Page:A dictionary of the Book of Mormon.pdf/167

Rh while they were traveling in the Arabian wilderness. He was a mighty man of God, and, apparently, next to Nephi, the greatest and most devoted of all the sons of Lehi. When the little colony divided after the death of their patriarch, Jacob, who was yet young, followed Nephi, and was ordained by him a priest to the people. Undoubtedly he received the higher priesthood, or he could not have acted in the rites of the lesser priesthood, he being of the tribe of Manasseh, and not of Levi. He magnified this calling with much zeal and prudence, and Nephi records, at considerable length, extracts from his teachings. When Nephi died, Jacob appears to have taken charge of the spiritual concerns of the people, and to have presided over the church; he also became the custodian of the sacred treasures. He received many revelations, and was blessed with the spirit of prophecy. So great was his faith that he could command, in the name of Jesus, and the trees, the mountains, and the waves of the sea obeyed his word. For all this, some of the Nephi tes of his day were not strong in the Lord, they gave way to the spirit of greed and lust, and had to be sharply reproved by the word of the Lord through Jacob. In his day also the first anti-Christ, Sherem, appeared, a type of many who came after. But this presumptuous impostor was stricken by the power of God, and paid the penalty of his folly with his life, and Jacob had reason to rejoice in the eradication of his heresies, and the return of the Nephites to sound doctrine. Jacob lived to a good old age. We have no account of the time or circumstances of his death, but before he passed away he gave the sacred records into the keeping of his son Enos.  JACOB. A Nephite apostate of the Zoramite sect. He joined the Lamanites in the war inaugurated by Amalickiah, and was placed in command of the city of Mulek, the most northern of the 