Several Old Testament examples that preceded this event with Laban may have given Nephi courage to carry out the command to slay him. “A pivotal example is found in 2 Samuel 20. King David sought the life of Sheba, a rebel guilty of treason. When Sheba took refuge in the city of Abel, Joab, the leader of David’s army, demanded that Sheba be released to him. The people of Abel beheaded Sheba instead, and Joab retreated. This episode became an important legal precedent justifying the killing of one person in order to preserve an entire group” (Welch and Parker, “Better That One Man Perish,” 17).
The literary repetition in the account of Nephi and his brothers retrieving the brass plates testifies of God’s hand in the process of preparing the way to fulfill his purposes. Latter-day Saint scholar Richard Dilworth Rust wrote: “This quest follows … ‘the storytelling principle of threefold repetition: a given event happens three times, with a crucial change introduced the third time.’
“In the first of the three visits to Laban, [it was] apparently without a plan. … Next, the brothers follow Nephi’s plan to offer their gold, silver, and other precious things for the plates of brass. … The third time, Nephi goes alone with no plan. … Then the Lord’s plan goes into effect.
“Each of these efforts is put into motion by a pledge, and the pledges become more and more intense. At the initial request to get the plates, Nephi says to his father, ‘I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded’ (1 Ne. 3:7). After Laman’s failure, Nephi increases his initial commitment to go and do what the Lord commanded and applies it to all the brothers: ‘As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us’ (1 Ne. 3:15). When the next plan fails and the older brothers are reproved by an angel for beating their younger brothers, Nephi calls for them all to ‘be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord’ and affirms the power of God by alluding to the great miracle of the Israelites crossing through the Red Sea (1 Ne. 4:1–2). The emphasis has moved from ‘I will go and do,’ to we will not leave until ‘we have accomplished,’ to the Lord is ‘mightier than Laban and his fifty’ and ‘the Lord is able to deliver us, even as our fathers, and to destroy Laban, even as the Egyptians’ (1 Ne. 4:1, 3).
“Finding Laban drunk in the street, Nephi is three times ‘constrained by the Spirit’ to kill him (1 Ne. 4:10). The first is a simple injunction: Kill Laban. The second is the impression that the Lord has delivered Laban into Nephi’s hands. Nephi thinks of three reasons why he could be justified in taking Laban’s life: (1) Laban sought to take away Nephi’s own life. (2) Laban would not hearken unto the commands of the Lord. (3) He had taken away property belonging to Nephi’s family. The third constraint of the Spirit adds the crucial, convincing element: ‘The Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief’ (1 Ne. 4:13).
“Nephi then slays Laban, dresses in his clothes and armor, and with the help of Laban’s servant Zoram, gets the brass plates and takes them outside the city wall. There, in calling to his frightened brothers, Nephi reveals his identity to Zoram—whom Nephi holds to keep from fleeing. Nephi then makes three levels of appeal to Zoram. These are introduced by a similar formulaic phrase, moving from sparing Zoram’s life, to allowing him freedom, to having a place with Lehi’s family:
“‘And it came to pass that I spake with him, that if he would hearken unto my words, as the Lord liveth, and as I live, even so that if he would hearken unto our words, we would spare his life. And I spake unto him, even with an oath, that he need not fear; that he should be a free man like unto us if he would go down in the wilderness with us. And I also spake unto him, saying: Surely the Lord hath commanded us to do this thing; and shall we not be diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord? Therefore, if thou wilt go down into the wilderness to my father thou shalt have place with us’ (1 Ne. 4:32–34).
“A three-part pattern is found as well in Sariah’s lament to Lehi, with the pattern emphasized by the rhythmical ‘Behold … , and … , and … ’: ‘Behold thou hast led us forth from the land of our inheritance [as a so-called visionary man], and my sons are no more, and we perish in the wilderness’ (1 Ne. 5:2). This feared decline is counterbalanced by Sariah’s three-part praise uttered at the return of her sons. In this utterance she echoes Nephi’s initial commitment: ‘I also know of a surety that the Lord hath protected my sons, and delivered them out of the hands of Laban, and given them power whereby they could accomplish the thing which the Lord hath commanded them’ (1 Ne. 5:8). For his part, Nephi affirms that he and his father obtained the records, searched these scriptures, and carried the records with them so the Lord’s commandments could be preserved (1 Ne. 5:21–22)” (Feasting on the Word, 27–29).