If no other verses informed us that Nephi was interested in something other than history, these verses would make it abundantly clear. Nephi has just spent a long time discussing his father’s vision, his own vision, and his brothers’ reaction.
Now, the story moves forward with remarkable rapidity and frustratingly few details. The intermarriages for which Ishmael’s family had been invited on the journey took place. Nephi, the unromantic, simply notes that now the commandments of the Lord had been fulfilled.
With that little commandment out of the way, Jehovah commands Lehi to leave the next day. It is important to note that Jehovah comes to Lehi in the night. In Genesis 46:2 we learned that “God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night.” Similarly, in Job 4:13 we learn that revelation can come “in thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men.”
Lehi was truly a visionary man, truly a dreamer. Nephi has already told us: “And it came to pass that while my father tarried in the wilderness he spake unto us, saying: Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision” (1 Nephi 8:2). The communication came at night because that was the way Lehi received visions from God.