Text: The large plates deal with political history—the reigns and activities of the rulers. From these two verses, we can surmise the content and transmission path of the two sets of plates. The large plates were the official record of the political kingdom and, hence, the property of the ruler (whether king or chief judge). They would be passed from ruler to ruler.
The small plates of Nephi had a more restricted function: to describe Yahweh’s ministry to the Nephites. They would therefore omit most political events to concentrate on spiritual matters. These plates include their own transmission history: father to son, and at times brother to brother. Thus, these plates followed direct kin lines.
The two sets of plates diverged early, with Nephi defining a separate purpose and separate transmission for each. Each Nephi, a regnal name, had the plates in turn until the accession of Mosiah1 (who did not take “Nephi” as his throne name for reasons that will be discussed later) who left the city of Nephi, almost certainly with both the large and the small plates. Probably Nephi1 was the only Nephite king to have both sets in his possession before Mosiah1, for the small plates went from Nephi to his brother Jacob (who was never the king), who passed the small plates to his son and their descendants. None of them were ever kings either.