At this point the two families have not begun to travel beyond the valley of Lemuel. Quite a bit has happened to the family while they are in the valley of Lemuel. It is their base for returning back to Jerusalem and the site where Nephi and Lehi see the vision of the tree of Life. It seems as if they are more in a hurry to get out of Jerusalem than they are to get to the promised land. They travel for the next 8 years on the Arabian Peninsula before they finally build a ship and head for the promised land. Verse 9 explains that they are about to begin their journey again.
Hugh Nibley
"Nephi…refers constantly to his father's tent as the center of his universe. To an Arab, 'My father dwelt in a tent' says everything….
"So with the announcement that his father dwelt in a tent, Nephi serves notice that he had assumed the desert way of life, as perforce he must for his journey: any easterner would appreciate the significance and importance of the statement, which to us seems almost trivial. If Nephi seems to think of his father's tent as the hub of everything, he is simply expressing the view of any normal Bedouin (Arabian tent dweller)." (Lehi in the Desert and The World of the Jaredites, pp. 57-8)