the Book of Mormon.

The first verse leads us to wonder what might have been. It tells us that Zeniff had multiple sons, and chose to confer the kingdom upon his son Noah. We don’t get more information about why Zeniff chose Noah and not one of the other sons, or how he reached that decision. We also don’t get information about what kind of young person Noah was. Is it possible he showed Zeniff the face of an upright leader-in-training before revealing his true self as king?

In any event, verse 1 suggests it doesn’t take long after Noah became king to reveal his wickedness, as we learn that he “did not walk in the ways of his father.” Very simply, his heart’s desires are contrary to God’s commandments. This is the essence of pride, and Noah shows his pride through his lust for women and his greed for worldly things. Much worse, however, than his own sinfulness, is that he caused his people to “do that which was abominable in the sight of the Lord” (verse 2).

In addition to the bad influence Noah has upon his people, he also puts his desires for comfort and luxury well above his concern for them. He is the poster boy for carrying selfishness to the extreme as a philosophy and culture. At the heart of this evil is an abominable tax where Noah takes 20% of his people’s possessions to support his outrageous lifestyle (verse 8). We witness how this quickly overthrows the virtue it had taken a generation to implant under Zeniff, and we mourn for Zeniff’s legacy. By glutting himself on the labors of others, Noah ensures that self-reliance and industry among his people will erode and vanish.

To sustain Noah in his wickedness, he chooses new priests who flatter him and receive worldly comforts as their bribes for doing so (verses 5-7). It seems as though he attempts to show his greatness by the superficial spectacle of becoming a great builder of palaces, temples, towers, and other buildings (verses 8-13). In many ways, Noah is like Herod the Great, the man whom the Romans installed upon the throne of Judea just prior to the birth of Jesus, and who built massive structures like the temple at Jerusalem, his own Herodium, and the fortress of Masada. Both Noah and Herod are confused about what makes for a beneficial legacy to their people because of how caught up they are in material things. Mormon (our narrator) drips with sarcasm when he says that Noah built a spectacular place for the priests in the temple where “they might rest their bodies and their arms” while speaking “lying and vain words to his people” (verse 11).

Midway through the chapter, we find evidence that internal corruption among Noah and his people make them vulnerable to outside attack. It’s the classic pattern that has plagued the Lord’s covenant people at different times and in different places. Once they forget their part of the covenant, and think that they are somehow special or entitled no matter what, they ultimately lose strength and protection from external threats.

It doesn’t happen all at once. Verse 16 tells us of Lamanite raiding parties coming upon the people in their fields and among their flocks. Probing for weakness, the Lamanites are ultimately beaten off by Noah’s armies. But instead of focusing on the need to change their behavior so that they are less vulnerable the next time, Noah’s people “delight in blood” and “boast in their own strength.”

This is where the Lord tries diligently to warn them about the path they are on. Think about it. The people are breaking their covenant with the Lord, so He is not really obligated to do anything to help them. But because He loves them so much, He wants to give them every chance possible to see the error of their ways and reform them.

How does He do this? By sending a prophet. We don’t know much about Abinadi’s origins other than he was a man among them, not an outsider. From what follows, we learn that Abinadi is willing to do the Lord’s will in crying repentance despite great resistance from the people and King Noah himself. Abinadi is very specific in telling the people that unless they repent, they will be brought into bondage until they are compelled to humble themselves mightily before the Lord.

Abinadi’s boldness, like that of most other prophets, stirs the unrepentant to anger. Interestingly, verse 26 tells us that these people seek to kill Abinadi, but he is “delivered out of their hands,” bringing to mind similarly vague references in the Gospels to Jesus somehow being able to slip away from mobs who meant him harm. These references are understated, but hint at some level of heavenly assistance in eluding the unrighteous that the Lord provides his servants while he needs them to fulfill their missions on earth.

One of the most telling lines in the Book of Mormon comes in verse 27 when King Noah shows his utter bafflement at Abinadi’s efforts to get Noah and his people to repent. Instead of opening his mind to the possibility that Abinadi is trying to help the people by waking them up to their need for repentance, Noah only has room for complete indignation. “Who is Abinadi, that I and my people should be judged of him, or who is the Lord, that shall bring upon my people such great affliction?”

When Noah jumps from rejecting Abinadi to rejecting the Lord who sent him, it shows that Noah has corrupted himself so thoroughly that he has completely lost touch with the fact that all blessings flow from the Lord. Instead, he depicts the Lord as an irritant to be swatted away, an absurd way to approach the very Father of us all and author of the great plan for our salvation. Clearly, Noah has a very narrow, selfish alternative vision solely focused on his mortal senses. Unfortunately (in the short term) for him, he will find out that disregarding the Lord doesn’t work, because it’s like disregarding the warmth of the sun, the tides of the sea, gravity, or any other basic law dictating cause and effect—no matter what you think, the consequences still apply.