At this point, the narrative of the Book of Mormon is suddenly interrupted by Mormon, the compiler of this record, and what he has to tell us is extremely important to further understand the significance of what we have been reading in the first 142 pages of the book.
Briefly, here is the story. Sometime prior to 385 A.D., Mormon was energetically abridging the records of the Nephites from the large plates. He had finished down to the reign of King Benjamin (around 130 B.C.) when he came across the small plates of Nephi.
Mormon noticed that these plates covered the same period as that which he had just abridged, but these small plates contained choice prophecies and doctrinal discussions which he had not included in his original abridgment. The Spirit instructed Mormon to stack the small set of plates on top of the abridgment he had just finished. This was puzzling to Mormon because the small plates of Nephi related to the same historical period Mormon had just covered.
Actually, the Lord was anticipating a Satanical stratagem which would be used against the Book of Mormon record after it came into the hands of Joseph Smith in our own day. The Lord knew it was necessary to have the period down to King Benjamin written twice because the first version would be lost. The Lord therefore arranged to have the small plates of Nephi appear in the record after the version which would be lost.
What the Lord had anticipated actually occurred in the summer of 1828. By this time Joseph Smith had barely completed the translation of the first version of Mormon's abridgment, which extended from Lehi to King Benjamin and comprised 116 handwritten pages. It was at this point that his scribe, Martin Harris, induced Joseph to let him take the manuscript long enough to show to his wife and certain doubting relatives so they would appreciate the divinity and magnitude of this great book.
As the Lord had anticipated, however, these relatives betrayed Martin Harris. They hid the manuscript from him, and concocted a plot to change the text so that when Joseph Smith translated the material again they could discredit his work by claiming he was incapable of translating it the same way the second time.1
The Lord defeated this plot by forbidding Joseph Smith to translate the material a second time. He told the young prophet to translate the next section of the record, which turned out to be the small plates of Nephi. As we have mentioned this covered the same period, but provided a quantity of sacred material of a doctrinal and prophetic nature which was not in the first version. Joseph obeyed this instruction and the translation of the small plates of Nephi now constitutes the first 142 pages of the Book of Mormon.
This means that everything we have been reading thus far has been the actual words of Lehi, Nephi, Isaiah, Jacob, Zenos and the other writers represented in this record. It has not been the abridgement by Mormon. From here on, however, we will be reading the words of Mormon as he abridged the records of the Nephites.
At certain places Mormons inserts the sermons and quotations of various individuals, including direct quotations from the Savior, but for the most part it is Mormon's own writing. Of course, toward the end of the record, the task of finishing the abridgment was turned over to Mormon's son, Moroni, who describes some of the events in his own lifetime and then provides a summary of the Jaredites' history. Moroni also included a prophetic history of the world as seen and recorded by the brother of Jared, Mahonri Moriancumr, but this was sealed up so that Joseph Smith would know this was to be translated some time in the future.
As we read the "Words of Mormon," it is helpful to realize that he was trying to accomplish several things in these brief eighteen verses:
1. To relate the circumstances under which the abridgment was compiled.
2. To tell us about the small plates of Nephi and explain how they happened to be incorporated in his record.
3. To describe the early administration of king Benjamin so as to fill in the historical gap between the earlier part of the Book of Mormon and that which commences with the Book of Mosiah.
And now we come to The Words of Mormon:
We learn several important things from this first verse. Mormon seems under tremendous pressure to complete his abridgment. He says he is about to deliver the record which he is making to Moroni, his son. Yet, at this point he is only about one-fourth finished. Mormon says he has already witnessed nearly the entire destruction of his people. This would imply that Mormon made his abridgment a short time before the great battle at Cumorah. This is supported by a later statement2 that these plates of Mormon were turned over to Moroni in 385 A.D.
After the great final battle only 24 Nephites were known to have survived, and this included Mormon and Moroni.3 Mormon, himself, was severely wounded, and apparently did not expect to live long. Therefore Mormon says he will deliver these records over to the hands of Moroni. Knowing the predicted doom of the Nephites, Mormon speculates that their extinction as a people will be literally fulfilled and that Moroni will witness the entire destruction of the Nephite population.
Nevertheless, he prays that God will allow Moroni to survive so that he may record the final outcome. He also wants Moroni to include more information concerning Christ so that when the record comes into the hands of their descendants it will "profit" them. In this verse Mormon exhibits the qualities of both a great historian and a great prophet.