The closing sentence of what is now the last verse in Chapter 1 was “But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance” (1 Nephi 1:20). Nephi had just mentioned the anger of those at Jerusalem toward his father, and that sentence served as a transition from Lehi’s mission as a prophet to Jerusalem and his new call to depart with his family. Nephi ended one part of the story and began a new one with that transitional sentence.
Lehi is still a prophet, even though his mission is changing. Yahweh speaks to Lehi in a dream and tells him to take his family and depart into the wilderness. Laman and Lemuel will call their father a visionary man, and that epithet was related to the way that Lehi received revelation. Nephi will be a different type of prophet, less often receiving his information in dreams and visions. For Lehi, dreams and visions were repeatedly the way Yahweh communicated with him.
When Lehi “did as the Lord commanded him,” he took his family south. Although his ancestral lands were north, so were the Babylonians. Heading north did not improve his position. In this time, another prophet named Uriah also fled Jerusalem. He went south to the typical land of refuge, Egypt. He was followed, caught, and brought back. To be safe, Lehi had to head south, but not to Egypt.