The Book of Mormon’s secret combinations are always subversive of political and social order. Jacob mentioned them in his speech (2 Ne. 9:9), although Mormon’s description of secret societies is much more specific than that of Nephi and Jacob. Still, all Book of Mormon prophets see the secret societies as dangerous to their political systems. (See Helaman, Part 1: Context, Chapter 3, “The Gadianton Robbers in Mormon’s Theological History: Their Structural Role and Plausible Identification.”)
Narrative: Nephi’s image of being bound with a flaxen cord is not in Isaiah, but it echoes Isaiah 5:18: “Wo unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope.” The flaxen cord is metaphorically soft and is to be replaced with “strong cords.” This weak binding echoes Isaiah’s “cords of vanity,” or as Blenkinsopp notes, “worthless cords.”
It is possible that the mention of secret combinations flows from the “many churches” of the preceding verse that appear to be related to Nephi’s great and abominable church in his first vision (1 Ne. 13:4–6). The connection between the great and abominable church and secret combinations lies in their mutual relationship to the devil in early Nephite thought. In 1 Nephi 13:6 Nephi says: “And it came to pass that I beheld this great and abominable church; and I saw the devil that he was the founder of it.” Later Jacob tells us: “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” (2 Ne. 9:9).
The devil is the founder of the great and abominable church, and he is the founder of secret combinations. The connection of both symbolic institutions as opposed to the symbolic church of God may be the reason why Nephi saw them as equivalent and used the reference to secret combinations in this new retelling of the vision rather than referring to the great and abominable church. Perhaps this is an indication that the first telling of the vision was written down in some form closer to the time it was given and reflected Nephi’s understanding at that time. After they had been in the New World, Jacob references secret combinations, as Nephi does here. Perhaps his new perspective on the challenges of the New World created this new understanding of the nature of the threat from the devil’s “church.” Where it was the generic church of the devil in the Old World that replicated in the church of God/church of the devil opposition the fundamental opposition between God and his Adversary, it became more concrete in the New World. This suggests that very early in the New World the Nephites had been exposed to something that they would recognize as secret combinations. These would have to have come from their contacts with other city-states.