Narrative: The construction of Lehi’s vision spirals out from the specific to the general. The vision begins with him and the messenger, adds his immediate family (the messenger has disappeared by this point), and expands to include the world. The first extra-familial wanderers are at the foot of the path but the vision next includes those who are not on the path at all and who, indeed, disdain the path.
Symbolism: The most difficult image is the building standing “in the air, high above the earth.” It is apparently detached from the “world” because the large and spacious field in which Lehi stands is directly connected to celestialization (the tree); and the building, though visible to and interactive with those in the field, has no true place in the world of the tree.
S. Kent Brown suggests a cultural parallel for the building’s unusual appearance:
Recent studies have shown that the so-called sky-scraper architecture of modern Yemen, featured most vividly by the towering buildings in the town named Shibam in the Hadhramaut Valley, has been common since at least the eighth century B.C. and is apparently unique in the ancient world. The French excavations of the buildings at ancient Shabwah in the 1970s, including homes, indicate that the foundations of these buildings supported multistoried structures. In addition, “many ancient South Arabian building inscriptions indicate the number of floors within houses as three or four, with up to six in [the town of] Zafar.” Adding to the known details, “these inscriptions also provide the name of the owners” of these buildings. In this light, it seems evident that Lehi was seeing the architecture of ancient south Arabia in his dream. For contemporary buildings there “stood as it were in the air,” rising to five or six stories in height. Such structures would naturally give the appearance of standing “high above the earth” (1 Ne. 8:26).