The identification of a time when Satan will be powerless indicates that Nephi’s subject is the last days. During the millennium, Satan will be bound. The events Nephi is describing occur immediately before that day. According to Revelation 20:2: “And he [Revelation states that it is an angel, but from the description, it is certainly Christ] laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.” Doctrine and Covenants 43:31 confirms: “For Satan shall be bound, and when he is loosed again he shall only reign for a little season, and then cometh the end of the earth.”
Brigham Young commented: “The Millennium consists in this—every heart in the Church and Kingdom of God being united in one; the Kingdom increasing to the overcoming of everything opposed to the economy of heaven, and Satan being bound, and having a seal set upon him. All things else will be as they are now, we shall eat, drink, and wear clothing.”
Reference: Nephi is quoting “the prophet” but does not name him. Our current Old Testament contains two passages that also use the image of burning as stubble. The best known is Malachi 4:1: “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” The second is Isaiah 47:14: “Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.” (See commentary accompanying 2 Nephi 15:24, 19:5 for more information on burning stubble and its eschatological meaning.)
Malachi was a later prophet who flourished about 450 B.C. Hence, his prophecies did not appear on the brass plates. Isaiah’s presence on the brass plates and Nephi’s penchant for quoting him make it seem virtually certain that Nephi is alluding to this passage. John A. Tvedtnes, senior resident scholar with the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Texts at Brigham Young University, discusses this very issue in connection with a review of Wesley P. Walter’s criticism of the Book of Mormon:
Walters points out that the use of wording from Malachi 4:1 in two pre-Christian Book of Mormon passages (1 Ne. 22:15; 2 Ne. 26:4, 6) is anachronistic, since Malachi lived two centuries after Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem and could not have been known to the Nephites. The irony is that Joseph Smith must already have known this, having previously translated 3 Nephi 26:2, where Jesus notes that Malachi was not had among the Nephites. Even if Joseph Smith were the author of the Book of Mormon, as Walters believes, one must wonder why he would make such a slip in the writings of Nephi. The answer probably lies in an earlier text from which both Malachi and Nephi were quoting. The concept (and much of the wording) in Malachi 4:1 is found in Isaiah 5:24, 33:11, 47:14 (cf. Obad. 1:18); and Nahum 1:10.