7 And Ammon said: I will go and inquire of the Lord, and if he say unto us, go down unto our brethren, will ye go? 8 And the king said unto him: Yea, if the Lord saith unto us go, we will go down unto our brethren, and we will be their slaves until we repair unto them the many murders and sins which we have committed against them. Ammon could have said taking them on I, “oh, just come and get out of here! They won’t kill you, for I will tell them that you are changed people! Let’s just get out of here!” One would think that this would be the normal reaction to the situation. One would think that these Lamanites who has been converted to the Lord would simply want to flee out of the land and go anywhere, as long as their lives were preserved. But for some reason I do not understand they did not want to run. Perhaps Ammon sensed this in the king, and perhaps that’s why he just simply did not encourage him to run and get out of the land. Because previously they had the opportunity to do that, and did not take advantage of the opportunity to simply flee from their enemies. Instead, Ammon offered these inspired words, that he would inquire of the Lord and if he did and if the Lord said yes, would he go? The king, being the honorable and noble man that he was, said that only under those circumstances would he go – if the Lord said yes. Even so, there were conditions upon his willingness to flee, and that was that they simply would not allow themselves to be rescued by the Nephites after all they had done to murder them and commit awful sins against them. They would only do it on condition that they would be slaves to the Nephites to make restitution for all that they have done unto them. Once again, I do not understand the reasoning behind these people not choosing to run for their lives. Perhaps it was a matter of honor among their people. Even though they had humbles themselves to the dust in repentance of their sins, they apparently retained their cultural honor.
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