Post by Nephi –
I don’t plan on addressing Laban’s threats I just want to help you understand his rantings. Laban is typical of the well-known class of public official in this land. He is highly successful yet greatly to be pitied. Laban and the elders of the Jews are representatives and symbols of our decadent world. He epitomizes the seamy side of the world whereas my father Lehi and Jeremiah epitomize the Lord’s side.
His pompous nature has been demonstrated time and again. Because he commands a garrison, he shows off even in his “secret” nocturnal consultations with the elders of the Jews, where he wears his full ceremonial armor.
Laban is also a large and powerful man. As you have seen, he very short-tempered, crafty, and dangerous, as well as cruel, greedy, unscrupulous, weak, vainglorious, and did I mention he is not afraid to drink?
As I mentioned in earlier posts, my purpose of keeping this blog is not to outline our political structure or its corruptness, but in this post, I wish only to establish how well entrenched Laban and his kind have become in the new scheming and arrogant nobility, an aristocracy of depravity. These types of military governors are given or “they take” control of the defenses around Judah and try to appear to work closely with authorities in Jerusalem. Here in the western frontier, Laban aspires to all the power and authority he can take from the king.
These military governors take pride in having attendants and guards to prop up their egos. If he could he would take charge of the mint, all religious matters and he would control all preaching. Growing his personal treasury is of course top concern.
This type of leader including the pampering, the magnificence, the armed guards and servants, the broad and general powers, especially those connected with the treasury, the forbidding presence and frightening display of power and temper in one who is supposedly a public servant—is Laban!
In all fairness to Laban, he is a successful man by the standards of our decadent society. Laban has risen to the top in a highly competitive system in which the members of many an old aristocratic family like his own must have aimed at the office which he held and many of his kin would have used every effort to push him from the ladder that they themselves were trying to climb.
As for Laban’s garrison of fifty, you may think it pitifully small for such a great city. But four men against the fifty that make up Laban’s regular permanent garrison of Jerusalem is all my brothers are concerned about right now. However, God is mightier than Laban’s fifty here in Jerusalem or his tens of thousands in the field.
