Nephi emphasizes the reality of the scattering by attesting that it is already in effect. Whether his brothers recognized themselves as among the many led away and scattered on the isles of the sea is not clear, although Nephi certainly understood it to be so. (See commentary accompanying 1 Nephi 19:10.) As with all scriptures, however, he does not foreclose a dual interpretation—here, the conquest of the northern kingdom by Assyria.