1 Nephi 6-10

FOUR QUESTIONS

What do you notice? 

What does it mean? 

Why is it important? 

What will you do now?

THE TREE OF LIFE

“Trees in the ancient world often had this symbolic sense of importance, and the tree of life was very, very ubiquitous in the ancient world, and there are lots of ways to understand it, but a tree was symbolic of a conduit between the earth, the underworld, and the heavens. So it was often seen as something like an axis mundi; a place where all three spheres can be connected in some way.

Trees or a tree of life is often associated with temples, and we see them there all of the time. That's a really nice image of connecting heaven with earth and the underworld as well, the living on earth, the dead, and the heavens, so this connection is conduit between them. In the Hebrew temple, this tree of life is symbolized by the menorah that was in the holy place. So this is a very prominent symbol, and it's often associated with this idea of life, an eternal life, and the opportunity for people to receive that, which works really nicely here given ultimately what we see.”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn, Follow Him Podcast

TREE OF LIFE

“Note that the tree stands alone. It has no competition. The tree of good and evil has ceased to exist because the inhabitants of the city, knowing good from evil, have spurned all evil and eternally choose the good. In consequence the cherubim have been removed allowing God’s people to eat freely of the fruit. Jewish thought looked forward to the time when men would be free to partake of the wondrous tree.

John conveys the idea that the tree does not follow the normal course of budding, fruit setting, and ripening, with one harvest a year. The crops grow continually. The entire image expresses the absolute triumph over death. The very leaves of the trees hold healing properties. Where it stands, not a single blade of sorrow or pain can be found. All nations are healed, that is, made whole and complete, through the power of the tree.”

Opening the Seven Seals, Richard Draper, pg 242

 MESSIAH, A SAVIOR OF THE WORLD

“For many people in Lehi’s day as well as in Jesus’s day, the idea of such a messiah was a stumbling block on which many people faltered. This concept was the foundation stone that some builders rejected. While ancient audiences could easily accept the use of the term messiah to describe a leader or holy person in their midst, it seemed inappropriate, if not blasphemous, to think that a future anointed person would become an absolute messiah, even, as Lehi said at the end of his life, ‘the true Messiah, their Redeemer, and their God.’ Due to the persistent range of answers to the timeless question, ‘Who say men that I am?’ this bold testimony and clarification is needed no less today than it was in Lehi’s day.

Book of Mormon prophets, particularly Nephi, spoke often of Jesus as the Messiah, the one ‘full of grace and truth' through whom redemption for all of God’s children would come. The Book of Mormon thus acts as a crucial second witness next to the New Testament that Jesus is in fact the Messiah, the one God anointed with power and authority to fulfill an infinite atonement.”

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-did-nephi-clarify-that-the-messiah-was-the-savior-of-the-world