Even after the prayers of the faithful that had brought Alma2 to this experience, additional prayers were offered in his behalf to complete the process and bring him back to strength.
Reference: This experience is both similar to and different from Saul’s experience. Like Saul, Alma2 is incapacitated for multiple days. The difference is that Saul was incapacitated for three days (Acts 9:9) and Alma2 for “two days and two nights.” Once again, it is possible that the symbolism attached to numbers in the two cultures plays a part in these periods.
For Saul, the three days have at least two references; the days Jonah spent in the belly of the “great fish” (Jonah 1:17) and the days Christ spent in the tomb (Matt. 12:40). In Saul’s Old World context and particularly so close to Christ’s resurrection, three days of darkness for Saul, like the three days of darkness for Jonah and Christ, are symbolically symmetrical. When Saul emerged from darkness, he was a new man, one reborn to a new spiritual life.
Alma2 underwent a similar spiritual transformation, but did it in “two days and two nights.” This particular construction may be intentional, creating a total “number” of four. In Mesoamerica, four was particularly auspicious, the number of perfection. As a possible parallel, even though the two events are not close in time, Alma2 may also have experienced a “perfect rebirth” after a similar time of “four” periods.
Internal Comparison: Alma is under the Spirit’s influence for two days and two nights. Alma 36:10, which also describes this experience, says it lasted three days and three nights: “And it came to pass that I fell to the earth; and it was for the space of three days and three nights that I could not open my mouth, neither had I the use of my limbs.”
John W. Welch proposes this explanation: “Even what superficially appears to be a difference is not. Alma 36:16 states that Alma was racked for three days and three nights. Mosiah 27:23, however, says that the priests fasted for two days and two nights. This is because, under Nephite practice, the fast would not have begun until the morning of the next day after the decision to fast (Hel. 9:10).”
Although the single citation does not establish the practice as customary, this explanation is possible. It may well have taken nearly a whole day for the stricken Alma2 to be brought to his father and for the fast to be arranged. Furthermore, Mosiah 27 was recorded by a third party and edited by Mormon while Alma 36 quotes Alma2 directly. Thus, the information comes from two different sources. The amount of time that passed can easily be the very same. The difference lies in how the numbers are selected to describe the event. Alma2 may be more precise in defining the passage of time, while the first scribe may have selected the time covered by the fast because it fit into his 2 + 2 = 4 scenario that resulted in the “perfect” number. Alma’s number is more significant as a Messianic foreshadowing, the scribes as a “perfect” repentance.