Lehi and Nephi were born and raised in tumultuous times.  Lehi was born at about the time that 8-year-old Josiah became king over Judah.  Judah had just endured the bloody and wicked 55-year reign of Josiah’s grandfather, Manasseh, and the equally wicked

2-year reign of his father, Amon.  Josiah turned things around.  Judah enjoyed peace, prosperity, and a degree of righteousness during Josiah’s 31-year reign.

Josiah’s reign nearly exactly spanned Lehi’s early life.  During that time he became a merchant with Egyptian connections and learned the Egyptian language.  He began his family and became very wealthy during this period.  Nephi was probably about four years old when Josiah was killed during a battle with the Egyptians.

The Jews took Josiah’s 23-year-old son, Jehoahaz, and made him king.  Three months later Pharaoh-nechoh of Egypt conquered Judah, deposed Jehoahaz, carried him off to Egypt, and made Jehoahaz’s older brother king.  Twenty-five-year-old Jehoiakim assumed the throne and reigned for 11 years.  The first years of his reign were spent being a vassal to Pharaoh-nechoh, king of Egypt.  He paid tribute to Pharaoh by taxing the people of the land.  Lehi made a good income through his Egyptian connections and trade, but he was one of those who paid the heavy taxes.

Egypt’s hold over Judah was brief because Babylon was in ascendancy.  Nebuchadnezzar came with his army and subdued Judah.  Pharaoh retreated to Egypt, and “came not again any more out of his land.”  (2 Kings 24:7).  Jehoiakim then became servant to Nebuchadnezzar for three years.  Nebuchadnezzar put Judah under tribute to Babylon, made a collection of promising Jewish youth, and carried them off to Babylon.  Those youth included Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.  Those boys would have been the same age as Lehi’s sons.  Did Lehi and Sariah have to keep their sons out of sight during the time the Babylonian army occupied Jerusalem?  Lehi’s sons would have been in danger of being selected, also.

For three years Jehoiakim endured the Babylonian taxation and the humiliation of being subject to Babylon (2 Kings 24:1), and then he rebelled.  He died during this period, and his 18-year-old son, Jehoiachin, became king.

Nebuchadnezzar’s response to Judah’s rebellion was to send another army against Jerusalem.  Jehoiachin had been king for just three months when he surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar and was carried off to Babylon with all his household.  Nebuchadnezzar took a third son of Josiah, named him Zedekiah, and made him king over Judah.

Here the Biblical record becomes confused.  The 24^th chapter of 2 Kings says that Nebuchadnezzar carried off all the survivors of Jerusalem at this time, and left only “the poorer sort of the people of the land.”  (2 Kings 24:14).  That chapter is not in harmony with the account written in 2 Chronicles, chapter 36.  The account in Chronicles is the better account.  The destruction of Jerusalem and the carrying off of the people didn’t occur until the end of Zedekiah’s 11-year reign.

Nephi says that “It came to pass in the commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, (my father, Lehi, having dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days); and in that same year there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.”  (1 Ne. 1:4).

Concerning these prophets, the Bible says, “But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.”  (2 Chr. 36:16).

Few believed what the prophets said.  Lehi was an exception.  What the prophets said made sense.  He repented, was called to be a prophet himself, was abused by the people, left Jerusalem, and thus escaped Jerusalem’s prophesied doom.  Why the rest of the people were so blind and hardened is a mystery.  Because of the events that had taken place in Judah during the preceding dozen years (Nephi’s lifetime), it wouldn’t have required a prophet to foretell Jerusalem’s fate.

Zedekiah was the 5^th king that Judah had in Nephi’s young life.  In the 11 ½ years that preceded Zedekiah’s crowning, Judah had been invaded by Egypt, and placed under tribute.  Next came an invasion by Babylon, being placed under tribute to that empire, and having some of their choicest youth being carried off captive.  That was followed with invasions by “bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon.”  (2 Kings 24:2).  Nebuchadnezzar came back, carried off the king and his household, and gave the Jews a new king of his own choosing.  It was a period of constant invasions and war.

Nobody was doing right.  Zedekiah and the previous three kings “did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord” (2 Kings 23:32; 23:27; 24:9; 24:19), and the people did likewise.  Those who were powerful apparently had license to do whatever they liked, with no restraints.  Laban, for example, could threaten to kill innocent people, carry it out, and steal their property without fear of reprisals.  (1 Ne. 3:13-14; 3:25-26; 4:11).

Nephi’s short life in Jerusalem was a time of invasion, war, wickedness, and government instability.  There were danger signs all around that were plain to be read by anyone who would stop to contemplate them.  Lehi did so, and got his family out just in time.  Few others were that astute or spiritually attuned.  They stayed and were privileged to be participants in a year-and-a-half-long siege of Jerusalem when Nebuchadnezzar’s army returned.  The city was starved into submission, most people were killed, 10,000 were carried off captive to Babylon, the city’s walls were pulled down, and the temple and city’s palaces were burned.  (2 Kings 24 and 2 Chronicles 36).