Limhi began his discourse with a promise of salvation, expressing confidence and hope even though “our many strugglings… have been in vain.” How can Limhi speak with such assurance of the “effectual struggle to be made”? I believe that the answer again is connected to Ammon—not only a reconnection to Zarahemla, but a reconnection with Yahweh’s people. The hope that he holds out for his people are two mighty interventions by Yahweh for his people in the form of a life-saving exodus: first, the flight of Israel from Egypt, and second, the flight of Lehi’s family from the doomed Jerusalem. Limhi seems to be using these examples to suggest that their salvation will come, not in a rescuing invasion by the Zarahemlaites, but in his people’s exodus to Zarahemla.
Their previous ineffectual struggles had been military attempts to allow them to remain free in the land of Nephi. These futile attempts make it clear that the next effort has to be different. Confirmation that Zarahemla still exists opens up the possibility of salvation by escape—a flight to refuge.
But why hadn’t the Limhites thought of this solution earlier? Why couldn’t they have left whether Zarahemla existed or not? I hypothesize that they may not have known a direction to go where they would not have found the land already occupied by people who would have resisted their incursion. We must remember that their attempt to find Zarahemla had failed. Without kin to go to, any other people would be non-kin and therefore strangers and enemies. Under those conditions they would have been trading a military difficulty with the known Lamanites for a military difficulty with unknown Lamanites. Zarahemla, however, offers refuge, not only through lineage, but through the welcome represented by Zarahemla’s representatives.