According to 3 Nephi 4, in the twenty-first year of the new calendrical system inaugurated by the sign of Christ’s birth, 113 years after the institution of the reign of the judges, the Nephites found themselves once again embroiled in conflict with the Gadianton robbers. This latest iteration had ripped the countryside apart, particularly during the last five years as the robbers created their own quasi-nation. Attempting a siege against the Nephites, the band of robbers eventually had to withdraw, at which point Gidgiddoni, the Nephite chief captain, using a tactic that earlier generations of Nephite generals employed, had some of his military run ahead of the Gadianton retreat during the night, so that by morning the Nephite armies were both before and behind the Gadianton forces. The result was the end of the conflict, with “many thousands” (v. 27) surrendering, while the leader, Zemnarihah, was taken alive. At some point following his capture, Zemnarihah was executed via hanging: “And their leader, Zemnarihah, was taken and hanged upon a tree, yea, even upon the top thereof until he was dead” (v. 28). This was the first event in a ritual process that included cutting down the tree following Zemnarihah’s death, delivering a series of public declarations, and concluding with what appears to have been a communal Hosanna cry.

While Zemnarihah’s execution is not the only public execution recorded in the Book of Mormon, it is singular in that it is the only one that explicitly entailed hanging the convicted. Moreover, the ritual process that followed the initial act of hanging remains unique. The unprecedented nature of the entire sequence means that it is difficult to understand whether it reflected common execution practice or was a specific response to the devastating effects of war with the Gadianton robbers. With that said, elements within the ritual process suggest that it fit within the Nephite conception of cosmic struggle, with the purpose of the ritual sequence being to renew or reintegrate the Nephite military back into the greater Nephite polity as well as to provide the means for the larger population to begin healing from the trauma that had frayed apart the Nephite social fabric.

Hanging and Old Testament Antecedents

The first element of the sequence is the hanging of the Gadianton leader, Zemnarihah. Though hanging is not found elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, as with many other cultural aspects in the text, it is possible that the Bible may give insight into this practice. In fact, the Old Testament does contain legal instruction concerning hanging as prescribed in the law of Moses. Recorded in Deuteronomy 21:22–23, suspension from a tree was one of the ways that one who “committed a sin worthy of death” could be displayed:

And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

The Hebrew verb translated as “hang” and “hanged,” talah, appears twenty-eight times in the Hebrew Bible (its final consonant variant, talaʾ, appearing in another three references) and carries with it the sense of suspending an item.[1] Of those twenty-eight, fifteen are associated directly with an execution scene, meaning that the individual was formally hanged by those in authority, while two others reflect a death by hanging, but not an execution. Of the references remaining, six are used to describe the hanging of items from a wall. In Psalm 137:2, harps are hung from the wall, while Song of Songs 4:4 describes one thousand shields hung in David’s armory. Similarly, in Ezekiel 27:10–11 the shields and helmets of foreign nations are described as adorning the walls of their towers via hanging. Ezekiel 15:3, while not describing the hanging of armor, does suggest that hanging consisted of draping something over a peg: “Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? Or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon?” If the imagery accurately reflects hanging, then at least one understanding was that hanging could consist of the draping or the looping of an item over a hook or a peg. Isaiah 22:23–25 may further elucidate this understanding. Beginning in verse 20, a prophecy is given concerning Eliakim. After pronouncing that he would be chosen to lead Judah, the Lord declares that he would “fasten” Eliakim like “a nail in a sure place.” Like a nail driven into a wall that can be used to hang something, so too would Judah “hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, . . . all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall.” Thus, in this passage we have both the act of driving the nail in the first place and then the act of suspension from that nail or hook, constituting hanging.

As for the execution usages, the first three are in Genesis 40 and 41, which recount the interaction of the patriarch Joseph and the Egyptian baker and the baker’s subsequent fate. According to the text, while Joseph was in prison he interpreted the dreams of both the chief baker and the personal attendant of the pharaoh. Joseph’s interpretation of the chief baker’s dream was that the baker would be beheaded, with the body then hung on a tree, the birds pecking at the flesh of the corpse (see 40:19). Like the Deuteronomic injunction, the act of talah takes place ʿal ʿeṭ, or “on the tree.” Though often translated as “tree,” the Hebrew term ʿeṭ may also refer to a wooden pole, thus it is unclear whether this talah in enacted on a living tree or on a handmade wooden pole. In any case, this hanging of the baker was not the cause of death, but a visible display of the corpse, and thus was performed with the intent to humiliate or defile. The hanging of an enemy’s corpse is a common theme found in Egyptian imagery, often depicted with the corpse upside down. The humiliation was an essential element of hanging because it indicated the total domination, and therefore power, of the pharaoh.[2] In the case of Genesis 40, the exact nature of the offense is not given, but the humiliating display of the corpse without interment, suggests that it is meant to be understood in the same manner as depictions of hanging found in Egypt elsewhere.[3]

Joshua 8 records the first execution by hanging associated with ancient Israel. The chapter describes Joshua’s conquest of the city of Ai, which resulted in a ḥerem, or the absolute annihilation of a community, and the capture of its king, whereupon he was “hanged on a tree until eventide: and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day” (v. 29). Though the narrative is understood to be an etiology for the city of Ai (the name itself meaning “heap”), what is of interest here is the execution of the king of Ai. Unlike the hanging of the butcher, which presumably reflects Egyptian tradition, the Ai narrative describes an Israelite tradition. Not surprisingly, the description is similar to the legislation for hanging in Deuteronomy 21. Comparable to the legal injunction, Joshua keeps the corpse on the tree for only the day, taking the body down at dusk. Moreover, there is no further corpse defilement because it is interred in a cairn upon its removal from the tree.

The act of hanging also appears in Joshua 10, which recounts the conflict between Israel and the five Amorite kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon. Following the miraculous events of the battle, the five kings who had fled to a cave in Makkedah were brought before Joshua, who then had his soldiers place their feet on the necks of the kings, implying their submission before Israel and her people. Joshua then slew the five kings and “hanged them on five trees” until evening (v. 26), at which point the bodies were taken down and placed in the cave and the entrance was covered by stones. As with the earlier Joshua episode, the hanging takes place within a war scene, with the defeated enemies ritually humiliated, both while alive and then while dead, yet there was no long-term corpse mutilation, and the corpse was interred at evening.

Both episodes are associated with acts of ḥerem, but hanging was not a necessary or even a required element of ḥerem. Unlike the Ai narrative, the Makkedah narrative indicates clearly that hanging was not the cause of death, but an act that follows the execution, implying that hanging was primarily a ritual act with the express purpose of publicly humiliating the deceased. Yet this humiliation was limited because the corpse was displayed only during the daytime. By evening the corpses in both narratives were interred. In any event, the two Joshua narratives are the closest actual hanging events to the Deuteronomic legislation, which may suggest a relationship between the narratives and the legal instruction.[4]

Yet there are also some notable differences. For instance, it is unclear why exactly Joshua decided to hang the kings. According to Deuteronomy, hanging was the result of one who had committed a sin worthy of death and was deemed “accursed.” It may be argued that being in opposition to Joshua and Israel was enough to be designated as “sinful” and therefore brought about the consequence of hanging, but this is not designated a sin elsewhere. Moreover, others opposed Joshua’s military endeavors but were not hanged, so hanging does not appear to have been a consistent consequence performed on those who were defeated by Joshua. Nor are any of the defeated combatants characterized as “accursed,” though, as will be discussed later, it is possible the “accursed” state of the hanged is that they were hanged. In other words, even if a person is not explicitly designated as “accursed,” the very fact of hanging demonstrates the person’s “accursed” state, the hanging perhaps even instigating the placement of one in an “accursed” state. If this is the case, then it is possible that the hanging of the kings, in and of itself, indicates that they were deemed “accursed.”

The next description of hanging in the Hebrew Bible is the infamous “hanging” of Absalom, described in 2 Samuel 18. Following the battle between Absalom’s forces and those of his father, Absalom somehow got his head tangled in the branches of an oak, leaving him suspended “between the heaven and the earth” (v. 9), while his mule walked away from underneath him. Upon hearing that Absalom was still alive but hung up, Joab approaches and drives three sharpened “darts” through Absalom’s chest (v. 14). This does not appear to kill Absalom, who is then beaten until he dies, whereupon Absalom’s body is put into a pit and a cairn is built over it by Joab and his servants. This is not an execution scene per se, meaning an officially sanctioned death, and therefore is not reflective of the Deuteronomic legislation directly, but there are elements in the narrative that are similar to the Joshua narratives, perhaps indicating that the biblical writers recognized an underlying context to situations that resulted in hanging. For instance, all three narratives place hanging ʿal ʿeṭ, or “on/upon a tree.” Though Absalom was not hung ʿal ʿeṭ (on a tree) by anyone specifically, the scene begins with him being inadvertently hung up, suggesting that the reader was to understand this was a hanging. Moreover, though again the description is different, it is worth noting that Absalom is not killed by the hanging. Instead, a humiliation, perhaps self-inflicted, is implied in the scene, with death coming by some other means. As for the killing of Absalom, no reason is explicitly provided in this specific narrative, yet the overall Absalom narrative arc places his ignominious hanging as the end of an attempted rebellion, a crime that is associated with the legislation in later, extrabiblical texts, and that may inform at some level the reasons behind Joshua’s use of hanging.

The Absalom narrative also provides a detail that may provide some insight into the “accursed” characteristic associated with the hanging legislation, namely the explicit observation that he was “taken up between the heaven and the earth” (2 Samuel 18:9). Though this certainly works as a literal description of what happens when one is hung, the space in which he is found—neither on earth nor in heaven—suggests that Absalom is suspended in a liminal space, somewhere in between, belonging in neither space. This will be discussed in greater detail later, but it is possible that hanging indicated one’s cursed state, both in terms of the humiliation and now by placing the person in liminal space, or at least indicating via hanging that the person is no longer defined by “place,” that is, that the person no longer belongs.[5]

The largest cluster of the term appears in Esther, where talah is identified as a practice of the Persians. Two hangings take place in Esther 2:23 when two of the king’s chamberlains who sought to kill King Ahasuerus are subsequently caught and “hanged on a tree.” A few chapters later, Haman, having been offended by Mordecai, constructs a “gallows” (ʿeṭ), approximately seventy-five feet high (fifty cubits), in order to hang Mordecai (see 5:14). Ironically, Haman himself is hanged on the gallows once his plot is revealed by Esther (see 7:9). Following Haman’s death, Esther’s request that his ten sons also be hanged “upon the gallows” was granted (see 9:13–14). As with the Absalom and Joshua narratives, the references to hanging in Esther further clarify the possible context of biblical hanging. Again, the act of talah is placed ʿal ʿeṭ, which, in this narrative, refers to a wooden, man-made structure or frame. The size of the gallows suggests that it was meant to be visible from a distance, which in turn suggests that the hanging was to be a public humiliation, perhaps highlighting the victims’ lack of “place.” Finally, the punishment of hanging came as a result of those who were in rebellion or who sought to overrule the king’s authority.

Outside of talah, the act of hanging or acts akin to hanging are associated with three other Hebrew terms. Though they do not appear in the Deuteronomic legislation, they do provide more general context for what hanging was as understood by ancient Israel. The first term, yaqaʿ, is found eight times in the Hebrew Bible and connotes a sense of separation.[6] For instance, in Genesis 32:25, the term is used to describe Jacob’s thigh being out of joint following his wrestle with the angel. In Jeremiah 6:8 the term is used to describe the potential of God’s separation from the wicked, while in Ezekiel the term is used twice in chapter 23 to describe God’s alienation from the sisters Jerusalem and Samaria because of their wickedness (see vv. 17– 18). In these instances the term is associated with the concept of separation from an original state, whether that is physical, as in Genesis 32, or spiritual, as in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

The other four references are found in 2 Samuel 21 (three times) and Numbers 25:4. The cluster of references in the 2 Samuel 21 text is used to describe the display of Saul’s descendants’ corpses. According to the passage, David is told that the current famine was the result of Saul’s slaughter of the Gibeonites. Though not Israelites, the Gibeonites during the conquests of Joshua had surrendered, extracting from Joshua a promise that they would not be attacked by Israel thereafter. Though not recorded elsewhere, the text in 2 Samuel 21 recounts that Saul had, at some point, “in his zeal” broken that promise and killed many in the community (see v. 2). To end the famine, David asked the Gibeonites what they would want as recompense. Their response was that seven of Saul’s sons should be hung [yaqaʿ] “up unto the Lord in Gibeah” (v. 6). The term is then repeated in verse 9 when David delivers the sons to the Gibeonites, who then “hanged [yaqaʿ] them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of the barley harvest,” and then again in verse 13, which simply states that they were “hanged” (yaqaʿ). Unfortunately, little more is said about this event to provide more in-depth context, though it is worth noting that the “hangings” took place on a hill and that it is possible they were executions, not simply corpse displays.

The final instance is found in Numbers 25:4: “Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.” The reference is a set of instructions given to Moses concerning those who had begun to worship Baal at Peor. It is followed by instruction from Moses to the judges commanding them to execute all those who had begun to worship Baal. If the divine instruction describes the manner of the execution, then it is possible that the leaders were hung in such a manner that their faces were exposed to the sun. But it is equally possible that they were simply constrained in such a manner as to face the sun, not necessarily hung. Others have suggested, by virtue of the general meaning for yaqaʿ as separation, that what took place was a decapitation, with the “separated” heads fastened in some way to be exposed to the sun.[7] If this is the case, then it is possible that the “hanging” of Saul’s sons in 2 Samuel 21 could have reference to a public display of dismemberment or decapitation.[8] In terms of the significance of these acts of “separation,” it is telling that the individuals are separated from their respective communities to answer for covenantal negligence. The events of 2 Samuel 21 in particular emphasized the role of separation in the punishment, not only in the multiple usage of the term but also in the location of the performance display, namely the explicit mention of its happening on a hill, which may have been chosen not only for its prominence but also for its symbolic importance as between both heaven and earth—thus a separation of the wrongdoers in regard to space as well as community and, if the narrative includes separated body pieces, body wholeness.

The next term, tāqaʿ, is never translated as “hanging,” but at least one reference using the term is explicit in describing a hanging. The general meaning of the term appears to be the striking or forcing of a thing, the use of force to move the object being the main understanding.[9] Thus, it is often used to describe the sounding of a trumpet, in which air is forced through the instrument. Similarly, the striking of a hand against another object, another’s hand for instance, uses this verb. In light of the general meaning above, the verb is also used to describe the striking of a nail, as in the Isaiah 22:23 prophecy concerning Eliakim, who is likened to a nail that will be “fasten[ed]” by God “as a nail in a sure place.” In a more gruesome manner, the driving of a nail through the head of sleeping Sisera by Jael, as described in Judges 4:21, uses the verb to describe the action. Similarly, in Judges 3:21, Ehud’s driving his blade into the belly of Eglon is described as taqaʿ. With this in mind, we note that 1 Samuel 31:10 describes the hanging of Saul’s corpse from the wall of Beit Shean by the Philistines as one in which he is fastened to the wall, suggesting that the corpse was nailed to the wall, hanging via suspension from nails as opposed to suspension from a rope.[10] Like yaqaʿ, the term taqaʿ does not appear in the Deuteronomic legislation, but it does interact with the term in the Isaiah 22:23–25 text. The passage begins with the Lord promising to “fasten” (taqaʿ) Eliakim as a nail, at which point things can be hung (talah) from him. This suggests that the act of hanging was not necessarily thought of in terms of suspension via rope, but suspension from an item fastened to the support, or even fastened directly to the support.[11]

The final term, ḥanaq, is found only twice in the Hebrew Bible, though both times associated with a scene of hanging. Second Samuel 17 recounts the tragic end of Ahithophel, a counselor to both David and David’s son, Absalom. According to the text, after his advice to Absalom was rejected, an event that was then reported to David, Ahithophel returned to his own house outside Jerusalem, put his affairs in order, and “hanged himself, and died” (v. 23). Though brief, the text is surprisingly informative as to the hanging event itself. First, the hanging is not an execution, or a state-sponsored display, as the other biblical hangings appear to be. Instead, the text suggests that Ahithophel’s hanging is a private suicide. Yet the text may also suggest why Ahithophel chose this particular mode of suicide.

According to the Ahithophel narrative (2 Samuel 16–17), Ahithophel, a counselor of David known for his wise counsel (“as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God,” 16:23), suggests to Absalom that he take his father’s concubines and gather a military force and leave immediately to capture his father. Hushai counsels instead that because of David’s reputation it would be better to wait and build up a great force and then fight David. Absalom is convinced by Hushai’s argument; Hushai then sends envoys to David letting them know of Ahithophel’s counsel. From the text it is unclear whether Ahithophel was going to act independently of Absalom or if this was a setup by Hushai to lessen Ahithophel’s influence in the court. Regardless, it appears that Ahithophel sees the writing on the wall, namely that Hushai has ruined him before both Absalom and David, and therefore returns to his own house and hangs himself. Like the Absalom narrative (in which Absalom himself will be hung), the Esther narratives, and the Egyptian hangings, the Ahithophel narrative treats hanging as an act that comes after one has sought to overthrow or in some way engage against the ruling political entity. These accounts would suggest that hanging may have been specifically used as a means of punishment and execution for the political act of rebellion.

As for the hanging itself, as noted above, hanaq appears to reflect a strangulation. The other reference using this verb is in Nahum 2:12, where it is used to describe the death of animals by a lion: “the lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses.” In fact, lions do often kill their prey by crushing the necks of their animal and suffocating it, depictions of which can be found throughout the ancient Near East. If the Nahum reference reflects the common understanding of the term, then the death of Ahithophel would have been strangulation, which is not necessarily what the other references to hanging imply but is certainly a type of suspension.

Hanging and Cursing

Having briefly reviewed the hanging narratives of the Hebrew Bible and the associated terminology, we can now look more closely at the Deuteronomic legislation. As should be obvious by now, the meaning of some of the instruction is less than clear. For instance, while it is clear that hanging would be the consequence of one who sinned “worthy of death,” what exactly constituted that sin is never defined. Equally confusing is what exactly is meant by “for he that is hanged is a curse of God” (kȋ qil^elat ʾel^ohȋm, author’s translation) and whether or not the phrase relates to the sin alluded to in the earlier phrase.

In regard to the first question, while Deuteronomy does not indicate the exact nature of the possible offense(s), the context of many of the hanging scenes suggests a political offense associated with treason. This offense is explicitly tied to the legislation in the Dead Sea Scrolls:

[S]hould a man become an informer against his people and a betrayer of his people to a foreign nation, and an evildoer against his people, you shall hang him on a tree, and he shall die. . . . [S]hould a man be guilty of a capital crime and run away to the midst of the nations and curse the Jewish people, you shall hang him too, and he shall die. You shall not allow their corpses to remain overnight on the tree, but you shall bury them on that day, for cursed by God and men is [one?] hanged on the tree. (11QTemple 19, col. 64.6–13; see also 4Q524, col. 14.1–6)

The relationship of these passages to the Deuteronomic legislation is clearly discernible. The mention of one who has sinned, the use of tālāh and its relationship to the tree, and the injunction to remove the body from the tree at night all suggest an awareness of the legislation. Yet there are some intriguing differences. First, the nature of the sin is outlined. Hanging is reserved for those who betray or turn against Israel. Second, the phrase “cursed by God” has been made into a participle, rather than the noun form reflected in Deuteronomy.

The difference in participle versus constructive noun for qll reflects the difficulty in understanding how exactly to read the original phrase, kȋ qil^elat ʾel^ohȋm. While it is clearly a genitive construct, whether it should be read as an objective genitive phrase or as a subjective genitive phrase has been the object of discussion for centuries, with some of the earliest versions split between the two readings. The Septuagint, Vulgate, and Targum Neofiti all read the clause as a subjective genitive, rendering a translation of “cursed by God” or “cursed from God,” implying that the one hanged has been cursed by God, with the understanding that it is not the hanging per se that curses a person, but that the hanging reflects the cursed state of the person. Josephus, Symmachus, and Pseudo-Jonathan all read the clause as an objective genitive, which renders a reading in which the person hanged is a “curse to God,” that is, an affront to God. This has further been understood as an allusion to blasphemy, either in the one who sinned in the first place, meaning that the clause further clarifies what is meant by “sin worthy of death,” or in the hanging itself because being hanged is a curse to God since even the sinner is made in the image of God and therefore to allow the body to continue to be suspended without burial is an affront to the divine nature of humankind. In any case the hanged person is understood as cursed, and that understanding may explain the symbolic, ritual significance of hanging.[12]

Cursing is found throughout the Old Testament, but many of the references simply indicate that something or someone is cursed. Less common are descriptions of what a cursed state entails. Yet they are present in the text. Deuteronomy 7:25–26 describes the graven image as an abomination, something to be detested and abhorred. Psalm 37:22 states that those cursed by God “shall be cut off,” while Isaiah 24:6 describes a curse on the earth that utterly empties the land, rendering it desolate. Isaiah 65:15 suggests that the Lord would curse the unrighteous of Israel by not only having them killed, but also by abandoning their name (the name itself becoming a curse) and calling his true servants by another name. Jeremiah 49:13 again associates being cursed with being a desolation or “perpetual [waste],” while Zechariah 5:3 associates being cursed with being “cut off.”

Perhaps the most extensive cursing text in the Old Testament is Deuteronomy 28–29. In Deuteronomy 28:15–20, after having stated all the things that would be cursed, the Lord gets into the specifics for the remainder of the chapter, emphasizing the inability of the land to produce anything, physical ailments, the scattering of the people from off the land, attendant slavery, lack of honorable burial—all of which will culminate in the following: “All these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed” (v. 45). These curses are then summarized in Deuteronomy 29:20–21: “And all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law.” These references suggest that cursing included not only death and misfortune but also, more significantly, being cut off and separated and even losing one’s name or place before God.[13] This understanding of cursing may provide insight into the ritual significance of hanging as indicating a cursed state.

As noted above, one apparent purpose of hanging was to humiliate and shame the person whose corpse was now hung following the execution. As such, hanging may also have served as a deterrent to those contemplating similar behavior; the deterrent being not so much the death, as that had presumably been already enacted, but the disgraceful, humiliating manner in which the corpse of the deceased was treated.[14] While it is possible that part of the humiliation was the result of bodily distortions and swelling resulting from prolonged suspension, it also appears that the placement of the body in undefined space had a similar effect. As noted earlier, hanging placed the body between heaven and earth, thus indicating that it belonged nowhere. Even though Israelite hanging was temporary, with the body’s removal at dusk, this aspect of hanging was still present. In line with other biblical curses, the suspension would indicate that the person being hung does not belong in either the divine, heavenly sphere or in the mortal, earthly one, but is stuck in a liminal space between both, reflecting of the cut-off status of the person from the community. Thus, hanging was not only an act of humiliation, but an act of excommunication.

Hanging as excommunication may have also reflected the supposed sin of being in opposition to Israel indicated earlier. Just as the condemned person had attempted to cut off or destroy Israel through betrayal, he himself deserved to be cut off and blotted out as well. With this mind, one can note the similarities between the hanging examples provided above, even those that were Israelite retellings of foreign hangings. Thus, the Egyptian baker was hung for attempting to betray the pharaoh. Joshua’s hangings of the Amorite kings came about not only because of their opposition against Israel, but also because of their opposition against the Gibeonites. Absalom was attempting a coup against David at the time of his hanging, and Haman was hung because of animosity against Israel in Persia, with his original claim being that the Jews themselves were attempting to foment unrest. Ahithophel’s hanging also fits this pattern since he had given advice to Absalom, therefore placing himself in opposition to David. In essence, in all of these accounts the offender rejected Israel and experienced the utter rejection via the cursed state—an excommunication from Israel—represented by their bodies being hung.[15] It is in this context of hanging as a rite of excommunication that we may be able to situate the hanging of Zemnarihah, the Gadianton pseudo-governor.

The Hanging of Zemnarihah, the Simile-Curse Oath and the Need for Excommunication

As noted earlier, the hanging of Zemnarihah as described in 3 Nephi 4:28–33 exhibits both similarities and dissimilarities with the biblical legislation concerning hanging and with the Bible’s hanging narratives. According to the text, in the twenty-first year of the new calendar, about eighty-one years after the creation of the Gadianton robbers, Zemnarihah, having been appointed the new leader following the death of Giddianhi, attempted a siege against the Nephites. The siege did not work, and in the withdrawal of the robbers to the north, the Nephites were able to get in front and behind them, effectively cutting them off from retreating safely. The result was that “many thousands” surrendered (v. 27), the rest being slaughtered and Zemnarihah captured. According to verse 28, Zemnarihah was then “hanged upon a tree, yea, even upon the top thereof until he was dead.” Though we do not have the original text, the language “upon a tree” rather than “from a tree” suggests an understanding similar to the Hebrew ʿal ʿeṭ, “on the tree.” This in turn may further suggest that the hanging itself was not a suspension via noose, but a suspension via hook or nail in which there was bodily contact with the tree; whether it was an impalement of some kind is not made clear.[16] What is clear is that it was an execution, not a corpse display as the Deuteronomic legislation implies, though both biblical and extrabiblical examples suggest that hanging as execution was practiced regardless of the legislation.

Notably, the reasons for the hanging are not provided, though if the material from Qumran is accurate in its reasoning for hanging (namely, that hanging was reserved for those who committed treason or cursed Israel), then this choice of execution for Zemnarihah may be expected.[17] Also significant is that there is no mention that Zemnarihah was cursed, though elements of the narrative may suggest that this was indeed the case. First, the very nature of the hanging, like the biblical material, indicates that Zemnarihah was “between” heaven and earth. In fact, the added detail that he was hung “even upon the top thereof until he was dead” suggests that the act was highly visible and emphasized his in-between, cut-off state. Interestingly, the state execution of Nehor describes a similar setting. Though we are never told how Nehor was executed, we are told that it took place on the top of the hill Manti, where “he was caused, or rather did acknowledge, between the heavens and the earth, that what he had taught the people was contrary to the word of God; and there he suffered an ignominious death” (Alma 1:15). Like hangings in general, Nehor was placed in undefined space between heaven and earth and there suffered a death noted for its shameful, disgraceful, humiliating nature, which in turn suggests that the form of execution was meant to be “ignominious.”[18] The similarities between Nehor’s and Zemnarihah’s executions suggest a common template for Nephite executions, with public humiliation and the liminal “no space” indicating the separated, cursed state of the person.[19]

This may give insight into one of the more striking departures from the biblical legislation in 3 Nephi 4, namely the cutting down of the tree. According to verse 28, once it was confirmed that Zemnarihah was dead, “they did fell the tree.” Though the text does not state so explicitly, the implication appears to be that the body was still on the tree when the tree was cut down. As with other parts of the narrative, the text does not provide an explanation as to why this was done. It has been suggested that this act was twofold, performed both to expunge the “impurities” associated with the criminal, similar to an explanation given as to why the criminal should be given a proper burial according to the biblical legislation, as well as to discourage potential notoriety for, and therefore association with, the criminal.[20] Both purposes are possible, but significantly, nothing appears to have been done with the tree besides cutting it down; that is, it wasn’t burned or destroyed further, suggesting that the act of felling may have served a different purpose. If the corpse remained on the tree, as indicated above, then it is possible that the act symbolically rendered Zemnarihah in a permanent cursed state of separation. Having died between heaven and earth, his corpse remains in that state, now associated with the tree itself. In light of this, it is not surprising that nothing is said about burial, suggesting even further that the act represented a permanent excommunication of Zemnarihah and what he represents rather than a purification rite or one of abnegation.[21]

That Zemnarihah’s excommunication represented more than just his execution may be seen in the simile curse that immediately follows. As many commentators have noticed, the act of cutting down the tree may be understood as a simile curse, or an act that is performed with the understanding that something similar would happen to those performing the act if they too become guilty of the same offense.[22] In this case, the simile curse is reflected in the communal proclamation “May the Lord preserve his people in righteousness and in holiness of heart, that they may cause to be felled to the earth all who shall seek to slay them because of power and secret combinations, even as this man hath been felled to the earth” (3 Nephi 4:29). In this case, the simile is built on a metaphor, as it is the tree that is cut down, not Zemnarihah himself. The simile curse also highlights the ignominious nature of that death. The oath states that one who seeks to destroy the righteous through unrighteous dominion would die “even as this man hath been felled to the earth.” Zemnarihah, of course, did not die in battle, but helpless, unable to do anything, just as a tree is unable to respond or react to the one hewing it down. Thus, the cursed state is associated not only with the hanged but also with a potentiality that may come about at any time if one participated in the same behavior as the hanged. What is intriguing here is that the simile curse is spoken by those gathered, presumably the Nephites who had fought against Zemnarihah, suggesting that it was they who needed what Susan Niditch called rites of regularization, or normalization, in which the participant engages in a set of ritual behavior designed to integrate or reintegrate the individual into normative society.[23]

This may have been seen as necessary because of the years-long war between the Gadianton robbers and the Nephites. Mormon suggests that the conflict between the two became more severe beginning in the thirteenth year of the new calendar (the 103rd year of the reign of the judges). In the sixteenth year, the conflict was referenced in the letter of Giddianhi, the self-proclaimed governor of the secret society of Gadianton, to Lachoneus, the governor of the Nephites (see 3 Nephi 3:9). The letter, which highlights the presumed “wrongs” the robbers felt had been exercised against them, including the “rights of government” (v. 10), depicts the Gadianton robbers as an alternative political state to the current Nephite system. As for the population makeup of the Gadianton robbers, Mormon tells us they were Nephite, Lamanite, and Zoramite dissenters who apparently felt they were disenfranchised under the Nephite system. Moreover, it is possible that there was some general sympathy for the Gadianton cause. Writing about events approximately forty-two years earlier, Mormon had stated that the robbers had “seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in their works” (Helaman 6:38). Though the conflict described in 3 Nephi 3–4 reflected at least one generation removed from this observation, it is plausible that the foundational argument the Gadianton robbers were making remained the same.[24]

As for that argument, it would appear that at least one element of it suggested that Gadianton society found affinity with an older, and therefore more legitimate, cultural system than that of the Nephites, or even any society with roots in Lehi’s colony. If this was the case, then the conflict with the Gadianton robbers was not just with disaffected Nephites, but with a culture that explicitly defined itself as not-Nephite. The Gadianton robbers didn’t just disagree with Nephite culture; they actively rejected it. Yet at the same time, as the letter suggests, they believed that they had right of governance by virtue of the older affiliation. Thus, the conflict was an existential one because the very existence of the Nephites was threatened in a way that had never before been experienced. What resulted over the course of the eight-year conflict was a series of battles, one of which, described in 3 Nephi 4:7–14, entailed a slaughter that was unparalleled: “there never was known so great a slaughter among all the people of Lehi since he left Jerusalem” (v. 11). While this appears to describe the military results of the conflict, one can only imagine the ensuing social and cultural devastation as well, especially since this was not a “normal” war.

Though it is difficult to talk about normalcy when discussing such a disruptive event as war, the Gadianton conflict represented a different type of conflict than the more “traditional” Nephi-Lamanite warfare found earlier in the Book of Mormon. In those past conflicts, part of the rules of war included allowing the defeated force to return to its traditional homeland, often with an oath not to instigate aggression again.[25] The Gadianton conflict, on the other hand, arose within the urban centers of the Nephite homeland. Moreover, since these dissenters rejected traditional social affiliations, their numbers consisting of the disaffected across the spectrum of Lehi’s descendants, there was no real center to Gadianton activity. Even with the creation of their pseudo-state, their lands comprised either wilderness that nobody claimed or abandoned Nephite territories.[26] What this all meant in terms of the war’s conclusion is that the norm of returning the defeated army back home could not be enacted; the defeated were to remain.

The need for normalization thus reflects the simple fact that while a given conflict may be over, the effects of war are always messy, with the transition to peace often perilous. This would have been more so with a conflict like the Gadianton war, in which case the normal procedures for enacting peace were not applicable. Even though the final battle ended the immediate military conflict, the ensuing social upheaval remained unresolved. For one thing, thousands of Gadianton robbers were prisoners of war, many probably still ideologically sympathetic to Gadianton beliefs. Moreover, though the Nephites defeated the existential threat of the Gadianton robbers, the text suggest it was the former who made the simile-curse oath, implying that there was a mimetic fear among the Nephites that they too could perhaps become the enemy. Why they would do so, in light of the recently ended war, is not stated. What does seem clear is that there was a concern for future violence, this time enacted by the victors.[27]

One can foresee a number of reasons for reprisals against surviving members of the Gadianton robbers or those sympathetic to the Gadianton cause. No doubt many within the Nephite military had family members killed or hurt in the conflict. Blood redemption may have been present in Nephite society as well, even though it was proscribed decades earlier. Another reason may have been the recognition that war trauma often results in anxiety manifesting in uncontrolled anger, even violence, diagnosed today as PTSD.[28] It is probable that Nephite survivors, both military and civilian, would have been affected by the trauma of war, especially if the conflict was as devastating as Mormon implies it was.[29] This, coupled with possible resentment toward Gadianton survivors, could have led to violent reprisals; thus the need for an absolute break in the violence. The hanging of Zemnarihah with its attendant oath could have fulfilled this need. The hanging itself was a violent, visceral, catalytic act that could distill and diffuse the immediate potential for violent reprisals into one event, while at the same time acting as a deterrent via the oath to future social separations by the victors. The relationship of the oath with the hanging would have been a mimetic reminder of the cursed state for those that gave in to such violent behavior. Zemnarihah’s excommunication was a vivid warning to all against further violence, a warning that was needed since the norms of warfare resolution with the enemy were not a viable option and therefore held the potential for further conflict.

The Declarations of Normalization

Having symbolically excommunicated the violence (both that of the recent war and the potentiality for its resurgence) via the hanging, the Nephites would have given precedence to renormalizing or resetting preexisting social relationships. This process began with the second of the three declarations. Following the simile-curse oath, Mormon recounts that those gathered then cried out “with one voice, saying: May the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, protect this people in righteousness, so long as they shall call on the name of their God for protection” (3 Nephi 4:30). This declaration emphasizes the victors’ relationship with the God of Israel, particularly that God was “their God,” thus renewing that relationship via the oath. The specific title for God in this oath—“the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”—is not often found in the Book of Mormon, but when it is used it emphasizes the relationship between Israel and God especially after experiencing the trauma of captivity or subjugation.

Nephi₁ first uses the title when emphasizing the Israelite heritage of his family (see 1 Nephi 6:4), and then again when describing how the signs associated with Christ’s death (Christ being the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob) would be “more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel” (19:10). King Limhi uses the title when speaking to his people (following his meeting with the delegates from Zarahemla) to prepare them for their future reintegration with the Nephites in Zarahemla (see Mosiah 7:19). Mormon uses the title later in Mosiah 23:23 when summarizing the deliverance of Alma₁’s people from the Lamanites. In Alma 29:11, Alma₂ uses this same title when reminding his readership how God delivered their fathers from bondage and then again when speaking to his son about the importance of remembering “the captivity of our fathers” and how there was “none to deliver them except it was the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Alma 36:2).

The almost exclusive use of the title to refer to God’s unparalleled role as deliverer of Israel from bondage suggests that its presence in the communal declaration associated with Zemnarihah’s hanging was meant to remind those gathered of God’s role as deliverer. Though there is no explicit mention that the Gadianton robbers had subjugated any of the Nephite population, the threat of such a takeover was ever present and had been alluded to as a goal in the letter of Giddianhi. Moreover, the text does describe the withdrawal of Nephite forces to a centralized location, leaving the rest of the territory to the Gadianton robbers. The text suggests that the general population had bifurcated between Lachoneus’s people and Giddianhi’s, but it is probable that at least some Nephites were not able to get to the Nephite center and thus were swept up by Gadianton forces and therefore experienced captivity and subjugation. Thus, it is possible that actual subjugation had taken place. One could also make the case that a need for spiritual deliverance was necessary. Describing the effects of the twelve-year Amalickiahite war, Mormon stated that many were hardened in their hearts because of the duration of the conflict (see Alma 62:41). Though not as long, the Gadianton conflict described in 3 Nephi, which, again, was described as the worst military conflict to date, would have resulted in similar emotional and spiritual scarring.

Reference to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is also found in the context of being the Nephites’ fathers (see 1 Nephi 17:40; Helaman 3:30). Moreover, in the Book of Mormon God’s promise that Abraham and his seed would bless all nations of the earth provided the Nephites with an identity that allowed them to see how they fit within the larger Israelite history (see 1 Nephi 15:18; 22:9; 3 Nephi 20:25, 27). Thus, the use of the title would have reminded the Nephites of how God delivered his faithful and also of their own unique identity, which had been threatened by the alternative definition espoused by the Gadianton model. The emphasis that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the Nephites’ God too counteracted the Gadianton claims to an older, non-Israelite culture (see above). In this way the declaration may have also served to “re-create” segments of the population, that is, reintroduce them to their Israelite identity. Unlike the hanging and the subsequent oath, which served to sever completely and absolutely the Gadianton threat, this second declaration renewed the Nephites’ identity with their Israelite heritage, an identity that appears to have been actively discouraged by the Gadianton robbers.

The declaration concludes with the condition that God’s deliverance would happen only if the people continued to call upon “their God.” While the title is not repeated here, it is implied that “their God” would be “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The call for prayer, then, was not just a general invitation, but one that would emphasize the Israelite, and therefore Nephite, association of God, reiterating the elements of the first part of the declaration.[30] The clause may also have had a more personal function. While the declaration overall, along with this final clause, appears to have the function of resetting the overall culture’s identity, the invitation to pray may have had beneficial effects on those suffering from the trauma of war. As others have noted, prayer can be a coping mechanism for people following a traumatic experience. [31] Thus, not only could this second declaration be understood as part of the renormalization process initiated with the hanging of Zemnarihah, but it may also have mitigated some of the effects of the trauma by explicitly reminding the Nephites of their preexisting obligations and relationships revealed to them through prayer.

The final declaration follows a verse describing general rejoicing for the victory. According to 3 Nephi 4:31, those assembled “did break forth, all as one, in singing, and praising their God for the great thing which he had done for them, in preserving them from falling into the hands of their enemies.” Just as the violence of excommunication via hanging was cathartic, so too was the celebration following the cessation of conflict.[32] In fact, the rejoicing may have helped instill resilience among the survivors. Part of the unified praise is given in the next verse: “Yea, they did cry: Hosanna to the Most High God. And they did cry: Blessed be the name of the Lord God Almighty, the Most High God” (v. 32). It is unclear whether these two refrains are random samples of the cry or if there is an order to their presentation, such as being the opening and closing refrains. The syntactical structure associating the Hosanna cry with the designation of God as the Most High God is consistent with the two other uses of the Hosanna cry in the Book of Mormon (see 1 Nephi 11:6; 3 Nephi 11:17).

The context in which the Hosanna cry was uttered historically is uncertain. The etymology of the word is relatively straightforward. Derived from the Hebrew term yašaʿ, meaning “to save, deliver,” hosanna is a plea meaning “save us, please.” Yet the term is often found in contexts of celebration or rejoicing. One scholar has suggested that this secondary use of hosanna as praise came about as the plea was offered with complete confidence in a positive response. While the term appears only once in the Psalms, numerous references convey the speaker’s confidence in salvation by God. Thus, the plea reflects the self-fulfilling confidence of the speaker—the plea is one of celebration because God will fulfill it.[33] But this dual usage makes the cry uniquely suited for the renormalization process described in 3 Nephi 4. While its function as celebration fits in with the theme of God’s delivering power, its function as a plea allows for continued protection. In other words, the force of the declarations is not finite to the events of that particular day but can continue to have efficacious power in the days, months, and years following its utterance. [34]

Also intriguing is the designation for Deity in these refrains. While “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” was used in the second declaration and was associated with renewing Nephite identity, the designations in the third declaration for God are “the Most High God” and “Lord God Almighty, the Most High God.” Neither one of these designations is common to the Book of Mormon or the Old Testament. “Most High God” appears only four times in the Book of Mormon and eight times in the Old Testament.[35] “Lord God Almighty” and its variants (Almighty God, Almighty, Lord, the Almighty God, Lord God who is Almighty) appear nine times in the Book of Mormon. “Lord God Almighty” does not appear at all in the English Old Testament, though the designation “Almighty God” and “Almighty” appear forty-seven times (thirty of those times in the book of Job).

The designation “Most High God” in the Old Testament is derived from the Hebrew term ʿalâ, meaning “to ascend,” thus reflecting the exalted status of God and can be found in contrast to other deities, meaning that God is the most high, or highest of all deities. The title is also associated with God’s role as creator of the cosmos. In Melchizedek’s blessing of Abraham, God is referenced as “El Elyon, creator of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:19, my translation). As mentioned above, “Lord God Almighty” is not a designation given in the Old Testament. “Almighty God” is the translation for ʾēl šadday. The current understanding of šadday is that it derives from the Akkadian šadû, meaning “wilderness.” The translation “mighty/almighty” reflects God’s dominion and power over those areas outside of habitation, and therefore the designation refers to all aspects of the cosmos, both benevolent and destructive, being within God’s power and dominion.[36]

The emphasis of both terms in defining God as a being above or beyond the normal boundaries may be suggestive of their use in describing the events of 3 Nephi 4, reflecting the cosmological implications of the conflict. It appears that Lehi’s descendants, like their Israelite counterparts, understood reality as made up of the “cosmos,” or an ordered, organized state by which things had definition and thereby meaning, and the “non-cosmos,” or a state characterized by its lack of these things.[37] While the cosmos could be the physical earth itself, it could also be a social organization such as a community or a city. These, like the physical earth, reflected the cosmic definitions of order, organization, definition, meaning, and so on. Just as the cosmos could been recognized in social institutions, so too could the “non-cosmos” be reflected in monstrous forces that sought to disrupt or destroy those institutions. One’s enemy could be defined as a “non-cosmic” force, or a monster, since it sought to destroy the “cosmos.”[38] Thus, Lehi’s descendants, like their biblical counterparts, lived in a numinous reality in which the cosmos was constantly besieged by forces seeking to undermine that ordered reality.

This binary view of reality appears throughout the Book of Mormon. Earth in its pre-creation, unformed state, for instance, is present in Lehi’s dream, as he initially finds himself in a “dark and dreary waste[land]” reminiscent of the empty wasteland of the pre-cosmic earth in Genesis 1 or the pre-formative landscape prior to the “creation” of Israel in Sinai (1 Nephi 8:4).[39] The destructive events that preceded the arrival of Christ are suggestive of the creation process as the earth is enshrouded in a preternatural darkness and is physically remade, with Christ’s arrival representing a new creation. While demonic forces are barely alluded to in the Book of Mormon, the monstrous, or the personification of non-cosmos, is present. For instance, Jacob references “that awful monster, death and hell” (2 Nephi 9:26), while Alma₂ describes the Lamanite armies of Zarahemnah as “dragons” possessing almost supernatural strength (Alma 43:44).

Though the Gadianton robbers are not designated as such explicitly, their non-cosmic nature is intimated throughout the narrative, such as their association with wilderness. Contrasting with the settled, cultivated, and organized land of civilization, the wilderness was uninhabited except for the monstrous, and because it was outside the jurisdiction of settled territory, it was viewed as a dangerous, unlawful place where the potential for death or worse was imminent and therefore was considered non-cosmic.[40] Beginning in 3 Nephi 1:27, the reader is told that the Gadianton robbers dwelt in this non-cosmos, infesting the land. Later, in 3 Nephi 2:11, this infestation is described as laying waste and spreading carnage through not only Nephite territory but Lamanite territory as well, thereby constituting an existential threat to the entire cosmos. The description of Gadianton battle dress in 3 Nephi 4:7 is further suggestive of their monstrous identity: “they were dyed in blood, and their heads were shorn, and they had head-plates upon them; and great and terrible was the appearance of the armies of Giddianhi, because their armor, and because of their being dyed in blood.” Finally, Gidgiddoni’s military strategy is to battle any incursions of the Gadianton robbers into “cosmic” space, that is, the places of security, but that such conflict was to stop at the “borders of the wilderness” (3 Nephi 4:13). The conflict itself ends with Gidgiddoni cutting off the Gadianton retreat into the marginal wilderness of the north (see vv. 23–24), thus not allowing for their return to non-cosmos. Thus, the entire conflict may be understood as a cosmic conflict with the Gadianton robbers portrayed as terrifying, even demonic, monsters seeking to infest and destroy the divinely established cosmos of Nephite/Lamanite society.[41]

If this is the case, then a rededication or a reidentification of cosmos lost could be expected, particularly those territories the Nephites had abandoned, which were then possessed by the Gadianton robbers, necessitating that they be at least formally recognized as Nephite/Lamanite territory again under God’s protection. We don’t know of any ritual behavior beyond the declarations, but the third declaration, particularly its invoking of titles of God that reflect his cosmic suzerainty and dominion over the wilderness, suggests that this in fact was what was happening. As such it reflected a conclusionary act that began with the hanging. The specific act of hanging, with its suspension between heaven and earth, suggests an excommunication from reality, and thus may be understood as a ritual banishment of the Gadianton robbers to outside the cosmos. Yet simply “clearing the board,” so to speak, was not enough. The vacuum created by the destruction of the Gadianton robbers now needed to be replaced by a reaffirmation of cosmic space. By invoking God as cosmocrator through titles that specifically identified him as such and through the Hosanna cry, cosmic normality was reinstituted.[42]

Conclusion

It is hard to imagine exactly how devastating the conflict between the Nephites and the Gadianton robbers was to those who had to live through the experience. While Mormon gives us glimpses into the unparalleled violence, the trauma of the events would no doubt have affected the survivors for years to come. The hanging of Zemnarihah and the renormalization elements that followed would have begun the process of reknitting Nephite society. Recognizing the hanging as a form of excommunication—the ultimate ‘cutting off’ for those who sought to destroy the unity of Israel and even the cosmos itself—began the process. By excising Zemnarihah, and by extension all those who sought to destroy the Nephite system, from both the divine and mortal realms, those that survived were able to mark the end of the conflict in a meaningful, visceral way. The simile curse that followed the hanging extended the ritual significance of the hanging itself, allowing the hanging to have efficacy by representing the potential state for all who continued the cycle of violence. That this was explicitly vowed by the victors suggests that there was a fear that further violence, possibly as reprisals, or even because of the inability to let go of the trauma of war, was possible, creating the need to end complete the conflict.

Yet this would have been effective only in ending the violent cycle—what would be needed next would be the reintegration, or even the rebooting, of normal society. This normalization process was reflected in two further declarations, the first of which emphasized the Nephite identity as Israelite, a necessity since the Gadianton robbers had threatened that identity through their claim to an older, more legitimate cultural tradition; and the second of which assuaged the cosmological disruption by reaffirming God’s cosmological suzerainty over even the wilderness. It may have also provided a way for the integration of the Gadianton survivors as well, by establishing the true means of victory. Finally, this renewed relationship would also have helped those who continued to experience trauma after the conflict, both in terms of the communal celebration and the more private encouragement to seek after God through the medium of prayer.

In this way, the hanging of Zemnarihah had the same function as its biblical counterparts. Though nothing is said of the burial of Zemarihah, the ultimate effect was to restore a level of human dignity to those who had experienced one of the most violent periods of time in Nephite history. That the hanging and the rites of normalization may have provided the means for not only reknitting Nephite society but also integrating the remaining Gadianton robbers becomes a narrative of hope. That the normalization focused on the necessity of a relationship with God, that it required an understanding of one’s true identity, remains a message that the Book of Mormon provides today.

Notes

[1]“תלה,” in Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 4:1738–39 (hereafter cited as HALOT). See also M. J. Mulder, “tala/talaʾ,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 15:667–71 (hereafter cited as TDOT).

[2] See Robert Kriech Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1995), 168–71.

[3] See Angelika Berlejung, “Images of the Dead—Images for the Living: Life and Death in the Iconography of Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Palestine,” in Divine Secrets and Human Imaginations (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 369–413.

[4] That relationship is the subject of Nili Wazana, “‘For an Impaled Body Is a Curse of God’ (Deut 21:23): Impaled Bodies in Biblical Law and Conquest Narratives,” in Law and Narrative in the Bible and in Neighbouring Ancient Cultures, ed. Klaus-Peter Adam, Friedrich Avemarie, and Nili Wazana (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 69–98. Wazana believes that both the Joshua narratives and the Deuteronomic legislation were written in dialogue with the neo-Assyrian impalement practices that emphasized the desecration of the corpse. Though she believes that the law was written before the narratives, the law elevated this particular military practice to a more general execution type, whereas the Joshua narratives kept the practice of hanging within the military context. Both countered the neo-Assyrian practice by emphasizing the inherent dignity accorded to anyone by virtue of being in the image of God. For more on the neo-Assyrian practice of hanging/impalement, see Karen Radner, “High Visibility Punishment and Deterrent: Impalement in Assyrian Warfare and Legal Practice,” Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 21 (2015): 103–28. Though Radner suggests that neo-Assyrian impalement should be understood “first and foremost as a tool of Assyrian legal practice and justice” (122), at least one Sumerian conditional curse may suggest that impalement was also a means to fulfil a curse: “If he (the seller) detains (the sold woman) or raises claims (to her), then he puts evil/curse in his mouth, (and) a wooden stake should be driven through his mouth.” Anne Marie Kitz, Cursed Are You!: The Phenomenology of Cursing in Cuneiform and Hebrew Texts (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2014), 29.

[5] Liminal space may be recognized as a part of “social space,” or the understanding that space can be understood through more than just a physical lens. Spaces may also be recognized as social constructs reflecting the cosmology, cultural patterns, and social interactions of the given community. These influences define and structure the meaning and functionality of the given spaces in which, and with which, those communities interact. Often these interactions and definitions are associated with the identification of the community and/or the individuals within that community. See Mark K. George, Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 32–33. With this in mind, the ancient world appeared to be concerned with one’s place within the cosmos. Uncertainty existed as to where an object or individual in terms of space could potentially negatively affect the cosmos. Thus, locating where an object or individual was within the landscape is often an element of the ritualization by which threat was neutralized. See Daniel L. Belnap, “Defining the Ambiguous, the Unknown and the Dangerous: The Significance of the Ritual Process in Deuteronomy 21:1–9,” Zeitscrift für Altorientalische und Rechtsgeschichte 23 (2017), 209–22. See also Belnap, “Where Is the Devourer? A Re-Appraisal of the Arslan Tash II Plaque in its ANE Context,” “Like ’Ilu, Are You Wise”: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Dennis G. Pardee, ed. H. H. Hardy II, Joseph Lam, and Eric D. Reymond, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 74 (Chicago: Oriental Institute, in press); and Kitz, Cursed Are You!, 275, 289–90.

[6] HALOT 2:431 defines the term as “to turn away,” “to dislocate” in the qal forms, with “to display with broken legs and arms” in the hiphil form.

[7] See Robert Polzin, “HWQY^C and Covenantal Institutions in Early Israel,” Harvard Theological Review 62, no. 2 (1969): 227–40.

[8] As such it would be a reflection of a presumed punishment associated with the covenant made between Joshua and the Gibeonites. Though this is not explicit in the covenant made between the two, other texts such as Genesis 15:9–21, in which Abraham divides a series of animals as part of the covenant making, and Jeremiah 34:1–19, which speaks of a covenant-making event in which the individuals walked through a calf divided in two, suggest that the separation of body parts may reflect covenantal restoration.

[9] See HALOT 4:1785–86, which suggests that the term is possibly onomatopoeic, a sound mimicry of something being smacked or hit.

[10] It is possible that this reference is a later textual emendation since the first letter, the tav (ת), looks similar to the hē (ה), which would begin a hiphil of yaqaʿ; see HALOT 4:1786.

[11] In at least one reference it is possible that talah may be understood in the context of fastening. In the Septuagint version of Esther 7:9, the term stauroō is used rather than the more common kremaō. Stauros is the common Greek term translated as crucifixion and therefore indicates that talah may include impalement. With that said, it isn’t clear that stauroō necessarily indicated crucifixion in the Septuagint. See Giovanni Lenzi, “Talah in Pre-Mishnaic Halakhah,” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 11, no. 1 (2008): 33–48, which states the following: “The verb stayróò recurs only twice in the entire book and both times are suspect: at 7:9 the verb is not attested in the Lucianic text (where kremánnymi [to hang] is used), nor is it confirmed by the Latin Versions (that have suspendatur [be hanged ]); at 8:12 stayróò appears not in the main text but in an addition (E 18)! On the contrary, the verb kremánnymi [to hang] is used eight times, translating the Hebrew talah. In other words, it is clear that the translator understood Haman’s execution as a hanging” (38).

[12] For a more in-depth understanding of these readings, see Angela Marie Lupo, “God’s Curse in the Hanged Man: Crux Interpretum in Deuteronomy 21:23,” Studia Biblica Slovaca 10, no. 1 (2018): 40–59; see also Moshe J. Bernstein, “יולת סיהלא תללק יכ (Deut. 21:23): A Study in Early Jewish Exegesis,” Jewish Quarterly Review 74, no. 1 (1983): 21–45.

[13] See Kitz, Cursed Are You!, 238: “For the most part, negative separation dominates the Hebrew Bible; . . . a curse is fundamentally excommunication.”

[14] The significance of non-burial as a representation of a cursed state is explored in F. Dorie Manson, The Unremembered Dead: The Non-burial Motif in the Hebrew Bible (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2018).

[15] Yet what the Israelite legislation did do, contra the hanging rites of surrounding nations, was accord an essential human dignity to the cursed. Even as the bodily displays via hanging highlighted their shameful, humiliated, excommunicated status, their removal from the tree or pole at evening and subsequent burial indicated that the ultimate experience of being cut off (i.e., the lack of a burial) would not be experienced by them. Whether it was because lack of burial was an affront to the inherent divine nature of any body (in cases involving treason or not) or because extended exposure risked corrupting the earth itself, the display of the excommunicated person was finite and therefore limited.

[16] With that said, it is possible that Zemnarihah’s hanging was via suspension from the tree since such hanging was known in New World cultures. Brant A. Gardner references a pre-Columbian mural from the Yucatan area that depicts a hanging via a noose. See his Second Witness: Analytic and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon (Sandy, UT: Greg Kofford, 2007), 5:268. For an illustration of the mural, see Alfredo Barrera Rubio, “Mural Paints of the Puac Region in Yucatan,” in Third Palenque Round Table, 1978, Part 2, ed. Merle Greene Robertson (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), 173–226, esp. 174. There is also at least one pre-Columbian figurine from Jaina that depicts a hanging from a noose; see Justin Kerr, Jaina Hanging, September 7, 2008, photograph, http://research.mayavase.com/portfolio_hires.php?search=2154&date_added=&image=2154&display=8&rowstart=0. Finally, Codex 11 of the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, created during the Aztec period, depicts an Aztec player of Patolli hanged via noose. Special thanks to my colleague Kerry Hull for providing these references.

[17] See John A. Tvedtnes, “More on the Hanging of Zemnarihah,” FARMS Update, April 1997, 2.

[18] Interestingly, hanging is actually one of the examples used for the 1828 Webster’s dictionary entry for ignominious. See Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. “Ignominious,” http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/ignominious: “1. Incurring disgrace; cowardly; of mean character. . . . 2. Very shameful; reproachful; dishonorable; infamous. To be hanged for a crime is ignominious. . . . 3. Despicable; worthy of contempt.”

[19] While Brant A. Gardner does not explicitly associate Nehor’s execution with Zemnarihah’s hanging, he does recognize that the cursed state is “ignominious” as well. See Second Witness, 5:268: “The tree symbolically shared the ignominy of the hanged person.”

[20] See John W. Welch, The Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press; Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2008), 355.

[21] See Lupo, “God’s Curse,” 56: “A person who is guilty of a capital crime must be exposed, it is a ‘curse of God,’ it attests to the whole and total separation from God. The hanged man is a sign of the absolute estrangement of God from any complicity with evil, and the culprit needs to be publicly hanged in order to denounce the sin that breaks the covenant with God.”

[22] See Mark J. Morisse, “Simile Curses in the Ancient Near East, Old Testament, and Book of Mormon,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2, no. 1 (1993): 124–38.

[23] See Susan Niditch, “A Messy Business: Ritual Violence after the War,” in Warfare, Ritual, and Symbol in Biblical and Modern Contexts, ed. Brad R. Kells, Ames Frank Ritchel, and Jacob L. Wright (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014), 187–204, specifically 194. Brant A. Gardner does not believe that it was the Nephite military that enacted the oath, nor does he treat it as an oath at all, but as a statement of belief by the “faithful believers who saw the Gadiantons as a particularly dangerous threat to them as a people.” See Second Witness, 5:269.

[24] For more on this, see Daniel L. Belnap, “‘They Are of Ancient Date’: Jaredite Traditions and the Politics of Gadianton’s Dissent,” in Illuminating the Jaredite Records, ed. Daniel L. Belnap, Book of Mormon Academy Series (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 2020), 1–42.

[25] See, for instance, Alma 44:8; 50:3–6; and Helaman 1:33. See also John W. Welch, “Law and War in the Book of Mormon,” in Warfare in the Book of Mormon, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin (Provo, UT: FARMS; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), 46–102, esp. 77–78.

[26] Though Giddianhi’s letter suggests that the Gadianton robbers saw themselves as a viable state and social alternative to the existing Nephite model, later evidence suggests they were unable to perform basic functions such as agriculture (see 3 Nephi 4:19–20). See Daniel C. Peterson, “The Gadianton Robbers as Guerilla Warriors,” in Ricks and Hamblin, Warfare in the Book of Mormon, 146–73, which considers the lack of a Gadianton homeland, albeit from the perspective of military practice.

[27] Roger D. Woodland, in Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), explores the rituals established in ancient Rome and elsewhere to reinstate soldiers back into civil society.

[28] See T. M. Lemos, “The Apotheosis of Rage: Divine Anger and the Psychology of Israelite Trauma,” Biblical Interpretation 23 (2015): 101–21, esp. 104: “anger has been shown repeatedly to be a major symptom of combat trauma.” While the focus is on biblical instances of anger and violence by virtue of war trauma, much of Lemos’s theoretical analysis is taken from extensive modern-world studies on anger and violence as characteristic of PTSD. For more on rage as a characteristic of PTSD, see Ulrich Orth and Elias Wieland, “Anger, Hostility, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Trauma-Exposed Adults: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 74, no. 4 (2006): 698–706: “Anger and hostility are substantially related to PTSD among samples who have experienced all possible types of traumatic events, not only in individuals with combat-related PTSD” (704). What is striking is that anger and hostility are common responses to all forms of trauma. This would suggest that anger and rage may have been present among all the cohorts of Nephite and Gadianton societies, not just the military cohorts. Lemos concludes her study with the following: “While it is difficult to know how ancient psychologies would have responded to such realities, whether they would have become habituated to them or what particular mechanisms they would have developed for coping with them, cross-cultural studies of trauma are suggestive in this regard. Those living in developing countries with high death rates and problems of social instability are no different from those in North America or Europe: Surviving mass killing and torture leaves psychological scars upon human beings. As with western populations, among these groups rage is one of the most common symptoms of lingering post-traumatic stress. This being the case, it is well worth considering not only whether the displays of anger, both human and divine, that one sees so often in the Hebrew Bible relate to trauma, but also how traumatic events might have influenced the societies and cultures of groups throughout the ancient world” (121). Such sentiments would hold true for students of the Book of Mormon as well.

[29] Collin Charles Russell, in “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Book of Mormon,” 2019 BYU Religious Education Student Symposium (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2019), 131–50, explores PTSD in the Book of Mormon generally but does not analyze the Zemnarihah narrative.

[30] Brant A. Gardner refers to the oath as “the Nephite foundational promise” in Second Witness, 5:269.

[31] Perhaps not surprisingly, prayer has been found to be a coping mechanism for PTSD. See Carol A. McMullen, “Processing Trauma in the Hebrew Bible,” Consensus 40, no. 2 (2019): 1–8, https://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol40/iss2/9: “A rocking basket on the water, playing a harp, singing psalms, strolling in a field, meditating on a mountain—all these are various calming techniques that would be relevant today in psychotherapy, along with some of the newer modalities in current practice such as psychological acupressure (EFT) or calming the neuroception of the vagus pathway (Porges, 2011). Hannah (1 Samuel 1) and various prophets provide examples of individuals able to use a spiritual connection to God though prayer (6).”

[32] See Brad E. Kelle, “Postwar Rituals of Return and Reintegration,” in Warfare, Ritual, and Symbol in Biblical and Modern Contexts, ed. Brad R. Kelle, Ames Frank Ritchel, and Jacob L. Wright (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014), 205–41, esp. 218–19, 229. See also McMullen, “Processing Trauma”: “The ultimate image of resilience for me is that of Moses and Miriam leading the Israelites in rousing songs of joy with tambourines or drums (Exodus 15), celebrating their dramatic escape from slavery and years of fear and trauma in Egypt after crossing the Sea of Reeds (often mistranslated as the Red Sea)” (6–7).

[33] See TDOT, 6:460, s.v. “yšʿ.”

[34] Recognizing of course that we do not have the original text, it is possible that the preposition to indicates that the direct quotation has ended, meaning that verse 32 could read, “Yea they did cry, ‘Hosanna’ to the Most High God,” a reading that would allow the speaker(s) to direct the cry directly to God. Alternatively, as some have suggested in referencing similar refrains in the New Testament, to, or l^e- in Hebrew, was originally l^ā or l^ō, a vocative specifically identifying the figure being addressed, thus providing a reading of “Hosanna, Oh Most High God,” or more literally “Please save us, Oh Most High God!” See Marvin H. Pope, “Hosanna: What It Really Means,” Bible Review 4, no. 2 (April 1988): 16–25.

[35] The designation “Most High” appears more commonly. Significantly, all instances appear in poetic passages or constructions, suggesting that designation had formal uses only. TDOT, 11:121–39, s.v. “ʿelyôn.”

[36] TDOT, 14:418–46, s.v. “šadday”: “Through this name, aspects of the unfathomable, alien, and threatening can be integrated into the concept of God” (445).

[37] John H. Walton, in The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2–3 and the Human Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 29–30, observes the following: “It now becomes clear that the starting condition in Genesis 1:2, the pre-creation situation that describes nonexistence, is a condition that is not lacking material. Rather, it is a situation that is lacking order and purpose . . . to bārāʾ [create] something brings it into existence by giving it a role and function in an ordered system . . . In this view, the result of bara is order. The roles and functions are established by separating and naming. These are the acts of creation.”

[38] This personified aspect of the creative process is often found in the poetic and prophetic material of the biblical text, which depicts the cosmos as a result of a battle between God and a monster(s) representing the unorganized material. In this tradition, the carcass of the monster-as-unorganized-material is used to construct the cosmos. This tradition is conspicuously missing from the Genesis version, though this most likely reflects the writer(s) or editor(s) desire to emphasize God as one who transcends all aspects of the cosmos, who is not constantly threatened by existential disorder. See Debra Scoggins Ballentine, The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); see also Mary K. Wakeman, God’s Battle with the Monster: A Study in Biblical Imagery (Leiden: Brill, 1973); Patrick D. Miller Jr., The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973); Millard Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in the Ancient Israel (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1980); and John Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1985). For both an excellent review of this imagery and material on the influence of this imagery beyond the Hebrew Bible, see Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). For a Book of Mormon use, see Daniel Belnap, “‘I Will Contend with Them That Contendeth with Thee’: The Divine Warrior in Jacob’s Speech of 2 Nephi 6–10,” Journal of Book of Mormon and Restoration Scripture 17, nos. 1–2 (2008): 20–39.

[39] See David Tsumura, Creation and Destruction: A Reappraisal of the Chaoskampf Theory in the Old Testament (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 33: “The author’s intention in describing the earth in its initial state as tohu wabohu was not to present the earth as ‘the terrible, eerie, deserted wilderness’ but to introduce the earth as being ‘not yet’ normal. . . . This interpretation of tohu wabohu (lit. ‘desert-like and empty’) as describing a bare state, a ‘desolate and uninhabited’ state, of the earth fits the literary structure of the entire chapter.” See also Seth D. Postell, Adam as Israel: Genesis 1–3 as the Introduction to the Torah and Tanakh (Cambridge, MA: James Clarke and Co., 2012), 97: “A confirmation that Gen 1:2 anticipates redemptive themes, such as the crossing of the Red Sea, is found in Deuteronomy 32, a song about the “last days.” There a cluster of terms from the Creation account—a cluster appearing nowhere else in the entire Hebrew Bible—describes Israel’s redemption using the same terms: “He found him in a desert land and in an uninhabitable (tohu) howling wasteland, he surrounded him, he attentively considered him, he protected him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, brooding (yarakhef) over its chicks, he carries him upon his pinions (Deut. 32:10–11).”

[40] See Shemaryahu Talmon, “The ‘Desert Motif’ in the Bible and the Qumran Literature,” Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations, ed. A. Altmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 31–63; see also John B. Geyer, “Desolation and Cosmos,” Vetus Testamentum 49, no. 1 (1999): 49–64; and Robert Barry Leal, “Negativity towards Wilderness in the Biblical Record,” Ecotheology 10, no. 3 (2005): 364–81. Though Talmon and Geyer depict the wilderness in a primarily negative light, others have emphasized the liminal, undefined, ambiguous nature of the wilderness in terms of its ritual potentiality for transformation. See Laura Feldt, “Wilderness and Hebrew Bible Religion—Fertility, Apostasy, and Religious Transformation in the Pentateuch,” in Wilderness in Mythology and Religion: Approaching Religious Spatialities, Cosmologies, and Ideas of Wild Nature, ed. Laura Feldt (Boston: De Gruyter, 2012): 55–94. Interestingly, while this may work in biblical studies, in light of the theophanic narratives that take place in the wilderness, in the Book of Mormon no such acts of transformation take place in the wilderness.

[41] Leal, “Negativity towards Wilderness in the Biblical Record,” 370–71: “In Deut. 32.10, for example, the desert is described as ‘howling wilderness waste’, in which there is neither order nor law. From this perspective the wilderness period of the Israelites comes to be associated with disorder and rebellion, evils from which the nation is to be delivered through the Law and through entry into the order and rest of the Promised Land. The fact that the Law was delivered during such a period of disorder and rebellion does not so much privilege the wilderness sojourn as highlight the necessity of imposing order on the people caught in its confines. The disorder and chaos­­­­ of the people on the one hand and of the wilderness on the other hand come to reflect each other in opposing mirrors.”

[42] The similarities between the third declaration and the immediate events that took place with Christ’s arrival are striking, including the explicit identification by Christ himself as the “God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth” (3 Nephi 11:14) and the Hosanna cry, “Blessed be the name of the Most High God” (v. 17). That this follows the physical disruption associated with Christ’s death may further indicate the function this particular declaration has in terms of cosmological realignment.