Text: Nephi records explicit instructions for transmitting the large plates but does not give similar directions for the small plates. We know that the small plates are handed on within his lineage, but not necessarily from father to son, as Nephi gives them to his brother Jacob. The mechanism of transmission for the large plates is, in fact, a matter of public knowledge and public consent, another aspect conspicuously absent where transmission of the small plates is concerned.
Where the large plates are concerned, Nephi assumes that the line of kings is also the line of prophets, but we have no way of knowing if that was, in fact, historically true. Because of the loss of the 116 manuscript pages (and therefore of the book of Lehi), the record of the kingly line in the city of Nephi has been lost. Nephi is the first king-prophet, but we do not even know for certain if his successor was his son, even though Jacob 1:11 confirms that he was also called “Nephi,” as was his succsessor. The next named king, almost four centuries later, is Mosiah1, also a prophet-king, although he probably wasn’t the king in Nephi before his flight to Zarahemla. (See commentary accompanying Omni 1:12.) The arrival of Alma1 in Zarahemla begins a shift in Nephite politics and religion, and the combination of prophet and ruler is no longer assured, if ever it was.
Given this dual mechanism of transmission and differing purposes, it is not surprising that the small plates disappeared from Nephite cultural consciousness so that Mormon was surprised to discover them while making his abridgment (W of M 1:3).
Variant: Skousen discusses an important change made in this verse, “And this have I done, and commanded my people thatwhat they should do after I was gone”:
A more significant change in 1 Nephi 19:4 is the replacement of that with what in the 1837 edition. This change was not marked by Joseph Smith in the printer’s manuscript. Since the two words differ from one another by only a single letter, it is probable that what is a simple typo. More importantly, this change makes a difference in the meaning of the sentence. In the original text, Nephi is saying that “this have I… commanded my people that they should do after that I was gone”—namely, keep a record of the people on the other plates. By replacing that with what, the text no longer specifically refers to record keeping, but rather to some general unspecified instructions regarding what the people should do after Nephi has died.