War Chapters - Zarahemnah's Integrity

I said I might blog about the reason Zarahemnah initially refused Captain Moroni's terms of surrender, and the good things it said about his moral character. Here are his own words on the subject.

And now it came to pass that when Zerahemnah had heard these sayings [Moroni's surrender terms] he came forth and delivered up his sword and his cimeter, and his bow into the hands of Moroni, and said unto him: Behold, here are our weapons of war; we will deliver them up unto you, but we will not suffer ourselves to take an oath unto you, which we know that we shall break, and also our children; but take our weapons of war, and suffer that we may depart into the wilderness; otherwise we will retain our swords, and we will perish or conquer.

Alma 44: 8

In essence, he attempted to haggle with Moroni over the terms of their surrender, but what I love about this is why he didn't accept Captain Moroni's terms fully. "We will not suffer ourselves to take an oath unto you, which we know that we shall break." Zarahemnah was a man of his word. Though he was talking to his enemies and it would have been SO easy to just lie to Captain Moroni, Zarahemnah was an honest man and refused to take an oath he knew he would break.

I hear that there was once a time when a man's word was his bond, when honor and reputation were paramount. Back then, if a person took an oath or made a promise, you knew you could trust it, and a handshake was as good as any contract. You don't see that kind of integrity so much anymore, yet Zarahemnah was willing to die for his.

But as the story goes, Zarahemnah did eventually take that oath and was, with the remainder of his men, allowed to return to the land of the Lamanites. And once he made that covenant, did he keep it? I believe so. The record we have is told from the perspective of the Nephites, and Zarahemnah is never mentioned in their records again. I fully believe that he kept his promise.

Now, contrast this to Amalickiah! We don't know Zarahemnah's genetic origins, but Amalickiah was an apostate Nephite. He tried to overthrow the Nephite government, and when that didn't work, he went and stirred up the Lamanites to war against the Nephites. He was made the leader of half of the Lamanite army, then tricked the other Lamanite war leader into putting him in charge of the whole army. He murdered the former war leader,  then murdered the king of the Lamanites, lied to the queen and everyone else to become king of the Lamanites, then went to war against his own people.

Amalickiah had absolutely no honor or integrity at all, while Zarahemnah kept a promise that he had made mostly because his life depended on it. Zarahemnah may have been on the wrong side of the battlefield, but I respect his integrity. He may have been an enemy, but he's a man that I can trust. I don't know if he ever converted to the church of God, but I hope he did, because when he makes the covenants of the temple, you can bet that he's going to keep them. And by the way, so should we.