In Isaiah 3:14 and 15, Isaiah condemned the inequalities imposed by the ruling elite. Nephi takes up that cause, but puts the issue in the hands of the gentiles who are building up churches. Nephi is combining Isaiah with his vision’s understanding of the great and abominable church. That symbolic church represents those who “preach up unto themselves their own wisdom and their own learning, that they may get gain.” The phrase “grind upon the face of the poor” echoes very similar language in Isaiah 3:15.
Nephi ties secret combinations to the great and abominable church. Jacob had tied secret combinations to works of darkness in his discourse. In 2 Nephi 9:9, Jacob says: “And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who beguiled our first parents, who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness.”
Nephi’s declaration that the Lord God does not work in darkness echoes Jacob and firmly declares that secret combinations are antithetical to God.