The previous chapter ended with a very final note. However, the final note was to a public audience. This chapter is written for posterity. It contrasts in form with the two copied sermons that were the first two entries in Jacob’s book. It isn’t clear when Jacob wrote this, only that the incident occurred some years after the end of the last sermon.
This chapter deals with Jacob’s interaction with Sherem. The implication of “there came a man among the people of Nephi” is that Sherem was not part of the city of Nephi. Not only does the language imply that he was from another city, but other clues that come later will reinforce that conclusion.
Sherem comes with a specific mission. He has come to preach. Specifically, he has come to preach that there should be no Christ. Jacob’s conclusion to the previously recorded sermon which included the allegory of the olive tree ended with the importance of believing in the coming atoning mission of the Messiah. Sherem is preaching very specifically against that very teaching. Sherem will not be declaring that the law of Moses should not be lived, but only that the Nephite emphasis on the atoning Messiah is not part of the law of Moses and therefore should be abandoned. It is an attempt to remove the teaching of Nephi and Jacob and return to perhaps a version of the law that Laman and Lemuel might have approved.
There is no indication that Sherem had any connection to Laman and Lemuel, but he does know the law of Moses, and he appears to follow it in the way that those in Jerusalem had lived it. Those in Jerusalem rejected Lehi’s teaching of a coming atoning Messiah, and Laman and Lemuel’s desires were to return both physically and symbolically to Jerusalem. It is an interesting speculation to see Sherem as coming from a people who had learned and lived the law of Moses as Laman and Lemuel might have taught it.