“That Which They Most Desired”: The Waters of Mormon, Baptism, the Love of God, and the Bitter Fountain

Paronomasia in the Hebrew text of Exodus creates links between the name Miriam (Mary) and the “waters” (mayim) of the Re[e]d Sea from which Israel is “pulled” and the nearby “bitter” waters of Marah. Nephi sees Mary associated with the “love of God,” and thus to “the fountain of living waters” vis-à-vis “the fountain of filthy water”. Mormon was named after “the land of Mormon”. He associates his given name with “waters,” and with good “desires” and “love.” Mormon’s accounts of the baptisms of Alma the Elder’s people, Limhi’s people, the people at Sidom, and a few repentant Nephites who responded to Samuel the Lamanite’s preaching, anticipate Jesus’s eventual reestablishment of the church, the baptism of his disciples, and their reception of the Holy Ghost — “that which they most desired.” Desire serves as a key term that links all of these baptismal scenes. The name Mormon (“desire is enduring”) embraces the whole cloud of these associations.