Text: Mormon interjects a comment between two quotations from his source. Abinadi finished reading the Ten Commandments and will now press home his essential message, the one that he came to this trial to deliver. There is no event in the record of the trial that suggests a reason for Mormon’s chapter break. The only thing that marks this new chapter is the essential message. Perhaps Mormon created the chapter to conceptually set the message apart from the preliminary verbal sparring that led up to it.
After reading the Ten Commandments to the priests, Abinadi recapitulates the form of his opening argument. His quotation of the Ten Commandments parallels the question/response from Mosiah 12:31–32: “And what know ye concerning the law of Moses? Doth salvation come by the law of Moses? What say ye? And they answered and said that salvation did come by the law of Moses.” In the current verse 25 he asks “Have ye taught this people that they should observe to do all these things for to keep the commandments?” In 12:37 he had queried: “And have ye taught this people that they should do all these things?
Abinadi’s argument in chapter 12 was leading up to his message. Chapter 13 begins with King Noah’s reaction and Abinadi’s command that they not touch him. Thus, Abinadi was about to deliver his essential message when the king attempted to seize him. After that flurry of activity, Abinadi returned to his message, setting it up exactly as before the interruption.