Source:Nibley:CW06:Ch22:9:Lehi

Book of Mormon Names—Lehi

Book of Mormon Names—Lehi

The name of Lehi occurs only as part of a place-name in the Bible.25 And only within the last twenty years a potsherd was found at Elath, where Lehi's road from Jerusalem meets "the fountain of the Red Sea" (1 Nephi 1:9), bearing the name of a man, LHI, very clearly written on it. Since then Nelson Glueck has detected the name in many compound names found inscribed on the stones of Arabia.26 On a Lihyanite monument we find the name of one LHI-TN, son of Pagag, whose name means "Lehi hath given." The LHI name is quite common in inscriptions.27 Nfy28 and Alma29 are also attested, and Mormon may be of Hebrew, Egyptian, or Arabic origin.30 While Glueck supplies the vowels to make the name Lahai, Paul Haupt in a special study renders it Lehi, and gives it the mysterious meaning of "cheek," which has never been explained.31 There is a Bait Lahi, "House of Lahi," among the ancient place names of the Gaza country occupied by the Arabs in the time of Lehi, but the meaning of the name is lost.32[1]

Notes

  1. Hugh W. Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 3rd edition, (Vol. 6 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by John W. Welch, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), Chapter 22, references silently removed—consult original for citations.