LIB

LIB

Jaredite PN		1. King (Ether 1:17–18; 10:18–19, 29)
			2. Usurper (Ether 14:10–17)

No etymology is suggested.

If Semitic languages may be used to explain the Jaredite onomasticon, then the common Semitic lbb (leb in the Hebrew), “heart, midst” would suggest a beginning point 
(RFS).

Urrutia suggests that this may be a variant of Levi (q.v.), another Jaredite name which he says is perhaps related to Hebrew lābīʾ, “lion,” believing that a number of Jaredite 
names are related to the lion or leopard (NPSEHA 150.0 [Aug. 1982]). See Levi.

Untenable is the suggestion of “whiteness” in Reynolds, Commentary on the Book of Mormon, VI, p. 46. In the Semitic languages “white” and its variations are formed around 
the root lbn, where all three radicals are phonemic; therefore, the n cannot be arbitrarily dropped to obtain “Lib.”

Because in many languages the liquid consonants, r and l interchange or are not distinguished, and because p is the unvoiced counterpart of b,73 cf. Book of Mormon 
Riplakish, Ripliancum, Riplah (RFS).


73 The best example of this is the fact that “paper” and “Bible” can both be traced back to the Late Bronze Age Phoenician city Byblos, where papyrus was first manufactured/
merchandized.