There Failed Not Ought

Near the end of the book of Joshua, after a series of chapters describing the inheritances of each tribe, the author steps back to survey what we can learn from the story. The overarching message is that God fulfilled His promises. He did what He said He would do.

And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.
And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand.
There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.

Joshua 21:43-45

There is some tension between this definitive conclusion and the text that precedes it. As each tribe conquers their new land, some parts of the job appear to be left undone. For example, the Jubusites remained in Jerusalem (Joshua 15:63) and the Canaanites in Gezer remained among the Ephraimites (Joshua 16:10). But the Israelites had settled in the land God had promised them, and they were not in danger from their enemies. What a remarkable contrast to the doom and gloom predicted by ten of the twelve spies, who reported, “We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. … We were in our own sight as grasshoppers” (Numbers 13:31, 33). Lest we miss the miracle among the details, the author spells it out.

Mormon performs a similar function. Multiple times in his compilation of the history of his people, he inserts editorial notes, often beginning with the phrase “and thus we see.” Here is an example of such a note, drawing a similar conclusion to the author of Joshua:

And thus we see how merciful and just are all the dealings of the Lord, to the fulfilling of all his words unto the children of men; yea, we can behold that his words are verified, even at this time.

Alma 50:19

What was “this time?” Not the end of the great war between the Nephites and the Lamanites, but a temporary lull near its beginning. As Mormon describes these events, he characterizes the Nephites as happier than they had ever been, even though he knows that difficult times lie ahead. We can acknowledge the fulfillment of God’s promises even when challenges and trials remain.

President Henry B. Eyring has characterized Mormon’s phrase “thus we see” as generous and inclusive. He observed that most of the time, Mormon’s observations aren’t immediately obvious from the facts that precede them, but that Mormon is inviting us to see things which we might not have seen on our own.

What went before does not prove the conclusion in the way the world looks for evidence or logic. What went before is what someone with spiritual sight will observe and then say, “Oh, yes, now I see that.” And then follows, after the “thus we see,” what that someone would see. When I understood that, I realized how gracious the word we is in that phrase “and thus we see.” The writer was saying, “I include you with me among those who see.”

Henry B. Eyring, “‘And Thus We See’: Helping a Student in a Moment of Doubt,” address to religious educators, Temple Square Assembly Hall, Salt Lake City, 5 February 1993; included in the book To Draw Closer to God: a Collection of Discourses

In a later passage Mormon invites the reader to do some work to verify his conclusion. After describing a series of natural disasters which coincided with the death of Jesus Christ, Mormon writes:

Whoso readeth, let him understand; he that hath the scriptures, let him search them, and see and behold if all these deaths and destructions by fire, and by smoke, and by tempests, and by whirlwinds, and by the opening of the earth to receive them, and all these things are not unto the fulfilling of the prophecies of many of the holy prophets.

3 Nephi 10:14

And at the end of the book, Mormon’s son, Moroni, extends an even more open-ended invitation:

I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

Moroni 10:3

God keeps His promises. We see evidence for this statement throughout the scriptures and in our lives. But sometimes, like the author of Joshua and like Mormon, we need to take a step back and acknowledge how overwhelming that evidence really is.

Today, I will ponder the examples of God’s reliability in my life and in the scriptures. I will take confidence in the weight of evidence that He is with me and will keep His promises.