Nephi’s description of the fate of the wicked continues to emphasize separation rather than punishment. Nephi is emphasizing the benefits of Yahweh’s gifts and therefore notes the condition of the soul separated from Yahweh.
Even though we have the later Christian designation of hell, characterized as “awful,” we still find that Nephi’s description is more Hebrew than Christian. While it is our only attestation of this particular construction of ideas, Nephi lived in a time when these ideas were apparently in transition. Laman and Lemuel’s questions may legitimately stem from this background of ambiguity and they would therefore need Nephi’s clarification how these symbols operated in how Lehi and Nephi understood the relationship of humankind to Yahweh. It is also important to note that Nephi is not simply discussing the relationship of the dead to Yahweh, but also that of the living. This gulf may occur among the living as well as the dead. The difference lies in the final judgment.
Variant: Where we have “the wicked are rejected from the righteous,” the original manuscript has the word “seperated” [sic]. According to Skousen, Oliver apparently misread it as “the visually similar rejected” Therefore the original intent was to tell us that the “wicked are separated from the righteous, and also from that tree of life.… ”
Text: This is a chapter end in the 1830 edition, even though verses 1–6 of the next chapter appear to continue the same narrative. Perhaps Nephi put a break between this conclusion to his discourse and the beginning of its aftermath. Still, he seems to have also seen continuity across the chapter break, as 1 Nephi 16:6 is followed with the indication that such things happened while his father dwelt “in a tent,” a phrase that may mark larger narrative units. (See the commentary accompanying 1 Nephi 2:15.)