Millet and McConkie write that here in 2 Nephi 26:4 Nephi quotes again from the prophet Zenos (cf. 1 Nephi 22:15, 23), just as Malachi would do some two hundred years hence (see Malachi 4:1):
For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned. (1 Nephi 22:15)
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. (Malachi 4:1)
In this case, however, Nephi applies Zenos's prophecy of the destruction of the wicked at the time of the second coming of Christ to the cataclysms preceding his appearance to the Nephites. In so doing, Nephi utilizes one of his own cardinal principles of scriptural interpretation, that of likening the scriptures and making application of one oracle to separate but related events. [Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 1, p. 301]