Zeezrom and Nephite Money

Like I’m sure many others, I’ve often wondered what the purpose of including verses 5-19 in Alma 11.  One reason is clearly to show that the six onties of silver offered to Amulek by Zeezrom was a large sum of money, but that fact could have been stated without the drawn out description of all the different values of gold and silver.  I think a common reaction to these verses giving the details about Nephite money is, “This has no spiritual value—I’ll skip over this part.”  Perhaps that’s actually the whole point.  Alma 11:20 tells us that these lawyers’ “sole purpose” was “to get gain” and that they stirred up wickedness in order “that they might have more employ, that they might get more money.”  They were constantly focused on money, just like so many of us in our day, and perhaps the reason Mormon included these comments about the fine details of the Nephite monetary system was to emphasize just how obsessed they had become with money.  And so if we do say to ourselves, “This has no spiritual value,” then we might also pause for a second and say, “Wait, but I’m just as focused on money and the pursuit of things in my own life—and that too has no spiritual value.”  Amulek accuses Zeezrom, “Thou knowest that there is a God, but thou lovest that lucre more than him” and we might question whether the same holds true in our own life (Alma 11:24).  To his credit, Zeezrom was able to put behind him the things of the world, repent of his sins, and “he began from that time forth to preach unto the people” (Alma 15:12).  The record doesn’t tell us specifically, but given that Ammonihah was destroyed it’s almost certain that he lost all of his worldly wealth as he focused on preaching the gospel.  This then leaves us to wonder whether we could and would do the same for the gospel’s sake.