“The Inhabitants Thereof Were Slain”

Brant Gardner

In addition to the physical destruction of the land, there was an unavoidable loss of human life. In a typological presentation, this death of the inhabitants of the land would be a parallel to the destruction of the wicked at the end of the world when the Triumphant Messiah comes. In this first coming of the Messiah, the conditions of the end of the world are enacted just as they will be at the end of the world. It is, after all, the same Messiah. Thus the typological meaning of these passages must be the destruction of the wicked. Mormon has set us up to understand that most were wicked, and therefore we may understand that this tremendous destruction is pointed at the wicked, for they were in the majority.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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