What are "wisdom's paths?" Helaman 12:5

What are "wisdom's paths?" Helaman 12:5

Mormon inserts his own feelings as he abridges a record of people who lived hundreds of years before him. From his perspective and vantage point, he can see the unfurling of history and a lot of things are clear.

For one, it's clear to him how foolish, vain, evil, devilish, quick to do iniquity and slow to do good are the children of men. He sees that people listen and obey the words of the devil and long for vain things of the world that will not last. People become lifted up in pride, boastful, and sinful. They are slow to remember Jesus Christ, to listen to his teachings, and also slow to "walk in wisdom's paths."

What are these "paths"?

In the last 5 years a phrase has come up very often in church discourse: "the covenant path." Basically, our covenants start with baptism and continue from there. I think drawing a parallel between "wisdom's paths" and the "covenant path" is kind of obvious.

I think it's possible to be walking on "wisdom's paths" without being on the "covenant path", though. Many, many good people exist who have not made covenants with God, or maybe don't even recognize his existence at all. It's not like keeping basic commandments is only for covenant-makers. Actually, a huuuuge amount of the commandments, especially those pertaining to our temporal well-being, have lots of empirical evidence backing them up. If you don't smoke, you're going to be blessed for keeping that commandment whether or not you believe it's a commandment. It's an area where the covenant path and wisdom's paths align.

I wonder if the covenant path ever strays from "wisdom's paths." I think it's possible, especially when we're asked to do what seems like crazy, ludicrous things. You know, like Abraham sacrificing Isaac on an altar type things. But that's for another day.