Chapter 19 - "...The Lamanites invade the land—King Noah suffers death by fire..."
This chapter shows the danger of putting your trust in man instead of God. The people trusted King Noah to lead them to safety...and when push came to shove, King Noah told the men to leave the women. This is not the ideal leader! We need to look outward to others, instead of being selfish...trusting that the Lord will help us where we lack. And instead of putting our trust in man, we must put our trust in the Lord.
19:5 - "...and when the king saw that he was about to overpower him, he fled and ran and got upon the tower which was near the temple..."
King Noah had been living in such a manner that Gideon was upset and wanted to kill him. It looks like there may have been two choices for King Noah...flee to the tower, or flee to the temple (considering that they were near each other). He chose to flee to the tower.
It's a bit of a stretch, but we are constantly in spiritual danger, and we should flee to the temple as often as possible to escape the natural world and go to the "real" world.
19:11-12 - "...the king commanded them that all the men should leave their wives and their children, and flee before the Lamanites. Now there were many that would not leave them, but had rather stay and perish with them..."
I think if I were in this situation, I would have stayed with my wife and children. It had to have been an intense situation...so intense that many of the men did leave their wives and children! It is a sad situation. I find it somewhat odd to send forth the daughters to pacify the Lamanites...that seems to me to be asking for trouble. I don't know if the Lamanites would have been open for talks, but I would definitely prefer that action.
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