In 605 BC, as Lehi began prophesying, the Assyrians had conquered Egypt. They may have over-stretched themselves, spreading their forces thin all the way down to Egypt. The Assyrians were now vulnerable on their east flank, and Babylon decided to move in and take over. These circumstances then allowed Babylon the staging area to move south, down into Jerusalem. For good reason, Lehi and many other prophets warned, "we are next."
The fall of Jerusalem is generally thought to have happened in 597. What eventually happened to Babylon? The victorious Babylonians soon got fat and lazy with all of their conquests, and another group, the Persians (up in the mountains in Iran), decided they wanted to live down where the water flowed nice and easy in the Euphrates Valley. The Persians entered the Mesopotamian area from the east and destroyed the Babylonians. Then, they kept advancing. Within the following ten years, the Persians went all the way into Egypt. Alexander the Great (the Greeks) would eventually come in from the west, conquer the Persians and finish it all off, conquering everything.
Can you imagine what the international political climate was like at this time, with whole civilizations vanishing, great cities being destroyed, and Lehi experiencing it? Is there anything we can learn from understanding Lehi’s prophecy in retrospect? For one thing, we can learn lessons about the vulnerability of civilizations that think they are secure, mighty, and protected when, in reality, the more secure you feel, you may be overlooking essential things that will lead to your own demise.
In Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, Bruce Satterfield wrote an excellent chapter asking the question, "Why was Jerusalem destroyed?" What can we learn from the ancient writings of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel? What were the problems of their world? Their problems were not exactly the same as our problems, but our problems are often the same types as theirs. Brother Satterfield challenges us to look at the progression of what went wrong in Jerusalem in Lehi’s day and in the world that rejected him, because they are the problems we must watch out for today:
First, Jeremiah complained that the people repeatedly sinned. They would sin and repent and then sin again—doing the same thing over and over again, continually returning to their old problems and wrongdoing. As you do this, Jeremiah says, it becomes harder and harder each time to repent. So, lesson number one is: repent completely and turn away from wrongdoing.
Second, you can read in these texts that as it became harder for the people in Jerusalem to repent, they began rationalizing their sins, explaining that it was not such a big problem after all, for "God certainly would not destroy them—they were His people." Rationalizing, making excuses, over-confidence—does that sound like something that might be happening in the world today as well? It is a pattern. The more things change, the more the world really stays the same, does it not?
Third, rationalization eventually led the people to a rebellious and stubborn approach toward righteousness. We have, in the Book of Mormon, plenty of places where people like King Benjamin talk about those who come out in open rebellion against God. This is the third step in this process of decline. This type of rebellion leads to what Brother Satterfield calls a "seared conscience," where you become so calloused to what is going on, that even in your rebellion, you lose the feeling that you are rebelling. You become hard and insensitive. In this state, if a previous version of you looked at your now-calloused self, that past version would recognize the change for the worse. In this process, you become so calloused that you lose a sense of conscience and, as a part of that, you are no longer ashamed. Shame becomes something that is not tolerated in your life or in your world. But once all shame or regret is gone, how can you possibly turn yourself around? This is when the prophets enter. Their ministry is to tell the people that it is urgent and that they must reverse their course.
Fourth, the final step that happened over and over again in Jerusalem was the rejection of the prophets. Final warnings were given over and over again, and not only were the messages rejected, but the prophets themselves were killed or were driven out, as was Lehi. Having rejected the prophets, people continued in their sinful ways and the consequences followed.
This was Lehi’s world—a world he lived in and understood from revelation and dreams. He saw up close how this downward spiral of pride and wrongdoing was the undoing of a great city of promise, a place that had been the home of righteous prophets and people of God. Can we learn something from that?
In this world setting, Lehi went out among the people, preaching repentance. How was his message received? With anger. The Jews were furious with Lehi because he was not saying, "All is well." He was saying, "Jerusalem is going to get destroyed. I have seen it. You are a wicked people." Just like the people did with Jeremiah, the people raged against Lehi. So much so that his life was at risk.
Satterfield, Bruce. "The Divine Justification for the Babylonian Destruction of Jerusalem." In Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, edited by John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely and Jo Ann H. Seely, 561–594. Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2004.