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This is an important distinction; thanks for pointing it out. Better than the idea that the Americas are the main or special promised land – yes, for the Nephites and other groups led there, they were. But as you say, the covenant is with each of us, and each group (or nation) of Saints/covenant-makers. I really appreciate this perspective. The Lord is able to make any land (or other circumstance we find ourselves in) a land of promise to us – if we keep His covenant.
A minor point is that covenant* occurs 153 times in the (critical) text. One instance found in the current Latter-day Saint version at 2 Nephi 1:5 — “yea the Lord hath [concecrated 0 | covenanted 1AB..] this land” — is the result of an error introduced by Oliver Cowdery as he copied from O to P. See ATV.
The side by side comparison is very enlightening, thank you.
An adjacent topic of study could be the covenant and promises associated with the Brother of Jared surrounding the Jaredite Exodus – found in the final verses of Ether 1. This covenant predates the Abrahamic covenant, I believe. Moroni’s commentary on the promises (first part of Chapter 2) is interesting considering his unique historical perspective.
One of the ways in which this study is important is that it focuses on the covenant rather than the place. There is a covenant between God had his chosen people. Those people have a promised land. The land might be one of the covenants, but it does not subsume them. The land will not fail to be righteous, the people might.
This becomes even more important as we read the Book of Mormon. While we do see the words translated as “promised land” every so often, more often it is a “land of promise.” In the light of the covenants between God and his people, the land becomes a place where the people may keep the covenants, but if they move to a new place, they keep the same covenant.
When Nephi sees his vision of the future as part of seeing his father’s dream, he sees Gentiles who come to the New World. They inherit the promise of the land. While they are righteous, they may prosper. The vision doesn’t distinguish among the various nations who came, and doesn’t need to.
It isn’t the place, it is the covenant. The covenant links God and people, and not God and place.
In the OT land, specific land is absolutely critical to what God promises- the place is essential to the covenant – is that true for the BOM as a non – member I ask!
Frank, it is an assumption that people make based on what we know of the Old Testament. The question would be whether or not the promises were specific to place in the Book of Mormon. They were not. The Nephites were physically uprooted from their homeland at least three times, but they continued to believe that the promise went with them, even when they were not in their original land. When they left what was called the land of Nephi, and later the land of First Inheritance, they entered a land already occupied by another people (similar to Israel entering the land of Canaanites). There was no mandated war of extinction. They joined forces. They did not have an exclusive land, but rather a land that had a promise. That covenant promise was to the people, not the specific location where they lived.
That fact should be comforting to all of us who desire God’s covenants. We can all live in a land of promise–because the covenant is with us, not where we happen to live.