Samuel pronounces the consequences if the people fail to repent. The coming judgment will be so terrible that all will be affected. Their houses will be left desolate (v. 1), nursing mothers will not be able to feed their babies, and pregnant women, unable to flee, will be “left to perish” (v. 2). The picture is one of panicked flight with no refuge.
This picture of the coming destruction echoes the Lord’s prediction of Jerusalem’s calamities:
Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! (Matt. 24:16–19)
Matthew 24:3 announced these calamities as a description of the last days, but it was also fulfilled in historical time. Howard Clark Key, professor of the history of religion at Bryn Mawr College, observes: “Some scholars think this is part of a warning sheet distributed among the Christians in Jerusalem just prior to the fall of the city to the Romans in A.D. 70, on the basis of which advice the Jerusalem Christians fled to the city of Pella E of the Jordan. The need for sudden flight could explain the details about not entering the house, not stopping to take up one’s mantle, and the difficulty of flight in winter, when the Jordan would be at flood stage.”
Translation: While not exactly similar, both the Book of Mormon and Matthew personalize the suffering of women “giving suck.” There is more information in Samuel’s text, so there is no direct copying, but the similarity of language suggests once again that Joseph’s familiarity with the New Testament colored his choice of language for similar themes in the Book of Mormon.
Scripture: The importance of Samuel’s prophecy is to identify the conditions prior to the coming of the Messiah. Matthew provides a parallel passage anticipating the Messiah’s second coming. The Book of Mormon consistently parallels events prior to Messiah’s first coming in the Americas with predictions of his second coming. Thus, Matthew gives a sign of the second coming. Mormon records Samuel the Lamanite’s similar sign as preceding the Messiah’s first coming in the New World.
Mormon participated in a culture known for its cyclical view of history, in which that which has gone before will come again. Signs of an earlier event will be repeated for a future event. For Mormon, the parallel between the first and second comings of the Messiah are a critical part of his message. His proof that (as he says on the Title Page) “Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God,” is that the fact that he came before and fulfilled the signs; when the signs are seen again, he just as surely will return.