After recording the allegory of Zenos on the small plates, Jacob says the following:
And now, behold, my brethren, as I said unto you that I would prophesy, behold, this is my prophecy--that the things which this prophet Zenos spake, concerning the house of Israel, in the which he likened them unto a tame olive tree, must surely come to pass. (Jacob 6:1)
According to McConkie and Millet, the reader should note here that Jacob is saying that Zenos’s prophecy is his own prophecy. No doubt Jacob had studied and pondered and prayed much over this allegory, and now Zenos‘s words had become Jacob’s words, and it was as though the prophetic allegory had been delivered to and by Jacob originally. Alma would later declare the following after testifying to the people concerning spoken by the fathers:
Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?
Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.
And moreover, I say unto you that it has thus been revealed unto me, that the words which have been spoken by our fathers are true, even so according to the spirit of prophecy which is in me, which is also by the manifestation of the Spirit of God. (Alma 5:45-47; see also D&C 18:34-36)
In his last general conference address, Elder Bruce R. McConkie began a penetrating sermon on the atonement of Christ with the following words:
In speaking of these wondrous things I shall use my own words, though you may think they are the words of scripture, words spoken by other apostles and prophets. True it is they were first proclaimed by others, but they are now mine, for the Holy Spirit of God has borne witness to me that they are true, and it is now as though the Lord had revealed them to me in the first instance. I have thereby heard his voice and know his word. (Conference Reports, April 1985, p. 9)
[Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. II, pp. 77-78]