Post by Nephi –
As the streets were deserted, I was more in shock to have just killed a man than in fear of being found out. As I mentioned, the streets in the middle of the night were not a place for a citizen to be wandering. At night, doors were bolted, windows were covered and locked for safety. There was little chance of me being seen. Having just killed Laban, I removed his armor and placed it on myself, including his sword and I continued my journey toward the treasury.
It seemed to me that donning Laban’s armor was the natural thing to do to keep myself safe, but quickly I realized it was my key to the treasury. No sooner had I approached the treasury when Laban’s servant whose name I later learned was Zoram met me in the darkness. Masquerading now as Laban and imitating his gruff and impatient voice as best I could, I ordered Zoram to go with me into the treasury. I told him that I should take the plates and carry them to my elder brethren who were without the walls.
Zoram naturally thought that since Laban had been meeting with the elders of the Jews, that there was a need to consult the documents in the meeting. He assumed that I spoke about the brethren of the church. Since he didn’t want to keep these officials waiting, he hurried in, got the plates and followed after me thinking I was his master. As he hurried after me, he inquired several times about our secret meeting.
I referred to Zoram as Laban’s servant, but I need to clarify that Zoram was not just a servant. I was quickly aware that Zoram was more of an official representative than a menial slave. He was well aware of the secret goings on between Laban and the church leaders. He was serving as private secretary as well as keeper of the keys, in his own right, Zoram was an important official.
This late night behavior was not surprising at all to Zoram, the intrigue, the plotting and planning being carried on was of great interest to him. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the city was rotting from the inside out. Laban and the elders of the Jews were actively part of the rot.
As we got outside the walls, two events took place that both make me chuckle. When my brothers saw me fully arrayed in Laban’s armor, in terror they began to flee. I would have loved to chase them a bit but that was not the task at hand.
I called to them with my voice, and recognizing my voice they stopped their horrified escape. This however, sent Zoram into a cold frenzy as he got the shock of his life. In a panic he made a break for the city. There was only one thing I could do to both spare Zoram and to avoid giving alarm. I grabbed hold of the terrified Zoram in a vice-like grip long enough to swear a solemn oath in his ear. I told him that “as the Lord liveth, and as I live” I would not harm him if he would listen. Zoram immediately relaxed, and I swore another oath to him that he would be a free man if he would join our party: I promised that if he would go down into the wilderness to my father he would have place with us.
You must understand the power of an oath. As corrupt and evil was the society, among our people, an oath is the one thing that is sacred and inviolable. Seldom would the people of the desert break an oath, even if their life was in jeopardy.
Zoram recognized that the most solemn oath, one given by a person’s life is second only to an oath given by God’s life. Zoram had just received the most solomn oath possible. For that reason he immediately relaxed.
Zoram heard what we had to say and returned an oath to us that he would tarry with us from that time forth. With that we had no more worries concerning him.
Consider this for a moment. Zoram was the most trusted of secretaries, as his intimacy with the most secret affairs of state, his liberty to come and go at all hours, and his possession of the keys to the treasury and archives attest. Yet in a single hour he shifted all his allegiance from the man who trusted and leaned on him, to us, total strangers.
The oath was enough to confirm such a move, but I want to point out that he was not forced into it at all, but was talked into it. His heart was softened and he was persuaded by our words, in particular the promise “that he should be a free man like us if he would go down in the wilderness with us.” Even with all his influence and privileges, Zoram did not think of himself as a free man, and his relationship with Laban was not one of trust and affection. Zoram didn’t say so at the time, but he also realized that for a slave in a city soon to be destroyed, his future was not bright. He very well knew, the prophets were right. Zoram had seen the decaying carcass of the city from the inside.
