1 Ne 17:12 the
Lord had not suffered that we should make much fire
Most scholars suggest that the family
needed to remain secret so that they would not fall prey to maurading bands of
local Arabs.
Hugh Nibley
“One
illuminating ‘aside’ by Nephi explains everything. It was only after they
reached the seashore, he says, that his people were able to make fires without
danger…That tells all. ‘I well remember,’ writes Bertram Thomas, ‘taking part
in a discussion upon the unhealthfulness (danger) of campfires by night; we
discontinued them forthwith in spite of the bitter cold.’ Major Cheesman’s
guide would not even let him light a tiny lamp in order to jot down star
readings, and they never dared build a fire on the open plain where it ‘would
attract the attention of a prowling raiding party over long distances and
invite a night attack.’ Once in a while in a favorably sheltered depression ‘we
dared to build a fire that could not be seen from a high spot,’ writes Raswin.
That is, fires are not absolutely out of the question, but rare and risky—not much
fire, was Lehi’s rule. And fires in the daytime are almost as risky as a night:
Palgrave tells how his party were forced, ‘lest the smoke of our fire should
give notice to some distant rover, to content ourselves with dry dates,’
instead of cooked food.
“…All
this bears out the conviction, supported both by modern experience and the
evidence of archaeology, that Lehi was moving through a dangerous world.” (Lehi
in the Desert and The World of the Jaredites, pp. 72-3)