Like King Benjamin (Mosiah 3:15),
Abinadi describes the Law of Moses as a system of “types of things to come.”
The name Moses itself, which in Egyptian denotes “[the God is] begotten” and
which acquired the Hebrew connotation “drawer” or “puller,” is loaded with
christological typology. Moses as a royal “begotten” son, “pulled” from the
waters of birth/death (cf. Exodus 2:10; Romans 6:4), would “pull” Israel from
the waters (cf. especially Moses 1:25) — i.e., “baptiz[ing] Israel” (1
Corinthians 10:2). One who baptizes, as Abinadi’s lone convert Alma the Elder
does in Mosiah 18, represents Jesus Christ himself who “pulls,” redeems, and
resurrects Israel from physical and spiritual death, and divine “rebirth” into
the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” and “newness of life” here and
hereafter. (Matthew L. Bowen, “Becoming Men and Women of Understanding: Revisiting
Wordplay on Benjamin,” in Ancient Names in the Book of Mormon: Toward a
Deeper Understanding of a Witness of Christ [Salt Lake City: Eborn Books;
Orem, Utah: Interpreter Foundation, 2023], 180-81)
