Literature: The reference for “neither do ye knock” depends on understanding the concept of knocking to gain someone’s attention. This is certainly part of the available cultural context of the Old World, where homes had doors, and is part of a famous passage from the New Testament, “knock and it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7, Luke 11:9). Whether or not it was an understandable allusion in the New World is unknown. New World personal dwellings typically did not have doors (usually cloth over the opening), so the mode of announcing a visitor may have been different.
The same allusion to knocking also appears in Christ’s restatement of the Sermon on the Mount during his appearance in the New World (3 Ne. 27:29). Either the allusion was understandable, or we have another instance where the language and imagery of the King James Version influence Joseph Smith’s translation. I suspect the latter.
Nephi has used light/dark imagery earlier in his writings (2 Ne. 3:5–6, 26:10). The light/dark contrast is also important in the Isaiah sections copied into Nephi’s work (2 Ne. 7:10–11; 15:20, 30; 19:2; 23:10). Four or more centuries later in the Old World, part of the Qumran community’s theology would see the Children of Light pitted against the Children of Darkness.
Scripture: Nephi laments that “if ye cannot understand [my words] it will be because ye ask not.” Nephi had accused Laman and Lemuel of failing to seek understanding in almost identical terms years before: “And they said: Behold, we cannot understand the words which our father hath spoken concerning the natural branches of the olive-tree, and also concerning the Gentiles. And I said unto them: Have ye inquired of the Lord? And they said unto me: We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us” (1 Ne. 15:7).
Laman and Lemuel assumed that Yahweh did not speak to them. Therefore, they did not ask. Because they would not ask, Yahweh did not speak to them. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this sermon, Nephi is making sure that his people understand their responsibility to ask.