KnoWhy #136 - Why Did Alma Wish to Speak “with the Trump of God”? (Alma 29:1)

One of the most enduring lines in all of the Book of Mormon is Alma’s declaration, “O that I were an angel . . . that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God.” Interestingly, Alma may have written this trumpet imagery during a jubilee year. The jubilee was to be a time of great joy and jubilation, and indeed, Alma uses the word joy here exactly seven times, the archetypal sabbatical number. At the very point when the Nephites were to sound the “trumpet of the jubilee,” Alma longed to “speak with the trump of God.” Alma’s soul-stirring words express joyous love in ways that are fully appropriate to the jubilee occasion.