Reference: A sword hanging over a person is a literary reference to the famous sword of Damocles. The intent of the passage is to indicate that the judgment is coming, because all of these events are harbingers of the second coming. The particular language, however, comes from the Western literary tradition, and would not have been an image that Moroni would have used. Moroni’s text would have connoted the imminent danger, but with some other means of describing the coming judgment.
Textual: There is no chapter break at this location in the 1830 edition.