Nevertheless, thou beholdest that the Gentiles who have gone forth out of captivity, and have been lifted up by the power of God above all other nations, upon the face of the land which is choice above all other lands, which is the land that the Lord God hath covenanted with thy father that his seed should have for the land of their inheritance; wherefore, thou seest that the Lord God will not suffer that the Gentiles will utterly destroy the mixture of thy seed, which are among thy brethren. (1 Nephi 13:30)
And when thou hast done this thou shalt go at the head of them down into the valley which is northward. And there will I meet thee, and I will go before thee into a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth. And there will I bless thee and thy seed, and raise up unto me of thy seed, and of the seed of thy brother, and they who shall go with thee, a great nation. And there shall be none greater than the nation which I will raise up unto me of thy seed, upon all the face of the earth. And thus I will do unto thee because this long time ye have cried unto me. (Ether 1:42-43)
And he had sworn in his wrath unto the brother of Jared, that whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them. . . . For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off. . . . Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written. (Ether 2:8, 10, 12)
Commenting on the above passages and their potential post-1830 fulfillment, Jack H. West wrote the following:
THE FIFTH CHARGE OF THE PROSECUTION WAS THAT IF THE BOOK WERE TRUE IT WOULD NOT MAKE SO MANY RIDICULOUS STATEMENTS.
Our answer·: Many statements that sounded ridiculous in 1830 have since been proven completely true. We testify to the world that every statement still remaining in this book which has not yet come to pass is prophecy, and that it will come to pass just as surely as dozens upon dozens of prophecies have already come to pass since 1830.
We have to go along with the prosecution just a little bit though on this charge. lmagine a book coming off the. press in 1830, and making a fantastic statement that in the latter-days the greatest nation upon the face of the earth would be buiIt upon this continent. A youngster on the street today wouId not think that was a fantastic or ridiculous statement, would he? He would say, "Why anyone knows, even in the fifth grade, that that statement is true." But in 1830, they were still calling the United States "that great and foolish American experiment." Europe didn't even give us the status of a nation. There was not a vestige of evidence in 1830 that there would be a nation on this continent greater than any nation upon the face of the earth in-- -"a land choice above all other lands." We find the evidence of this statement not only in l Nephi 13:30, but also in the record of the people of Jared in Ether, 1:42-43, and 2:8, 10, 12.
Let us go back about 124 years and get a quick picture. Chicago was known as little Ft. Dearborn, way out on the western frontier, with sixty-five inhabitants, most of them military men who slept with their guns within their reach for fear the savage Indians would scalp them in their sleep. We had only three miles of steam railway. We were so poor as a nation that the president and his cabinet had to borrow on their personal finances to pay the cost of government in the year of 1830. In that year, many of our people went hungry because we did not raise enough food to feed them in this land that was supposed to be a choice land above all other lands.
Now let us get the comparison today in this land of the United States, with only 1/ 20th of the landed area of the world and only 1/ 16th of the population of the world. Even after World War 1, we were producing 1 / 3 of all of the coal, doing 1/ 3 of all the manufacturing of the earth, producing 1/ 2 of all the steel of the earth, 2/ 3 of the cotton, and 4/ 5 of the corn. We had ·1 I 4 of aII the wealth of the earth, did l / 3 of all the banking, had 1/ 2 of all the rai I roads of the earth, and did 1/ 2 of all the printing in the earth. Chicago was not way out on the "western frontier" but in the eastern part of our nation. Its sixty-five inhabitants had grown to over three million. We had over 350,000 miles of steam railways instead of three. The closest nation to us was over 200 billion dollars behind us in national wealth. We have recently just finished “hitching our belts'" to feed a good part of the world with our surplus. Yet it was sixty-eight long years after this prophecy was made in the Book of Mormon before we even stepped into fourth place among the nations of the earth- -after the war with Spain; then in 1904, into second place after the Russo-Japanese agreement; and it was nearly one hundred years after the prophecy was made, after World War 1 ended in 1917, before we stepped into first place as a nation of the earth. The statement in the Book of Mormon that "the greatest nation" of the earth would be built on this land choice above all other lands sounded fantastic in 1830. Today we know it is absolutely true. (Jack H. West, Trial of the Stick of Joseph [1954], 41-42)
With respect to 1 Nephi 13:30-31, while it was fulfilled by what we now call the United States of America, this passage does not support the Heartland Model for Book of Mormon geography; in fact, it refutes it rather soundly. On this, see:
Joe V. Andersen and Ted Dee Stoddard, "The Prophecies and Promises of 1 Nephi 13:30-31 That Invalidate the Heartland Theory for New World Book of Mormon Geography" (2016)
Further Reading:
