As you may have noticed, Lehi's two eldest sons, Laman and Lemuel, were never happy about leaving Jerusalem. The family had been rich, and now they were living like nomads in the desert. Their father was always asking them to do things that they thought were ridiculous, like going back for brass plates and relatives. Worst of all, their father kept deferring to their youngest brother, Nephi and encouraging him to take over. That resentment often boiled over in violence toward Nephi and even toward the quiet Sam who always took Nephi's side.
They also plotted against their father, Lehi. They never accepted him as a prophet and were, in fact, what some people today would classify as go-to-church-on-holidays- only type religionists. They did not take God seriously. Because they were religiously blind, they never understood that Jerusalem had, in fact, been destroyed not many years after they left it and, if they had not left it, they would have been in worse shape than in the desert: they would have been dead or imprisoned in Babylon. They went to their graves believing that they should have stayed rich in Jerusalem and that the leadership of the family should have passed to Laman, not Nephi.
They murmured throughout the sojourn in Arabia, attacking Nephi physically as well as verbally at every moment. They tried to kill him on more than one occasion and were kept from doing so on some such occasions by circumstances and the Lord.
On the trip across the ocean, they tied Nephi to the mast and would have killed him had not a storm arose that frightened them into letting him go. Only when they had released Nephi did the Liahona work again and the storm subsided.
While their father was alive, he was sometimes able to keep his sons "in line" so to speak. But as he grew older, the rebellion became more and more deliberate and open. Ishmael's sons sided with Laman and added their complaints to the general dissension.
Zoram, Sam, and the younger boys, Jacob and Joseph remained faithful to Nephi.
Not long after arriving in their land of promise. Lehi and Sariah died. When that happened, any restraints the older brothers felt disappeared. Nephi and the members of the family who followed him had to flee inland and northward to preserve their lives. These people began to call themselves Nephites.
The men who stayed with Laman became known as the Lamanites. They apparently intermarried with indigenous people of the area and quickly outnumbered the Nephites. From then on, there was animosity and even warfare between the two groups.
Text copyright July 2013 Gebara Education
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