"Snatched" and "Harrowed"

One of the reasons I am drawn in by Alma's account, is due to the descriptive, visual words he uses. One word I especially like comes from Mosiah 27:29--"My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more." Snatched is a very unique verb and I was intrigued about the origins of this would and why Alma would put it into his account. I looked up "snatched" on the interlineal Bible and found it was not in the OT or NT, which was a little surprising. I then looked up the word DELIVERED in the OT Hebrew (there are different roots to this word, so I looked up one that spoke about being delivered "from" something.) When I found this root, low and behold, the very first word that came up under the definition of the ancient hebrew word {delivered} was indeed "snatched". This ties nicely into our concept of bondage and deliverance, and that Christ, through the power of the atonement is the person who "snatches" us from the clutches of sin.

The second word study comes from a blog I share conversations on. The following story comes from a blogger who beautifully explains  through experience the phrase "harrowed up" found in Alma 36:12 [But I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins.]

"My grandfather and uncle had a farm together in Southern Idaho (volcanic rock country), and my brothers, my cousins, and I used to work there as kids in the summer. We were assigned one hot July to “pick rocks”. That meant my uncle had plowed up some previously unused pasture land for planting, and we had to go through the plowed field with a flatbed trailer behind a tractor, and pick up all the rocks that the plow had turned up. It was hot, dirty, sweaty work, with lots of smashed fingers and scraped hands. It took us several days to get all through the field, and we had hauled probably five or six trailer loads of rock off to the rock pile. Just as we were getting through with the field, and had gotten all the rocks that we could see, we heard my grandfather come into the field with the disc harrow behind his tractor. Think of some two or three rows of 18 inch round metal plates each, dropped into the plowed earth. As soon as my grandfather dropped the harrow, we began to hear all sorts of clanking and ringing sounds, and realized that the harrow was turning up lots of rocks that were still hidden in the dirt that the plow had not turned up.

We went back for two more days, and now the dirt was fine powder, dust getting into our eyes, mouths, down the necks of our shirts, into our shoes. The work after the harrow was even more unpleasant than after the plowing.

Later, reading the Book of Mormon and its several references to harrow or being harrowed up, has helped me to understand. We would have been happy to quit after the first pass, leaving many rocks still uncovered and not dealt with. But the harrow uncovered all the hidden incompleteness of our work. That’s why for me, this is such a great symbolic use of harrow for repentance. All of the unseen and undealt with issues will eventually be uncovered, and have to be addressed. Harrowed up is not a distant reality for me, either figuratively or in reality."

For a better picture of a harrow of the type I remember, go here: http://www.bwimp.com/products_item_disk_offset_3point_wheelharrow.php

How do these word studies help you gain greater meaning and insight into Alma's account, and a greater testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon?? Please comment!