Source: Robert F. Smith, The Ethnological Foundations of the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: Deep Forest Green Books, 2025), 3:407
The Shehekheyanu הזה לזמן וקיימנו שהחיינו … ברוך “Blessed...
who has kept us and preserved us until this time” [3029]
It is remarkable that the set prayer delivered at the Rameumptom
appears to be an early form of the very important Jewish ˁAmida prayer,
which is done “standing.” Moreover, as pointed out by Eisenman & Wise, one
finds “word-for-word correspondences” between that ˁAmida prayer and a
messianic text from Qumran cave 4, 4Q521 frag 1, column 1. [3030] This may
extend to the ˁAmida as part of the Paragraph of the King read at Israelite
covenant renewal time. [3031] Blake Ostler says that “in many ways a formal covenant
renewal ceremony better explains most of Benjamin’s speech,” while “Mosiah
3:5-4:8 seems to be nineteenth-century expansions on the atonement stressed at
covenant renewal” (1QS ii, 25-iii, 12). Ostler quotes John Eaton:
Since the festival meant close encounter with God, the need for
purification, atonement and forgiveness was readily acknowledged . . . . The
ministry of atonement carried out annually by the post-exilic high priest was
largely inherited from the king. [3032]
Hirsch Miller provides the following, unavoidable Hebrew puns:
Alma 31:13 bĕnûyâ hāyâ bîmâ mĕqôm gābōah mĕqômat ʼîš laˁămôd
31:14 ˁāmad ˁal gapēy habbîmâ
Footnotes
for the Above:
3029 The Shehekheyanu, the standard opening prayer for
festivals in the Jewish Prayerbook: "Praised art thou, Lord our God, King
of the Universe, who hast kept us and hast preserved us and enabled us to reach
this festival season"; || Mosiah 7:20 hath kept and preserved his
people even until now; cf Numbers 6:24, "The LORD bless thee, and keep
thee" (beginning of priestly Day of Atonement blessing); Psalm 41:2,
"The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be
blessed"; Nehemiah 9:6, Wisdom of Solomon 11:25; 1Q22 IV (Words of Moses);
1Q5 2:2-4; Mosiah 1:5, 2:11,20-21, Alma 44:3-4.
3030 R. Eisenman & M. Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (Penguin,
1992), 20-21.
3031 Compare Deuteronomy 17:14-20, 2 Chronicles 20:3-5, 1 Esdras
9:37-55, 1QS (Manual of Discipline) 1:16 - 2:19, and Babylonian Talmud Soṭa 7:6,8
(38a,41a), for the ˁAmida as part of the "Portion of the King"
at Covenant Renewal time; cf. J. Tvedtnes, "The Nephite Feast of
Tabernacles." In John W. Welch, ed. Tinkling Cymbals: Essays in Honor
of Hugh Nibley (Los Angeles, 1978),159-160 = Tvedtnes, “King Benjamin and
the Feast of Tabernacles,” in J. M Lundquist & S. D. Ricks, eds., By
Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley on the Occasion of
His Eightieth Birthday, 27 Mrch 1990, 2 vols. (FARMS/Deseret, 1990),
II:224-226; Book of Mormon Central, “Did the Nephites Have a ‘Holiday Season’
Like We Do Today? (Mosiah 2:4),” KnoWhy #394, Dec 28, 2017, online at https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/did-the-nephites-have-a-%E2%80%9Choliday-season%E2%80%9D-like-we-do-today
.
3032 Blake Ostler, Dialogue 20/1 (Spring 1987): 92-93 (123),
citing John H. Eaton, Festal Drama in Deutero-Isaiah (London: SPCK,
1979), 11,33, and Ezekiel 45:17; 1 Kings 8.
