Mosiah 16

Mosiah 16:3 That Old Serpent:

See the commentary (Andrew Skinner) on Helaman 8:14

Mosiah 16:7 That the Grave Should Have No Victory, and That Death Should Have No Sting:

In Mosiah 16:7 Abinadi says the following:

And if Christ had not risen from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory, and that death should have no sting, there could have been no resurrection.

Some have criticized these words because they are similar to the words of Paul in the book of 1 Corinthians 15:54-57:

. . . then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

However, Adam Clarke makes the following commentary in regards to this passage in 1 Corinthians:

These words are generally supposed to be taken from Hosea 13:14, where the Hebrew text is translated, “O death! I will be thy plagues; O grave! I will be thy destruction,” and which the Septuagint translates very nearly as the Apostle Paul, “O death, where is thy revenge, or judicial process? O grave, where is thy sting?

The Septuagint, probably by mistake or corruption of copyists, have “revenge or a judicial process” for “victory.” This is a mistake which the similarity of the words, both in letters and sound, might readily produce. . . . It may also be remarked that almost all the Manuscripts, versions, and many of the [writings of the] fathers interchange the two members of this sentence as they appear in the Septuagint, attributing victory to death; and the sting to the grave. ¹

The reader should also note the similarity of Abinadi’s words to Isaiah 25:8, “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.”²

Mosiah 16:8 The Grave Hath No Victory, and the Sting of Death Is Swallowed up in Christ:

According to Rodney Turner, while critics claim that Abinadi’s reference to the grave’s “victory” and death’s “sting” (Mosiah 16:7-8) is an anachronism, they do not realize that the language of the scripture is the universal language of the Holy Spirit. It has been “spoken” by servants of God from eternity so as to bind all inspired scripture into one harmonious body of truth. Indeed, certain words and phrases constitute deliberate links in a revelatory chain. These links, when followed, lead to a deeper, more accurate understanding of a given doctrine or principle. The Apostle Paul also spoke with the tongue–or in the language–of the angels. (See 2 Nephi 32:2-3) That is why he, too, used the same moving expressions in testifying of the risen Lord. (See also Hosea 13:14.) ³

Mosiah 16:7-8 Death Should Have No Sting:

See the commentary on Moroni 10:8-17

Mosiah 16:9 He Is the Light and the Life of the World; Yea, a Light That Is Endless:

According to Bart J. Kowallis, there are perhaps 400 billion stars in just our own Milky Way Galaxy, with an estimated 300 billion planets that could support some type of life.⁴ The number of total galaxies is not known but has been estimated to be at least 100 billion, and in each galaxy, on average, there are 100 billion stars. This gives us a rough estimate of 10 billion trillion stars–or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars!⁵ Can the mind of man comprehend such numbers? It is certainly beyond my capabilities. But in attempting to understand these numbers, I think I begin to understand something about God. I begin to understand what he means when he says that his works are “innumerable . . . unto man” (Moses 1:35) and that his name is “Endless” (see also Mosiah 16:19) for he is “without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?”(Moses 1:3).⁶