“Because of the Anger of My Brethren”

Literary Analysis: After the poetic psalm of Nephi, the text returns to rather plain discourse. In verse 1 Nephi returns to the theme of his writing immediately prior to the poetic insertion:

"2 Ne. 4:13 And it came to pass that not many days after his death, Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ishmael were angry with me because of the admonitions of the Lord. 14 For I, Nephi, was constrained to speak unto them, according to his word; for I had spoken many things unto them, and also my father, before his death; many of which sayings are written upon mine other plates; for a more history part are written upon mine other plates. "

This return with little transition between the psalm and the more historical relation suggests that the psalm came out of the emotions involved in the discussion of the death of Lehi and the problems with Laman and Lemuel. In the transition into the psalm, Nephi states:

2 Ne. 4:15 And upon these I write the things of my soul, and many of the scriptures which are engraven upon the plates of brass. For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and the profit of my children. 16 Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord; and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard. 17 Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great goodness of the Lord, in showing me his great and marvelous works, my heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.

The sequence of mental transition in 2 Nephi 4 is:

• Lehi's death
• Anger of Laman and Lemuel
• Writings on the other plates of the "lectures" to Laman and Lemuel
• Musing on the relationship of the writing and Nephi's soul
• The blessings that have enlarged his sould
• A reflection on those blessings and Nephi's understanding of the process of becoming as Christ

This sequence is fairly logical, with one notion moving logically into another. This suggests that the next step is a result of the previous, and that we have in this section some kind of "stream of consciousness" on Nephi's part. This is curious because we understand that engraving the script on the plates was not necessarily an easy task (Jacob 4:1 . . . and I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates. . . ). Either Nephi was remarkably able to engrave and maintain a literate stream of consciousness, or he wrote first on a more malleable medium, and then transcribed onto the plates.

There is no reason to assume that the plates were the first redaction of the information, although there are enough asides and references to the plates themselves that it is probably that the text we have consists of both modes.

In contrast to the logical flow of elements that moved from history to poetry in chapter , there is no transition whatsoever at the beginning of 5. Chapter 5 in the current text does match with a new chapter in the original Book of Mormon edition, which followed the chapter headings of the plates. Thus Nephi also saw this as a new beginning. The abrupt return to narrative after a poetic flight also suggests that Nephi stopped writing after the psalm, and picked up again at a later time. How much later is unknowable. Perhaps he could have recovered rapidly from his excursion into soul-poetry, but somehow I prefer to see Nephi reflecting on that experience, and only later coming back to the more mundane task of narrative.