Lehi’s vision was figurative; each object he saw was an image or representation of something else. To understand the vision, the imagery must be identified. The imagery is given piecemeal throughout the next several chapters. Each symbol will be identified as it is mentioned in the text. The chart at the end of the chapter (Figure 3, p. 117) summarizes the imagery. The man in the white robe is never identified nor mentioned after verses five and six. He is obviously angelic. The dark and dreary waste is not identified either, but Lehi beheld Laman and Lemuel in it. He was also in that waste before he prayed. The context suggests it is where the light of truth or understanding is not found. The darkness was dispersed after Lehi sought the mercy of the Lord. Elder Marion D. Hanks has observed:
Only then did [Lehi] taste the inspiration, the soul-filling joy of the love of God. It is likely that all who have effectively served the Lord have had to travel “for the space of many hours in darkness.” The story of Joseph Smith is perhaps best known. As he knelt in prayer, seeking light and knowledge, he was “seized upon by some power” which overcame him. “Thick darkness” gathered around him, and it seemed to him for a time as if he were “doomed to sudden destruction.” But He fought and prayed, and after a time the darkness was dispelled, the light shone, and the magnificent visitation followed.
Lehi first sees a large and spacious field. He later sees a path that led “unto a large and spacious field, as if it had been a world” (v. 20). He does not say it is the same field, but it appears to be the same field in both scenes of the vision. The angel asked Nephi “the meaning of the tree of life which thy Father saw?” He said “it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.” The angel added: “Yea, and the most joyous to the soul” (1 Nephi 11:21–23). Nephi then beheld that it was the tree of life and “was a representation of the love of God” (1 Nephi 11:25). The fruit of the tree that Lehi said “was desirable to make one happy” (v. 10) was later described by Nephi to his brothers as the “most precious and most desirable above all other fruits; yea, and it is the greatest of all the gifts of God” (1 Nephi 15:36). With this imagery background, the continuing account of Lehi’s vision should be more easily understood and appreciated.