1 Nephi 10:4 | Raise Up

Last updated on: January 17, 2024 at 7:42 am by Delisa Hargrove

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1 Nephi 10:4 | Raise Up 2024-01-17T07:42:03-10:00 Delisa Hargrove

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As I’ve begun reading the Book of Mormon again this year, I decided to pause on verses that I usually gloss over while reading — verses that seem really obvious and plain — to see what new insight I could glean from them. While reading 1 Nephi 10:4, I paused on the phrase raise up.

Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jews—even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world.

While thinking about various meanings of raise, I clicked to the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary to find some meanings of the word in Joseph Smith’s time that I might not know or realize. This exercise really breathes new life into a verse I’ve read many times. Obviously, not every definition applies, but applying definitions in a new way often expands my thoughts and understanding on the verse.

Here is the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary listing for raise. Do any of the definitions change your reading of 1 Nephi 10:4? How?

RAISE, verb transitive raze. [This word occurs often in the Gothic version of the gospels, Luke 3:8. John 6:40, 44. These verbs appear to be the Latin gradior, gressus, without the prefix. Latin to go to walk, to pass.]

1. To lift; to take up; to heave; to lift from a low or reclining posture; as, to raise a stone or weight; to raise the body in bed.

The angel smote Peter on the side and raised him up. Acts 12:7.

2. To set upright; as, to raise a mast.

3. To set up; to erect; to set on its foundations and put together; as, to raise the frame of a house.

4. To build; as, to raise a city, a fort, a wall, etc.

I will raise forts against thee. Isaiah 29:3. Amos 9:11.

5. To rebuild.

They shall raise up the former desolations. Isaiah 61:4.

6. To form to some height by accumulation; as, to raise a heap of stones. Joshua 8:29.

7. To make; to produce; to amass; as, to raise a great estate out of small profits.

8. To enlarge; to amplify.

9. To exalt; to elevate in condition; as, to raise one from a low estate.

10. To exalt; to advance; to promote in rank or honor; as, to raise one to an office of distinction.

This gentleman came to be raised to great titles.

11. To enhance; to increase; as, to raise the value of coin; to raise the price of goods.

12. To increase in current value.

the plate pieces of eight were raised three pence in the piece.

13. To excite; to put in motion or action; as, to raise a tempest or tumult.

He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind. Psalms 107:1.

14. To excite to sedition, insurrection, war or tumult; to stir up. Acts 24:5.

AEneas then employs his pains in parts remote to raise the Tuscan swains.

15. To rouse; to awake; to stir up.

They shall not awake, not be raised out of their sleep. Job 14:12.

16. To increase in strength; to excite from languor or weakness. The pulse is raised by stimulants, sometimes by venesection.

17. To give beginning of importance to; to elevate into reputation; as, to raise a family.

18. To bring into being.

God vouchsafes to raise another word for him.

19. To bring from a state of death to life.

He was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification. Romans 4:24. 1 Corinthians 15:15.

20. To call into view from the state of separate spirits; as, to raise a spirit by spells and incantations.

21. To invent and propagate; to originate; to occasion; as, to raise a report or story.

22. To set up; to excite; to begin by loud utterance; as, to raise a shout or cry.

23. To utter loudly; to begin to sound or clamor. He raised his voice against the measures of administration.

24. To utter with more strength or elevation; to swell. Let the speaker raise his voice.

25. To collect; to obtain; to bring into a sum or fund. Government raises money by taxes, excise and imposts. Private persons and companies raise money for their enterprises.

26. To levy; to collect; to bring into service; as, to raise troops; to raise an army.

27. To give rise to.

28. To cause to grow; to procure to be produced, bred or propagated; as, to raise wheat, barley, hops, etc.; to raise horses, oxen or sheep.

[The English now use grow in regard to crops; as, to grow wheat. This verb intransitive has never been used in New England in a transitive sense, until recently some persons have adopted it from the English books. We always use raise but in New England it is never applied to the breeding of the human race, as it is in the southern states.]

29. To cause to swell, heave and become light; as, to raise dough or paste by yeast or leaven.

Miss Liddy can dance a jig and raise paste.

30. To excite; to animate with fresh vigor; as, to raise the spirits or courage.

31. To ordain; to appoint; or to call to and prepare; to furnish with gifts and qualification suited to a purpose; a Scriptural sense.

I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren. Deuteronomy 18:15.

For this cause have I raised thee up, to show in thee my power. Exodus 9:16. Judges 2:16.

32. To keep in remembrance. Ruth 4:5.

33. To cause to exist by propagation. Matthew 22:24.

34. To incite; to prompt. Ezra 1:5.

35. To increase in intensity or strength; as, to raise the heat of a furnace.

36. In seamen’s language, to elevate, as an object by a gradual approach to it; to bring to be seen at a greater angle; opposed to laying; as, to raise the land; to raise a point.

To raise a purchase, in seamen’s language, is to dispose instruments or machines in such a manner as to exert any mechanical force required.

To raise a siege, is to remove a besieging army and relinquish an attempt to take the place by that mode of attack, or to cause the attempt to be relinquished.