The descendants of Nephi would include the people of Limhi and the people of Alma who had returned to the land of Zarahemla. The only numbers given of these two groups is the four hundred and fifty who separated themselves from King Noah and followed Alma in about 145 B.C. (Mosiah 18:35). This separation happened twenty-four years earlier than their gathering on this occasion. The people of Alma were a minority in 145 B.C., so the people of Limhi must have been a few thousand.
The descendants of Mulek and also some of Nephi (see Omni 1:19), in the land of Zarahemla, were more than the people of Nephi (Mosiah 25:2) in 120 B.C. Therefore, the total number would have been several thousand, yet they were not half as numerous as the Lamanites (v. 3). Another help to the estimation of numbers is given in about 87 B.C., about thirty-three years later. In a battle between the Amlicites (apostate Nephites) and the Nephites which would include the people of Zarahemla (see v. 13); there were over twelve thousand five hundred Amlicites and over six thousand five hundred Nephites killed, or over nineteen thousand deaths (see Alma 2:19). Fifty-eight years would include about three generations of population growth. The deaths, although staggering, do not seem to represent even half of the total population a generation and a half after the gathering of Mosiah’s people with Limhi’s and Alma’s mentioned in the verses under consideration here. Again we conclude that the total number gathered was several thousand.
The public reading of the records (Mosiah 25:5–6) was certainly a solidifying factor for the three groups, as the following verses will show.