“Come Down Among the Children of Men”

Brant Gardner

Abinadi again presumes the understanding of the argument. He asserts that many prophets have been very specific about the mission of the Messiah. The introduction to the idea does not give examples, but he will provide a very specific example in the next section of his discourse. The current text of the Book of Mormon splits chapters here. This perhaps camouflages the connection between the cited passage from Isaiah and its function as evidence for this assertion of many prophets predicting specifics of the Messiah's earthly mission. One must remember at this point that Abinadi does not have the hindsight that is available to use to understand the mission. His understanding of Isaiah must come from his own prophetic experience, or his understanding of the prophetic experience and writings of other Nephite prophets, such as Lehi and Nephi.

Textual: The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon has no break at this point. The following citation from Isaiah should be seen as immediately following this declaration of the Messianic prophecies of the historical prophets.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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