Nephi’s lament sets the stage for his testimony of the very God of Israel, Jesus Christ. Nephi was told by an angel that the date of his coming to earth as a mortal being would be six hundred years from the time Lehi left Jerusalem (v. 8). Quoting from the same source, Nephi foretells the world’s general judgment, or reception, of Christ (vv. 9–10). The New Testament verifies the world’s reaction. Nephi then quotes several prophecies from the plates of brass. These prophecies tell what will happen to Christ when he comes to earth.
Nephi’s designation of Christ as “the God of our fathers, who were led out of Egypt,” and “the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob” shows that Christ was the God who ministered to Israel in Old Testament times. Paul bore a similar testimony:
1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. [1 Corinthians 10:1–4; italics added]
The prophecies from the plates of brass, now missing from the Old Testament as part of “the many plain and precious things which have been taken out of the book” (1 Nephi 13:29) are from three sources. The prophet Zenock foretold of Christ being “lifted up” by wicked men; another prophet, Neum, prophesied of his being “crucified;” and a third prophet, Zenos, spoke concerning “ three days of darkness” as “a sign given of his death” to those in “the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel.” Nephi continues to quote the prophet Zenos for the following seven verses, although he only identifies him in two verses (12, 16) and calls him “the prophet” in the other five verses.