Adam Awake
A Deep Dive into Jacob 2:30 · Part 2.1

Context: Wickedness and Abominations

by Lucas Jackson · · Revised · 5 min read
Painting of a noose hanging from the branch of a large tree against a fiery sunset sky

Part 1 traced where the conventional reading of verse 30 came from. Part 2 tests it against the text of Jacob itself, starting with the simplest test there is: read everything around the verse. If you haven’t read the introduction, start there. You don’t need Part 1 to follow along, but it helps. I recommend reading Jacob chapters 1–3 before starting, and keeping your scriptures open as you go so you can do your own homework.

All the surrounding context treats this as a serious sin, or as Jacob calls it, a “grosser crime.” So either God is allowing for an exception (loophole) or we’re misunderstanding this verse. Read these statements out loud to yourself.

Chapter 1

  • began to grow hard in their hearts (Jacob 1:15)
  • indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices (Jacob 1:15)
  • desiring many wives and concubines (Jacob 1:15)

Chapter 2

For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things. (Jacob 2:30)

Chapter 3

  • those who seek your destruction (Jacob 3:1)
  • wo, wo, unto you that are not pure in heart (Jacob 3:3)
  • filthy this day before God (Jacob 3:3)
  • the land is cursed for your sakes (Jacob 3:3)
  • scourge you even unto destruction (Jacob 3:3)
  • grieved their hearts (Jacob 3:10)
  • because of your filthiness (Jacob 3:10)
  • bring your children unto destruction (Jacob 3:10)
  • their sins be heaped upon your heads at the last day (Jacob 3:10)
  • shake yourselves that ye may awake from the slumber of death (Jacob 3:11)
  • loose yourselves from the pains of hell (Jacob 3:11)
  • become angels to the devil (Jacob 3:11)
  • be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone (Jacob 3:11)
  • the second death. (Jacob 3:11)
  • fornication and lasciviousness, and every kind of sin (Jacob 3:12)

Question: Does the surrounding context sound favorable to this practice?

Perhaps we’re divorcing verse 30 from the context and misinterpreting what it’s trying to tell us. All of the surrounding context tells a much different story than our traditional interpretation leads us to believe. Misunderstanding verse 30 may have led us into condemnation and a curse upon the land. Our loophole might actually be a noose.

A Question for Elder Pratt

In Part 1.3 I asked Orson Pratt one question: would God command his people to commit whoredoms? The text answers it. Verse 27 gives the command, “there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none,” and the very next verse says, “whoredoms are an abomination before me.”1 In context, the whoredoms are the extra wives and concubines. Verse 24 doesn’t separate David’s and Solomon’s authorized wives from unauthorized ones; it says they “truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me.”2 And verse 23 describes the Nephites doing what Pratt did: they “seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.”3

Nephi already told us what the Lord commands about whoredoms: “the Lord God hath commanded… that they should not commit whoredoms… For none of these iniquities come of the Lord.”4 If the Lord calls it a whoredom, he doesn’t command it.

Read With New Eyes

When outsiders read this chapter they struggle to understand how Mormons justify polygamy with the strong denunciation in the Book of Mormon. Pastor Jeff, of the Hello Saints channel, read Jacob for the first time on camera. Notice how he recognizes it as sin and doesn’t catch the “loophole” that our brains can’t unsee. He reaches the same conclusion Nephi did. As he explains, “…within God’s holiness you’re not going to see Him, from our vantage point biblically speaking, calling something sinful and calling it wicked, calling it abominable, and suspending it and telling people they should not involve themselves in it, only to then to reinstitute something that he previously had said was sinful. If it is sinful that means it is not of God.”

The section on polygamy is from 4:30–8:46.

Play: YouTube video

Reading these phrases out loud should give us a better sense of the message Jacob is trying to deliver. Every line around verse 30 condemns the practice, and none of it sounds like an exception is coming. If verse 30 is a loophole, it’s the only kind word in two chapters of warnings. I hope you see a clearer picture of the context and feel the words Jacob used to warn not only his people, but us in the latter days.

Notes

  1. Jacob 2:27–28 ↩
  2. Jacob 2:24 ↩
  3. Jacob 2:23 ↩
  4. 2 Nephi 26:32–33 ↩

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