This outbreak of discontent occurred between the land of Jerusalem and the Valley of Lemuel. Apparently the failure of the two older brothers contrasted with Nephi’s success exacerbated already keen divisions among the brothers. Laman and Lemuel were probably emboldened by their distance from their father and therefore felt freer to foment rebellion. Their revolt was probably not an agitation to return to their home, since their riches were in Laban’s household. Much of what they had wanted to return to was gone and had probably been replaced with danger since Laban was dead. They are rebelling against Nephi’s emerging leadership, which obviously displaced them.
Culture: The record notes that Ishmael’s sons have families. Sorenson comments about what this fact may mean about their ages and the size of their families:
These two were probably older than Lehi’s sons. Yet their willingness to be led by Laman and Lemuel in rebellion indicates that they were still on the younger side of adulthood, for married men of, say, more than thirty would be unlikely to follow readily much younger single men of twenty-three and twenty-one as Laman and Lemuel were. Both Ishmael’s sons had “families” (1 Ne. 7:6) who accompanied them. The term “families” implies a wife and at least one child each, but there likely were more children, considering the fathers’ ages (had one or both of the wives been childless, the expression “and their wives/his wife” would likely have been used instead of “and their families”).
History: This verse gives us one of the best catalogues of Lehi’s party: Lehi and Sariah, their four sons and possibly at least two daughters, although they are not mentioned even when Ishmael’s daughters are. (It is also possible that these daughters were born in the wilderness, as were Joseph and Jacob.) However, because Ishmael’s daughters are important in the narrative, the omission of Nephi’s sisters may have been dictated by narrative concerns, not by their nonexistence at this point.
Also explicitly included in the party are Zoram, Ishmael and his wife, five known daughters, at least two sons/daughters-in-law, and at least two children. This verse describing the rebellion makes it fairly clear that two of the daughters were betrothed to Laman and Lemuel and shared Laman and Lemuel’s view of this wilderness enterprise.
The numbers in the group have a bearing on the later population in the Americas. This group of only twenty-two, even given more births en route, is a population base too small to account for Book of Mormon numbers, particularly given the rapid separation of the group into the Nephites and Lamanites. While this point has been an argument against the Book of Mormon’s validity, the intermarriage and intermingling of the Lehites with existing peoples is sufficient explanation. (See “Excursus: Ethnohistory and the Book of Mormon,” following 1 Nephi 18 and 2 Nephi, Part 1: Context, Chapter 1, “Historical Setting of 2 Nephi.”)