The information in these three verses reprises the information in verses 2–6 of 1 Nephi 9. That chapter was also a triggered aside. There are two sets of plates. The first, which created the tradition of record keeping for the Nephite people, we call the large plates of Nephi. It seems probable that Nephi created those physical plates and began recording history at some point after the separation from Laman and Lemuel. It is a record of “the wars and contentions and destructions of my people.” Thus, it is a record created after a Nephite people had been formed.
In 1 Nephi 9:5 Nephi said that the current plates upon which he was writing, which we call the small plates, were created for “a wise purpose.” In verse 3 of this chapter, he also says that they were created for “other wise purposes.” One of those purposes was the reason that we have the record. They became the replacement information for Mormon’s abridgment of Nephite history from the beginning to the reign of king Benjamin.
Similarly, in 1 Nephi 9:4 Nephi indicated that the small plates were to record “the more part of the ministry.” Here, in verse 3, Nephi reprises that idea; “I, Nephi, received a commandment that the ministry and the prophecies, the more plain and precious parts of them, should be written upon these plates.”
Nephi was consistent in his descriptions of the small plates and their purpose. What is fascinating is that he places the information in his text two times before he even arrives at the time period when they were created. The unusual requirement to create a second set of plates was clearly on his mind and was the subject of two inserted asides describing the task.