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Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p.
104 DAMASCUS The chief
city of Syria, mentioned four times in quotations from the book of Isaiah. Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p.
104 DAVID The king
of Israel. The name is mentioned in Nephi's quotations from Isaiah; he is also
referred to in Jacob's discourse on polygamy. Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p.
105 DAVID, LAND OF A land,
probably in the most northern part of South America, from which the Nephites,
under Mormon, were driven, A. D. 328, by the armies of the Lamanites;
they then retreated to the land of Joshua, which was on the western sea coast.
This is the only time that this land is mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p.
105 DESERET The
Jaredite name for the honey bee. Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p.
105 DESOLATION, CITY OF Though the
land of Desolation is so frequently referred to in the earlier annals of the
Nephites, nothing is said of a city of that name until the time of the great
final war between the Nephites and Lamanites, and we are left in doubt as to
whether it was built or not, until after the advent of the Redeemer. Some
suppose it was the place where Hagoth's shipyards originally stood; it
is evident it was on the sea coast, as we are told that after one important
battle the bodies of the slain were thrown into the sea. In the year A. D. 361,
the Lamanites attacked Desolation, but were repulsed and driven back to their
own lands. During the next year they made another ineffectual attack, in which
they sustained great loss. So great was the exultation of the Nephites at this
last victory that their excesses knew no bounds, and they gave way so grossly
to iniquity, that Mormon refused to lead them any longer to battle. Strong in
their own vain strength, in A. D. 363 the Nephites invaded the lands of the
Lamanites, but were disastrously repulsed and pursued, and the city of
Desolation was wrested from them; they, however, recaptured it shortly after.
In A. D. 366, the Lamanites once more became the masters of the city, but lost
it again the following year. The Nephites retained possession of this
stronghold until A. D. 375, when the Lamanites drove them out of all that
region and apparently held it until the end of the war, and the extinction of
the Nephites at Cumorah. Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p.
106 DESOLATION, LAND OF Before the
time of the Nephites this region was thickly inhabited by the Jaredites. In the
days of the latter people Bountiful formed its southern border. The two
lands apparently joined at the Isthmus of Panama. At first, like most frontier
districts, it extended indefinitely into the uninhabited regions. When other
lands were colonized its boundaries became more definitely fixed. It is
generally supposed to have embraced within its borders the region known to
moderns as Central America. Its capital was a city of the same name, probably
built in later years, as it is never mentioned but by Mormon in the account of
the long series of wars in which he took so prominent a part. Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p.
106 DESOLATION OF NEHORS The name
given by the Nephites to the spot where the sinstained city of Ammonihah
once stood. It received that name because it remained a wilderness and a
desolation for a number of years after the destruction of the city, the stench
from the rotting bodies of its former citizens making it uninhabitable. The
name of Nehors was added because those who had been slain were follows
of that false teacher. Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p.
106 - 107 DISCIPLES, THE TWELVE When the
risen Redeemer appeared to the Nephites in the land Bountiful (A. D. 34), he
chose twelve men as his disciples, to whom he gave authority to perform the
rite of baptism and administer in the other ordinances of the Gospel. On these
twelve, who are always called Disciples in the Book of Mormon, and never
Apostles, was conferred the power to judge the decendants of Lehi at the final
judgment day, as they themselves were to be judged by the Twelve Apostles
chosen by the Lord from among the Jews. The names of the twelve Nephite
disciples were: Nephi, his brother Timothy and his son Jonas, Mathoni,
Mathonihah, Kumen, Kumenonhi, Jeremiah, Shemnon, Jonas, Zedekiah and Isaiah. To
these twelve our Savior gave many instructions, which he withheld from the
multitude. On one
occasion, toward the close of His ministrations, He asked them, one by one:
What is it that you desire of me, after I am gone to the Father? Then nine of
them said, We desire, after we have lived unto the age of man, that our
ministry, wherein thou hast called us, may have an end, that we may speedily
come unto thee in thy kingdom. And he said unto them, Blessed are ye, because
ye desire this thing of me; therefore, after that ye are seventy and two years
old, ye shall come unto me in my kingdom, and with me ye shall find rest. Then he
turned to the three who had not answered, and again asked them what they would
have Him do for them. But they faltered in their reply; their wish was such a
peculiar one, that they were afraid to express it. Then He told them He knew
their thoughts, that they had desired that they might bring souls unto Him,
while the world stood. And because of the purity and disinterestedness of their
desire He promised the three Disciples that they should never taste of death,
but when He should come in His glory they should be changed in the twinkling of
an eye from mortality to immortality, and should sit down in the kingdom of the
Father, and their joy should be full. And further, that while they dwelt in the
flesh, they should not suffer pain, nor experience sorrow, save it were for the
sins of the world. Then Jesus with His finger touched the nine who were to die,
but the three who were to live He did not touch, and then He departed.
Afterwards the heavens were opened, and the three were caught up into heaven,
and a change was there wrought upon their mortal natures. But, Mormon says (III
Nephi 28:39, 40): "This
change was not equal to that which should take place at the last day; but there
was a change wrought upon them, insomuch that Satan could have no power over
them, that he could not tempt them, and they were sanctified in the flesh, that
they were holy, and that the powers of the earth could not hold them; and in
this state they were to remain until the judgment day of Christ; and at that
day they were to receive a greater change, and to be received into the kingdom
of the Father to go no more out, but to dwell with God eternally in the
heavens." They also saw unspeakable things, which they were forbidden to
utter; in fact, the power to tell these mysteries was withheld from them. The sacred
record gives no information as to who the three were who were not to taste of
death. Mormon was about to write their names, but the Lord forbade him. After the
final ascension of the Savior the twelve labored zealously in proclaiming His
word. Theirs was a most happy task, for all the people heeded their sayings;
and in a short time every soul on both continents had accepted the message they
bore. It was now their joy to lead the people upward in all the laws of the
everlasting Gospel, bringing them nearer to heaven and to God, each succeeding
day. In this glorious ministry, and with these delightful and most peaceful
surroundings, nine continued to labor until they passed away to the realms of
the blessed. The other three continued their Godlike labors, year after year,
until a change began to come over the spirit of the people. Little by little
they lost their first love; little by little, but ever at increasing rate,
iniquity grew in their midst. By and by, schismatic churches arose, dissenting
sects multiplied, infidels abounded. As the decades rolled by, the people waxed
greatly in iniquity and in impurity of life. After a time they began to
persecute the more faithful and humble, even the three Disciples were not
spared from their malignant hate. They were shut up in prison, but the prisons
were rent in twain by the power of God; they were cast into fiery furnaces, but
the flames burned them not; they were thrown into dens of wild beasts, but they
played with the savage inmates as a child does with a lamb, and received no
harm. Death had no power over them; swords would not slay them; fire would not
burn them; prisons could not hold them; chains could not bind them; the grave
could not entomb them; the earth would not conceal them, for they had passed
through a glorious change which freed them from earthly pain, suffering and
death. The age in which they ministered was a peculiar one. Under ordinary
circumstances, the superhuman powers shown by them would have brought the
wicked to repentance. But the happy age of peace and innocence that had
followed the Savior's ministry was fast passing away; the people were hardening
their hearts; they were relapsing into iniquity with their eyes open, and they
were sinning knowingly and understandingly. Angels from heaven could not have
converted them; they had given themselves up to Satan, and every manifestation
of the power of God in behalf of His servants only made them more angry, and
more determined upon the destruction of those who sounded in their ears the
unwelcome message of Divine wrath. The hurricane might demolish the dungeon;
the earthquake overthrow the walls of the prison; the earth refuse to close
when the Disciples were cast into it; these protests of nature simply caused
their hardened hearts to conjure up fresh methods of torture and devise new
means to destroy those whom they so intensely, and yet so unwarrantably hated.
But they ever failed; the three Nephites still live. Encountering thus the rage
and cruelty of the wicked they gradually withdrew; their ministrations grew
more infrequent; until at last they ceased to visit the haunts of men
altogether. Moroni states that he and his father Mormon had seen them and been
ministered to by them; and these, the last two prophets of their race, were, in
all probability, the last of that dispensation who were favored with a visit
from these three Nephites. They have also been seen by numbers of the faithful
in this dispensation. (Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p. 110) |
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