Commenting
on the wordplay in the Book of Mormon, based on the name “Sariah,” Taylor
Halverson and Brad Wilcox wrote:
Sariah, one of the few named women in the
Book of Mormon, has a Hebrew name that means “Jehovah is a prince/captain.”
What do princes or captains do? They command. They protect. They deliver. They
empower. Only two direct quotes are attributed to Sariah in the Book of Mormon.
In one, she expresses her faith in the princely powers of Jehovah—that is, the
powers to command, protect, save, and deliver. When her sons safely return from
the confronting Laban, her expression of faith plays upon the meaning of her
own name and does it in beautiful chiastic structure:
A “Now I know of a surety that the Lord [iah] hath commanded [sar] my husband to flee into the wilderness
B
yea, and I also know of a surety that the Lord
[iah]
hath
protected my sons
and
delivered them out of the hands of Laban,
and
given them power
A whereby they could accomplish the thing
which the Lord [iah] hath commanded
[sar] them”(1 Nephi 5:8, emphasis added).
Significantly, mother Sariah’s testimony
seems to have had a powerful impact on Nephi’s own testimony, evident in his
declaration, “I will go and do the things which the Lord [iah] hath commanded [sar], for I know that the Lord
[iah] giveth no commandments [sar] unto
the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may
accomplish the thing which he [Lord/iah]
commandeth [sar] them” (1 Nephi 3:7; emphasis added). (Taylor Halverson,
The Book of Mormon: Scriptural Insights
and Commentary [American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc., 2019], 13)
On the
attestation of “Sariah” as a name for a female,
my friend Neal Rappleye has an excellent discussion at: