First of all, notice the difference between the Book of Mormon version and the Isaiah version. Again the Book of Mormon version makes more sense. What is a staff of bread and a stay of water?
“In ancient Hebrew, the words ‘supply’ and ‘support’ (‘stay’ and ‘staff’ in the KJV) are the masculine and feminine forms of the same root, masen and masenah. By using both forms, Isaiah seems to suggest complete destruction—spiritual, social, and physical. Thus, the prophet’s language and imagery carry many implications beyond the threat of physical famine.” (Isaiah: Prophet, Seer, and Poet, by Victor L. Ludlow, p. 101)
Taken at face value, if the supply of bread and water is taken away by the Lord, the result will be severe famine and drought. When Jerusalem was under siege to the Romans in 70 AD, they suffered from a terrible famine. Many died of hunger; many were slain by Roman soldiers while they lay famished with hunger. Josephus records:
“Now of those that perished by famine in the city, the number was prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable… Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable, that it obliged them to chew every thing, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to their shields they pulled off and gnawed: the very wisps of old hay became food to some…” (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book VI, 4:3)
"So the Romans…when they were come to the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is of such as died by the famine…those that were still alive…they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men’s blood. (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book VI, 8:5)
These destructions had come upon the Jews ’because their tongues and their doings have been against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory’ (v. 8). The famine of 70 AD was part of the first Abomination of Desolation. The second Abomination of Desolation is yet to occur. It will take place directly preceding the Second Coming. At that time, the events of the first Desolation will be repeated. The entire thirteenth chapter is dealing with this time period. The fourteenth chapter is also; as verses 3-5 make clear. These events are part of the destructions of the last days. In order to understand them better, it makes sense to look at what happened in 70 AD, for these events will be repeated.
2 Nephi 13:1-3 The Lord…doth take away…the mighty man, and the man of war, the judge…
When Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians in 587 BC, the rulers were either killed or taken back to Babylon. Had Lehi been in Jerusalem at the time, he would have been one of them. Josephus records how part of Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled:
“…the general of the Babylonian king now overthrew the city to the very foundations, and removed all the people, and took for prisoners the high priest Seraiah, and Zephaniah the priest that was next to him, and the rulers that guarded the temple, who were three in number, and the eunuch who was over the armed men, and seven friends of [king] Zedekiah, and his scribe, and sixty other rulers; all whom, together with the vessels they had pillaged, he carried to the king of Babylon.” (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book X, 8:5)