1 Nephi 3

Laman and Lemuel are quite the pair. They go back to Jerusalem to get the brass plates but drag their heels the whole time. After Laman fails to reason with Laban, the brothers offer Laban all of their wealth which must have been significant, large enough that when they were forced to flee for their lives, they had to leave it behind. Laman and Lemuel are ready to go home, but Nephi says, "As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us." This oath was sacred, and in this period of history, and in the Book of Mormon, even wicked people would refuse to make an oath they knew they would break." Nephi is bringing the Lord into this oath and he is telling his brothers that if he fails, then the Lord will have failed too. I think the Lord views oaths as sacredly today as they were then. The oath and covenant of the Priesthood, the covenants we make with baptism, the temple, are all sacred and we need to respect and treat them that way.

Nephi says there are two reasons they need the plates. One is to preserve their Hebrew language even though they probably spoke Aramaic and Egyptian as much if not more than Hebrew. And the other and most important was to have the scriptures which would have encompassed a period of 4000 BC to 600 BC. It would have included the Old Testament and much more.

Laman and Lemuel are the epitome of the person with a hard heart. They simply cannot see with spiritual eyes of faith. They continue to only see failure. The appearance of the angel doesn't phase them at all because once the angel leaves, they murmur even more. To people whose hearts are hardened to the Spirit, spiritual actions do not make sense. When someone is in tune with the Spirit, they are able to see beyond the world and the norm and are able to see and know how the Lord is at work in his own way and bringing about the results he desires. I have always liked the verse in Proverbs that says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." It's true of our own individual lives. When we are in tune with the Spirit, we see with different eyes and understand with different hearts.