Reference: This reference echoes the concept in Mark 9:12: “And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought.” Probably both Alma and Mark were alluding to Isaiah 50:6: “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting,” or perhaps to the whole of Isaiah 14. The reference is not a quotation but an invocation of Isaiah’s description of the suffering servant. (Abinadi cites Mosiah 14. See commentary accompanying the verses in that chapter for more on the suffering servant.)
For Alma, Jesus’s “pains and afflictions” refer to his complete subjection to the mortal experience. As a human, Jesus suffered pain when ill or bruised. For Alma these pains symbolized the sacrificial atonement for all human pains and sicknesses. Jesus endures them to remove them from the people. He thus appears to echo the idea expressed in Exodus: “And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee” (Ex. 23:25). For Alma, Jesus is not expiating for sin, but removing human pains and illnesses. In this context, he would thus be referring to Christ’s miraculous healings rather than to Gethsemane.