One element common to all Nephite apostasies has been the denial of the Atoning Messiah. Samuel’s concentration on the Messiah as someone who can save the Nephites from destruction highlights their wickedness in denying the Messiah’s mission. The Nephites are again succumbing to the worldly notions that have long tempted them.
Literature: Daniel C. Peterson writes of verses 5–6: “I was bothered for a long time by what I regarded as a very poor and repetitious style in a portion of the prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite,” meaning the repetition of “this people.”
I was reading the passage aloud [when] it became clear to me how it ought to be understood:
Behold, I, Samuel, a Lamanite, do speak the words of the Lord which he doth put into my heart; and behold he hath put it into my heart to say unto this people that the sword of justice hangeth over this people; and four hundred years pass not away save the sword of justice falleth upon this people. Yea, heavy destruction awaiteth this people, and it surely cometh unto this people, and nothing can save this people save it be repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, who surely shall come into the world, and shall suffer many things and shall be slain for his people.
The monotonous repetition of the phrase this people creates a mounting tension that is resolved only when readers (and, presumably, Samuel’s unhappy listeners) arrive at the contrasting reference to his people. “Samuel, a Lamanite,” very conscious of his own despised status as an outsider, warns the populace of a prosperous but corrupt and wicked Nephite city that their lineage and their complacent sense of being superior to the benighted Lamanites will not save them in the end. “His people,” Yahweh’s people, those who receive the blessings of the atonement, will be made up of all those who hearken and obey, regardless of ethnicity and racial pride.