Source:Echoes:Ch5:17:Arabian travel and wealth

Lehi's desert journey: Wealth

Lehi's desert journey: Wealth

We merely remind ourselves of the abundant riches that came to the people of southern Arabia in large part because they controlled the growing and harvesting of the world's best incense. In the dream of Lehi, this feature appears connected most directly to the people whom he saw wearing "exceedingly fine" clothing and, less directly, to the verdant, irrigated fields that supported a very large population in antiquity (see 1 Nephi 8:2,7,9–10,13). Joseph Smith could not have known about these dimensions of life in Arabia that existed about 600 BC.[1]

Notes

  1. S. Kent Brown, "New Light from Arabia on Lehi's Trail," in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon, edited by Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002), Chapter 5, references silently removed—consult original for citations.