Moroni gives us information about the aftermath of the battle at Cumorah. There were twenty-four survivors. Those survivors went “into the country southward.” That is an interesting direction since it sent them into Lamanite territory. It put them in the middle of the Lamanites who were hunting them. Nevertheless, they headed south. In a Mesoamerican setting, that would be logical if only for the language. It would be easier to survive if they could at least speak the language. In an era long before photographs or painted portraits, there would be few who could recognize them upon sight, and those should have been kin and, therefore, somewhat protective for them.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t sufficient, and Mormon was discovered and killed. Moroni doesn’t tell us how long after Cumorah this took place, but it was at least months, and probably years. It would take some time for Moroni to receive the news of his father’s death, regardless of when it occurred. In verse 6, Moroni declares that four hundred years have passed since Christ’s birth, and that tells us that he is writing some sixteen years after the destruction at Cumorah.
What we see at the beginning of this chapter is a very lonely and psychologically wounded Moroni. He expects that he too might be killed soon, and so he writes the specific commands that his father gave him so that he would be able to finish his father’s great work.