Redaction: After Nephi’s poetic psalm, the historical narrative resumes with a description of Nephi’s brothers’ anger—the point at which he has interrupted himself to insert his psalm: “Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ishmael were angry with me because of the admonitions of the Lord” (2 Ne. 4:13). The lack of transition between the psalm and the narrative offers further evidence that the psalm resulted from intense emotions: grief at Lehi’s death and frustration at Laman’s and Lemuel’s hatred. Nephi’s transition into the psalm had been his explanation that he was writing “the things of my soul,” the scriptures from the brass plates, and his “delight… in the things of the Lord.” He pondered “continually” upon Yahweh’s “great and marvelous works.” Yet despite “the great goodness of the Lord… my heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am!” (2 Ne. 4:15–17).
This sequence enables us to trace the development of Nephi’s thought: (1) Lehi’s death, (2) Laman’s and Lemuel’s anger, (3) Nephi’s fruitless exhortations to his brothers which he has written on the other plates, (4) his reflections on the value he places on these writing and his emotional/spiritual reaction to them, (5) the blessings that have enlarged his soul, and (6) praise to God for those blessings and Nephi’s own desire for greater righteousness.
The concepts develop logically from each other, allowing us a glimpse into Nephi’s possibly typical thought processes. Does this suggest that Nephi was composing extemporaneously? Engraving the plates was not an easy task (Jacob 4:1), and certainly it was not a rapid process. Either Nephi was remarkable in his ability to think associatively and engrave simultaneously, or he wrote first in a less demanding medium, then transcribed the results. There is no reason to assume that the plates were the first redaction of the information, although Nephi’s narrative contains enough references to the plates that he probably used both modes of recording. However, some sections, such as the psalm of Nephi in the last chapter, suggest that no single method was employed. He probably had an outline or perhaps even more complete text, but felt free to expand upon it.
In contrast to the logical arrangement between history and poetry in chapter 4, chapter 5 begins with no transition whatsoever. The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon followed the chapter breaks indicated on the plates. (See 1 Nephi, Part 1: Context, Chapter 1, “The Historical Setting of 1 Nephi.”) Thus, Nephi seems to have finished his psalm, set his writing aside for a time, and then returned to his task later in a different mood.