According to the

Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, which, according to Latter Day Saint theology, contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from 600 BC to AD 421 and during an interlude date ...

, Mosiah I () was a Nephite prophet who led the Nephites from the land of Nephi to the land of

Zarahemla According to the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Zarahemla () refers to a large city in the ancient Americas which is described in the Book of Mormon. Archaeologists and historians have not been able to archaeological ...

and was later appointed king. He was the father of

King Benjamin According to the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin, son of King Mosiah the first, was the second Nephite king to rule over Zarahemla. An account of his life and teachings are recorded in both the Words of Mormon and the Book of Mosiah. He was consid ...

and the first of two individuals in the

with the name Mosiah. His grandson,

Mosiah II According to the Book of Mormon, Mosiah II (), King Benjamin's son and Mosiah I's grandson, was king of the Nephite nation from about 124 BC to 91 BC. The Book of Mosiah is named after Mosiah II. Mosiah was also a prophet and is described by Ammo ...

was Benjamin's son and was king of the Nephite nation from about 124 BC to 91 BC.

Accounts

The history of Mosiah I is limited to

Amaleki According to the Book of Mormon, Amaleki () was a Nephite record keeper (ca 130 BC). He received the plates of Nephi from his father Abinadom, and penned 18 verses in the Book of Omni (Omni 1:12-30). He was the last person to write in the sma ...

's account in the

Book of Omni The Book of Omni () is one of the books that make up the Book of Mormon. The book contains only one chapter although it covers more than two centuries of Nephite history (from ''ca'' 323 BC to 130 BC, according to footnotes). Stewardship of the ...

. Following a period of "much war and contention between...the Nephites, and the Lamanites", Mosiah¹ was "warned of the Lord that he should flee out of the land of Nephi, and as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord should also depart out of the land with him, into the wilderness". The journey led them to the land of Zarahemla, inhabited by a

group of people In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties ...

who had come from Jerusalem at the "time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon". The two groups united and appointed Mosiah their king. Mosiah I also translated engravings found on a stone which gave an account of the

Jaredite The Jaredites () are one of four peoples (along with the Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites) that the Latter-day Saints believe settled in ancient America. The Book of Mormon (mainly its Book of Ether) describes the Jaredites as the descenda ...

s, another people who had previously inhabited the area.

Possible origin of the name

Hugh Nibley Hugh Winder Nibley (March 27, 1910 – February 24, 2005) was an American scholar and an apologist of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who was a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) for nearly 50 years. He was a ...

relates the name to a combination of the name

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...

with that of

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he posse ...

(Jehovah). Nibley, Hugh & Hummel, Sharman Bookwalter (ed.) ''Nibley's Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 1'' (2013), ASIN: B00GFY0GUO The

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

root ''msy'', "child of", has been considered as a possible etymology for the name Moses, arguably an abbreviation of a

theophoric name A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or God's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that deit ...

, as for example in Egyptian names like

Thutmose Thutmose (also rendered Thutmoses, Thutmosis, Tuthmose, Tutmosis, Thothmes, Tuthmosis, Thutmes, Djhutmose, Djehutymes, etc.) is an Anglicization of the Ancient Egyptian personal name ''dhwty-ms'', usually translated as "Born of the god Thoth". Th ...

s ( Thoth created him) and Ramesses ( Ra created him),Christopher B. Hays
''Hidden Riches: A Sourcebook for the Comparative Study of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East''
Presbyterian Publishing Corp, 2014 p. 116. with the god's name omitted. In the case of Mosiah, the inversion of the elements could yield the combination "son of Yah". The name is also similar to

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...

in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

, and the "-iah" suffix can be found in a number of Book of Mormon names such as

Amalickiah In the Book of Mormon, Amalickiah (; Ameleckiah as a frequent scribal variant in the original manuscript) was a Nephite leader of a movement to reestablish a king, specifically himself, as the king of the Nephites. When he failed to gain power ...

and

Sariah According to the Book of Mormon, Sariah () was the wife of Lehi, and the mother of Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi. The Book of Mormon also mentions Jacob, and Joseph, two additional sons born to Lehi after his departure from Jerusalem, but does ...

, as well as the Biblical names

Jeremiah Jeremiah, Modern: , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning " Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish ...

and

Zedekiah Zedekiah (), was the 20th and last king of Judah before the destruction of the kingdom by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. His birth name was Mattaniah/Mattanyahu ( he, מַתַּנְיָהוּ, ''Mattanyāhū'', "Gift of God"; el, Μαθθ ...

References

Book of Mormon people {{LDS-stub