Social: The first important information we have in this set of verses is the relationship between the Nephites and the people of Ammon (formerly Anti-Nephi-Lehies). Since that people could not fight, they are placed in a particular land, a land that was originally thought relatively safe, and now is at the heart of danger. What we learn is that there is a mutual responsibility pact between the two peoples. The protection requires an army, and since that army must be away from their lands to be of any immediate help, economic assistance is required. Thus the people of Ammon exchange some of their production for the express use of another city’s military presence.
The next information we have concerns the makeup of the generic appellation of Lamanite. Those that are called Lamanites are still identifiable as tribes/clans, as noted by the evocation of the descendants of Laman, Lemuel, and Ishmael. In addition to those who are lineally “Lamanites” from early times, we also have other clans or polities that are more recent. These are “all those who had dissented from the Nephites, who were Amalekites and Zoramites, and the descendants of the priests of Noah.
What we also learn is the extent of the dissention from the Nephites. We have the interesting phrase in verse 14 that “those descendants were as numerous, nearly, as were the Nephites…” The issue is the antecedent of “those descendants.” We have a long list of peoples, but only “those decendants” appear to be the ones especially noted to be “as numerous, nearly, as were the Nephites.” While it is possible that “those descendants” refers to all of those descended from Laman, Lemuel, and Ismael, this would be unusual when compared to earlier statements that indicate that the Lamanites alone, prior to the addition of any dissenters, would have been more numerous than the Lamanites. For example, consider Jarom:
Jarom 1:6
6 And they were scattered upon much of the face of the land, and the Lamanites also. And they were exceedingly more numerous than were they of the Nephites; and they loved murder and would drink the blood of beasts.
There is no indication that there was any radical destruction of the Lamanites that should have changed these ancient ratios, so this particular comment does not appear to refer to those early Lamanites. The next two possibilities are the Amalekites, Zoramites, and descendants of the preists of Noah. On the strength of the language alone it would appear that the most immediate reference is the descendants of the priests of Noah. While this is the most logical structural reference, this is a most disturbing one, as those priests were contemporaneous with Alma’s father (he being one of them) and in this short of time they would have to have developed a larger progeny than almost all of the Nephites.
This simply could not have happened. If there is a connection, it must be in some other mode of determining lineage than strictly genetics. Those priests could have risen to places of power, and their location in positions of power could have given them a fictive set of “descendants” in those who would be politically dependent upon them. This phrase is rather problematic, and there is not clean explanation for it.
What is important about the comparative numbers of Lamanites and Nephites is the implication for the size of the problem of dissenters. We have three dissenting groups, and two of them are large enough to warrant distinctive names for their groups. Among the current list we do not have the Amulonites, who were with the Amalikites in Jerusalem. We should also note the Ammonihahites who were also dissenters from Nephite religion even though they adhered to the Nephite hegemony, much as did the Zoramites prior to becoming Lamanites (the Ammonihahites were destroyed by the Lamanites/Amalekites when the Anti-Nephi-Lehies were expelled from the land of Nephi).
The picture that emerges for Zarahemla is a land that has a tenuous hold politically and religiously on its dependent cities. Even in Zarahemla, there are pressures for the adoption of the “Lamanite” ways that show up in the form of king-advocates. What we will see in the development of the Nephite history for the next several years is one of fighting on multiple fronts, with one of the enemies being internal.