Brant Gardner notes that Nephi's selection of an example to inspire Laman and Lemuel to try again to obtain the brass plates from Laban is very interesting. Of all the stories he could have chosen, Nephi selects a story in which the Lord killed the enemy: "the Lord is able to deliver us, even as our fathers, and to destroy Laban, even as the Egyptians" (1 Nephi 4:3). . . . Nephi may not have had any conscious plan to find and kill Laban, but if we can assume that his speech to his brothers was inspired, then the Lord provided a precursor to the events which followed. [Brant Gardner, Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 1Nephi/1 Nephi 4, p. 1]