This divine promise first appears in 1 Nephi 2:20, where Nephi writes what Jehovah told him: “And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands.” When Nephi wrote of the angel’s command to slay Laban, he “remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise” (1 Nephi 4:14).
For both Lehi and Nephi, the most important aspect of the promise of the land was the conditional requirement for peace and prosperity. There was never an unconditional location for Lehi’s descendants, and indeed, the Nephites were forced from their lands and had to move to a new location. When the Nephites arrived in Zarahemla they referred to their lost lands as their first inheritance. They had lost one land of promise, and their continued invocation of the promise should tell us that they considered a promise to move with them, even when they were no longer on the land of their first inheritance, or even later when they were removed from the land southward entirely.
The promise of the land was important for the promise, not for the land.