In 2 Nephi
1:13-15, we have this record of Lehi's words to his sons just before his death:
O that ye would awake; awake from a deep
sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by
which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of men, that
they are carried away captive down to the eternal gulf of misery and woe. Awake!
and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs
ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can
return; a few more days and I go the way of all the earth. But behold, the Lord
hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled
about eternally in the arms of his love.
On pp. 4-6
of his paper, Shakespeare
and the Book of Mormon, Robert F. Smith provides the following examples in
Egyptian, Sumerian, and other Semitic literature that portrays death and the
place of the dead (OT: Sheol) as a dark, dreary place the dead (often called “travellers”)
are not able to return from:
May you not go on the
roads of the western ones [the dead];
They who go on them
[travellers] do not return. (Pyramid Text 2175ab)
There is nobody who
returns from there. (Papyrus Harris 500, vol. VI, line 8)
Behold, there is nobody
who has gone, who has returned. (Ibid., VII, 2-3)
None that have gone
have come back. (Song of Vizier Paser, line 12)
Why, pray, have you
come to the 'Land of no Return,'
On the road whose
traveler returns never,
How has your heart led
you? (Sumerian Descent of Inanna)
To the house from
which he who enters never goes forth;
To the road whose
path does not lead back. (Descent of Ishtar, obv., lines 5-6)
Rise, shake off your
dust! (Coffin Text, Spell I, 71ab)
Raise yourself, throw
off your dust . . . loosen your bonds . . . ! (Pyramid Text, 1363ac [Coffin
Text, III, 248ae])
Raise yourself, shake
off the dust of the earth which is on your flesh! (Pyramid Text, 654ad)
Throw off your dust,
loosen your bonds! (Pyramid Text, 2008ab; 2009a)
Your ties are
loosened! (Pyramid Text, 593b)
Horus comes to you,
that he may loosen your ties, that he may burst your chains! (Pyramid Text
2202)
You go away and
return, you sleep and wake up. (Pyramid Text 1975ab)
Truly, I live
(again), after having fallen asleep. (Book of the Dead, 41, III)
You who hates sleep,
who is made tired, rise! (Pyramid Text, 260b)
Landing at the land
that loves silence. (Song of Neferhotep I, line 9)
There is no coming
back. (Ibid., line 2423)
