The discovery of this Chiasmus is attributed to John W. Welch (1987) "Chiasmus in Helaman 6:7-13," Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship: Vol. 7: No. 1, Article 4.

Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/insights/vol7/iss1/4

I added the simple alternate structures within the B) terms.

A) 7 And behold, there was peace in all the land,

B) a) insomuch that the Nephites did go into whatsoever part of the land they would,

b) whether among the Nephites or the Lamanites.

a') 8 And it came to pass that the Lamanites did also go whithersoever they would,

b’) whether it were among the Lamanites or among the Nephites;

and thus they did have free intercourse one with another,

to buy and to sell, and to get gain, according to their desire.

C) 9 And it came to pass that they became exceedingly rich, both the Lamanites and the Nephites;

D) and they did have an exceeding plenty of gold, and of silver, and of all manner of precious metals, both in the land south and in the land north.

E) 10 Now the land south

F) was called Lehi,

G) and the land north

H) was called Mulek,

I) which was after the son of Zedekiah;

I’) for the Lord

H’) did bring Mulek

G’) into the land north,

F’) and Lehi

E’) into the land south.

D’) 11 And behold, there was all manner of gold in both these lands, and of silver, and of precious ore of every kind;

C’) and there were also curious workmen, who did work all kinds of ore and did refine it; and thus they did become rich.

B’) a) 12 They did raise grain in abundance,

b) both in the north and in the south;

a’) and they did flourish exceedingly,

b’) both in the north and in the south.

And they did multiply and wax exceedingly strong in the land.

And they did raise many flocks and herds, yea, many fatlings.

13 Behold their women did toil and spin,

and did make all manner of cloth,

of fine-twined linen and cloth of every kind,

to clothe their nakedness.

A’) And thus the sixty and fourth year did pass away in peace.

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At the exact center (the pivot of the chiasm) in verse 10, the text mentions the name Zedekiah and parallels it directly with the word Lord.

Linguistic Significance: Just as divine names often appear at the center of biblical chiasms, at the very apex of this passage in Helaman 6, the words Zedekiah and Lord stand parallel to each other. The parallelism between these two names is intriguing not only because Zedekiah was the king and adoptive royal son of Yahweh, the Lord, but also because the Hebrew word for Lord (YHWH) constitutes the final syllable, or theophoric suffix, –yah, at the end of the name Zedekiah. Thus, the central chiastic structure in Helaman 6:10 actually would have worked better and would have been more obvious in Hebrew (or its related Nephite dialect) than in the English translation. Joseph Smith would have had no way of consciously concocting this parallelism on his own.

Explaining the names and divine origin story of the “land north” and the “land south,” fulfills Lehi’s prophecy given in 2 Nephi 1:6: “there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord.” Reaffirming the fulfillment of prophecy is an especially fitting function for the center of a lengthy history-oriented chiasm.

The poetic structure in Helaman 6:7–11 E)-I) adheres to several of the most common criteria developed for chiastic analysis. It has distinct boundary points, a powerful central message, good symmetry, a lack of random repetition, and strong corresponding elements (involving unique words, phrases, clusters, and themes). It certainly doesn’t hurt that the correspondence between the central elements (I/I’) requires an understanding of the Hebrew meaning behind the name Zedekiah, pointing to the text’s Israelite literary background.