A lesson that I was to teach paired up two passages in the Book of Mormon concerning the reasons that Lehi’s sons were commanded to return to Jerusalem to get the brass plates.

1 Nephi 3:19-20 says that it was to “...preserve...the language of our fathers,” and to “...preserve...the words...of all the holy prophets...”

1 Nephi 5:21 adds that it was to “...preserve the commandments of the Lord unto our children.”

The use of the word “preserve” in each of those instances was interesting to me.  As I pondered on that word it suddenly struck me that there was one other very important thing that would be preserved by Lehi’s sons going back to Jerusalem, and that was the plates themselves!

Had the brass plates been left in the possession of Laban, they would surely have been destroyed when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem 13 years later.  The records did not belong to Laban.  They belonged to the Lord.  He valued them and wanted them to be preserved.  Laban was merely the caretaker of the records, and an unrighteous one at that.  He could not safeguard them, so the Lord put them into hands that would care for and cherish them.  They were thus transported from one continent to another, and are today presumably still in the Americas awaiting the time when they’ll be revealed to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.