Place of Nahom
Location: Yemen
Description: The Book of Mormon states in 1 Nephi 5:44-46: “And it came to pass that Ishmael died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom. And it came to pass that the daughters of Ishmael did mourn exceedingly, because of the loss of their father, and because of their afflictions in the wilderness; And they did murmur against my father, because that he had brought them out of the land of Jerusalem, saying, Our father is dead; yea, and we have wandered much in the wilderness, and we have suffered much affliction, hunger, thirst, and fatigue; and after all these sufferings, we must perish in the wilderness with hunger.”
Yemen has various places with modern day names that include an administrative district named “Nihm”, a cemetery called “Nehm”, and other places named “Jabal Naham”, “Furdat Naham”, and “Wadi Naham”. All of these locations are in close proximity to one another. Also in this area, at Bar’an temple (also known as the Arsh Bilqis temple), a team of archeologists uncovered multiple altars with the inscription “NHM”. Note that in the ancient Hebrew language, vowels are not written. Therefore, “NHM”, would be equivalent to “Naham”, “Nahm”, “Neham”, “Nehem”, “Nehhm”, “Nihm”, and possibly even “Nahom”. It is also interesting to note that the altars date to around 700 to 600 B.C., just prior to when Lehi’s family would’ve passed through the region. [39]
In the Book of Mormon, Lehi and his family traveled south after leaving Jerusalem. They would’ve traveled through Saudia Arabia and most likely modern day Yemen. Many scholars believe that the place of Nahom mentioned in the Book of Mormon was located in the vicinity of these modern day areas in Yemen.
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