History: As with the proskynesis event, the “one voice” declaration also might have been a familiar ritual from the pageant. Nibley has observed:
In the ancient world, the hazzan, the praecentor, or the stasiarch, would be handed a piece of paper.… Then the emperor… or someone else would tell him what he wanted the people to chant.… The whole thing is directed by the man on the tower. The old man, the praecentor, comes down, they ask questions, the king interprets the law to them, and they all answer together.… It isn’t as if they all spontaneously recited this whole thing in one voice. It says it was in one voice, but that’s the way it was done.
Mormon’s synopsis of the event is not the original text. “And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth” (v. 2). This sentence is the motive of the proskynesis, but it requires being inside the mind of the entire population. The address certainly had an effect upon the people. It is quite possible that these were the precise feelings of every member of the prostrate population. However, it is much more likely that it is an interpretation of the event than an exact record. The language is taken from Benjamin’s address and presages the beginning of Benjamin’s next discourse, thus continuing to suggest that Mormon is creating a summary by drawing on information from both the previous and subsequent portions of the address. It seems likely to me that the cry of the people may be reported as Mormon’s summary-interpretation, or that of the original writer’s.
Whether this response to Benjamin’s discourse is spontaneous or scripted, however, the people’s reaction was the same. They were so profoundly humbled that the Spirit visited them (v. 3).