“It was a sacred moment and a breathlessly exciting one. After years of overland travel they were now actually going to brave the timeless challenge of the seas. It was their final great test of faith, and they were ready for the test. For reasons not apparent to one reared in a western tradition they seem to have sought expression for the dignity and solemnity of the occasion by forming a ceremonial procession and filing aboard their ship according to the ancient patriarchal order. Nephi’s allusion to the detail marks the outcropping of a Hebrew custom at a point in the narrative where we least expected it” (Ricks, Book of Mormon Commentary, 217).