Zoram and Sons

I really like the story about Zoram and his two sons Lehi and Aha in Alma 16.   Zoram was the “chief captain over the armies of the Nephites”, and he and his sons had a specific mission to get those who had been taken captive by the Lamanites and carried into the wilderness.  What was their first approach to the problem?  They went to the prophet and asked for guidance on where the Lord would have them “go into the wilderness in search of their brethren” (Alma 16:5).  Alma asked the Lord and received very specific direction: they were to go to the east of the river Sidon in the south wilderness and meet the Lamanites there.  Zoram and his sons followed the directions from the Lord and successfully took their brethren back, and “there was not one soul of them had been lost that were taken captive” (Alma 16:8).  This is the only mention of Zoram that we have in the Book of Mormon, but he left us an excellent example of how to seek and follow counsel from the Lord.  I do wonder what happened to him and to his sons.  This was in about 81 BC, and the next war with the Lamanites was about four years later and was mentioned in Alma 28.  It was a “tremendous battle” and many people died, and so it’s possible that Zoram was killed in this battle.  We do know that he was no longer leading the Nephites about three years later in 74 BC since that’s when Moroni was first mentioned as the chief captain over the Nephites (Alma 43:16).  I also have to wonder if the Lehi who was first mentioned in Alma 43:35 was not Zoram’s son.  He was a great Nephite leader throughout the long war in which Moroni was chief captain, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in the text to suggest that he couldn’t have been the same Lehi who helped saved the Nephite captives in Alma 16 (other than the fact that Mormon doesn’t tell us this was so).  In fact, it’s very interesting because when Lehi is introduced in Alma 43, it is in the context of fighting the Lamanites on the east of the river Sidon.  That’s exactly the description of where Zoram and his sons went originally: “on the east of the river Sidon” and so Lehi the son of Zoram would have known the area well (Alma 16:6).  I don’t think we can know for sure whether this was indeed the same Lehi, but either way, Zoram and his sons, as well as other later Nephite generals, gave us a great example of how to confront difficult challenges.