DESERET

Jaredite Noun

“Honey-bee” (Ether 2:3)

The Book of Mormon supplies its own meaning for this word. Since the Jaredite relationship with known languages has not been well established, no further comment is possible.

If EGYPTIAN may be appealed to, dšr.t, “red (land),” the name of Upper EGYPT, of which the symbol was the bee, and the king’s crown (the dšr.t-crown) was an elongated beehive shape (and peasant houses were similarly shaped) (HWN, “There were Jaredites III,” Improvement Era, April 1965). Also, dsrt = “archaic and ritual designation of the bee was ‘DESERET’, a ‘word of power’, too sacred to be entrusted to the vulgar.” (Nibley, World of the Jaredites, p. 187).

Sjodahl, Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, p.11 : Hebrew, asher = “happiness, blessedness;” and ashur = “one that is happy.”

See also Deseret Variant