2 Nephi 6 - 10

Jacob’s Two-Day Sermon Overview

First day (6-9): Jacob interprets Isaiah’s prophecy about the restoration of Israel, transitions from salvation history to the plan of salvation—including death and hell, resurrection and redemption, and physical and spiritual death.

Second day (10): Jacob shifts back to salvation history, with prophecies about the destiny of Israelites and Gentiles in the latter days, particularly in the New World. The two modes of salvation through Christ (9:5; 10:3-6) and the idea of restoration (9.2, 12-13, 26; 10.2, 7), and Jacob combines the perspectives of salvation when he concludes his sermon at 10.20-25. Isaiah prophesied around 740–700 BC.  Grant Hardy, The Annotated Book of Mormon.

2nd Nephi

“All of 2nd Nephi is for a mature spirit who is seeking to understand a deeper connection with our Savior as our Redeemer. Chapter 9 is one of the best messages we have on the Atonement of Jesus Christ in all of scripture.” Lynn Hilton Wilson - Book of Mormon Central. https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/book-mormon-matters-john-w-welch-and-lynne-hilton-wilson-1-nephi-6-10-jan-15-21

Nephi and Jacob

And so, after the death of Lehi, Nephi writes very little, noting that thirty years had gone by since the family had left Jerusalem (5.28), and then just six verses later, forty years (5.34). He seems to have reached a spiritual impasse during which, so far as we know, God was no longer speaking to him. Nevertheless, after some indeterminate amount of time, his younger brother Jacob, born in the wilderness and now an adult, shows him the way forward. Jacob, who himself had seen visions and angels (6.8–9; 10.3), preaches a sermon explaining how individuals can find peace even in times of distress, and he urges his listeners to “cheer up your hearts” and “reconcile yourselves to the will of God” (10.23–24). Significantly, he sees beyond current conflicts and refers to descendants of his older, estranged brothers as “our children” (10.2; cf. vv. 18–19). Unlike Laman and Lemuel, who were incapable of heeding a younger brother, Nephi listens to Jacob and follows his lead, even adopting his characteristic reference to “my beloved brethren” (used thirteen times by Jacob in chs. 6–10, and then sixteen more times by Nephi, but only starting at 26.1).  Grant Hardy. The Annotated Book of Mormon (p. 82). 

The Connection Between Nephi and Alma

How did Alma obtain knowledge of Christ? He heard the preaching of Abinadi, an itinerant prophet martyred by the wicked Noah. And Alma “did write all the words which Abinadi had spoken” (Mosiah 17:4). Where did Abinadi, who appears suddenly in the narrative with no background or introduction, get his knowledge? In chapters 13 and 14 of Mosiah, we see him reading the words of Moses and of Isaiah to Noah’s court, finding in them clear foreshadowing of a “God [who should] himself . . . come down among the children of men, and . . . redeem his people” (18:1). Where did Abinadi obtain those scriptures? He was a member of Zeniff’s colony, which was an offshoot of the major Nephite settlement, and apparently, they took copies of the Nephite records with them when they departed Zarahemla and resettled Lehi–Nephi. 

And those Nephite records? As we already learned early in the Book of Mormon, Nephi and his brothers absconded with Laban’s brass plates, which contained the writings of Moses, Isaiah, and several other Hebrew prophets. So we have a clear line of transmission from prophetic utterance, to brass plates, to Nephi’s small plates, to Zeniff’s copy, to Abinadi’s gloss, to Alma’s transcription. And that is only half the story. From Alma, we learn that those teachings become a part of his written record. When he and his band of exiles arrive back in the major colony of Zarahemla, King Mosiah reads to the assembled people “the account of Alma and his brethren” (25:6). King Mosiah, as guardian of the large plates, presumably incorporates the record into his own record. Those plates are subsequently abridged by Mormon, the late fourth–century Nephite editor. In every instance, the scriptures provide doctrine, inspiration, or guidance for a group or individual far removed from the last audience who consumed them. Givens, Terryl. 2nd Nephi (The Book of Mormon: Brief Theological Introductions). The Neal A Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Kindle Edition. 

The Connection Between Jacob and Abinadi

Abinadi is Jacob’s unquestionable doctrinal heir. Faced with Noah’s priests who seem, as will be seen, to have inherited (and likely distorted) only Nephi’s covenantal focus, Abinadi criticizes them by setting forth the soteriology that they apparently overlooked through their focus on a strictly covenantal theology. Moreover, Abinadi’s discourse borders on being a commentary on 2 Nephi 9 (as well as on 2 Nephi 2), revealing his familiarity with Jacob’s teachings. And Abinadi—through his influence on Alma—seems thereby to have launched a two-centuries-long Nephite focus on soteriology. Abinadi thus appears in Mosiah as the double heir of Jacob, as much doctrinally or theologically as narratively or historically.

Spencer, Joseph. "An Other Testament: On Typology."  https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=mi

“Recall the new star that announced the birth at Bethlehem? It was in its precise orbit long before it so shone. We are likewise placed in human orbits to illuminate. Divine correlation functions not only in the cosmos but on this planet, too. After all, the Book of Mormon plates were not buried in Belgium, only to have Joseph Smith born centuries later in distant Bombay.”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell. “Encircled in the Arms of His Love.” October 2002.

But we do not find Christ by learning how others found him. Only when we make the scriptures speak to us, finding our place in God’s story, does the past Atoner for sin or future Redeemer of Israel become our present Hope and Healer. Givens, Terryl. 2nd Nephi (The Book of Mormon: Brief Theological Introductions). The Neal A Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Kindle Edition. 

9:2: Jacob expands on Isaiah’s witness in three ways: (1) he looks past the return of Jews to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah in the 6th–5th c. BC to a much later period when they will be restored to the true church and fold of God; (2) he notes that Israel will be gathered back to multiple lands of their inheritance, so the Jews will return to Jerusalem, but the descendants of Lehi will also receive their promised land in the Americas, and other unspecified branches of Israel will claim their regional inheritances as well; and (3) he regards Isaiah’s prophecies of deliverance as having application not only to the political fates of nations but also in the eternal salvation of individuals—which is the main subject of this chapter. Grant Hardy, The Annotated Book of Mormon.

Christ’s “infinite atonement” brings us from “this first death unto life,” where our eternal condition becomes a simple extenuation of the life we chose amidst all the options: “they who are righteous shall be righteous still, and they who are filthy shall be filthy still” (2 Ne. 9:15–16). It could hardly be clearer: the atonement—by overcoming death and preserving agency—allows us to persist eternally as those beings we have chosen to be. Givens, Terryl. 2nd Nephi (The Book of Mormon: Brief Theological Introductions.) The Neal A Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Kindle Edition.

Note: 

The book mentioned in class - Write It Down, Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want And Getting It--written by Henriette Anne Klauser.