Like the triumphal entry that Isaiah prophesied, the Messiah will be in their midst, ushering in a time of peace. It must have been very painful to Nephi to speak of Yahweh’s peace yet, in the same sentence, limit its duration on the earth. Nephi understood the difference between this coming of the Messiah and the final apocalypse. 2 Nephi 30:8–12 clearly describes the final days:
And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall commence his work among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, to bring about the restoration of his people upon the earth.
And with righteousness shall the Lord God judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
For the time speedily cometh that the Lord God shall cause a great division among the people, and the wicked will he destroy; and he will spare his people, yea, even if it so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire.
And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
And then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb; and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling, together; and a little child shall lead them.
This passage describes the Messiah’s final coming, including both burning and also the righteous remnant that are spared. (It also cites Isaiah.) The point is not that Nephi confused the Messiah’s visitation to the New World with the end of time but that he sees them in the same terms and as parallels in the world’s spiritual history. The parallels between the Messiah’s first and second comings in the New World will become an important theme in Mormon’s structuring of his text. There is no indication that Mormon relies on or refers to Nephi’s paralleling of the two events. For both men, the concept that history followed patterns shaped their historical sense that the Messiah’s appearance to the Nephites and his return in the last days would have parallel signs of foretelling and parallel events.
Reference: Verse 9 echoes Malachi 4:2: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” Assuming that this phrase should always follow Malachi, we can suggest that here in verse 9 and later in 3 Nephi 25:2 and Ether 9:22, Oliver Cowdery also heard “sun” but wrote “son.” Because Malachi is later in time than the departure of Lehi from Jerusalem, this is not a phrase from the brass plates. It is either a new term used in the New World, or it is Joseph’s phrase that is used in translation, and is the result of his speaking the phrase from Malachi and assuming that it refers to the “son” without checking the spelling. I lean toward this latter possibility. Unfortunately, the original manuscript is not extant for any of these three verses. However, the printer’s manuscript does have “son” for each verse, suggesting that, even though it was probably obvious to both Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery that this phrase echoed Malachi, the text was not checked against a Bible before being committed to the printer’s manuscript. (See commentary accompanying 1 Nephi 22:15 for more information on the use of Malachi in the Book of Mormon.)
Narrative: The appearance of the “Lamb of God” was recounted in Nephi’s earlier version of this vision (1 Ne. 12:6). The prophecy of the fourth generation was given in 1 Nephi 12:12–13.