According to Kent Brown, Limhi clearly saw the parallels between the difficulties that the people of his colony faced in their bondage and those that both the earlier Israelites and the family of Lehi had faced. Of course Limhi knew the reason for the suffering of his people. He laid it squarely at the feet of his father and the earlier generation's rejection of the word of the Lord brought by the prophet Abinadi (Mosiah 7:25-28). In telling the story of what happened to the prophet Abinadi, king Limhi immediately quotes in succession three sayings of the Lord that are not part of Abinadi's recorded preaching, nor do they come from any known source:
For behold, the Lord hath said: I will not succor my people in the day of their transgression; but I will hedge up their ways that they prosper not; and their doings shall be as a stumbling block before them.
And again, he saith: If my people shall sow filthiness they shall reap the chaff thereof in the whirlwind; and the effect thereof is poison.
And again he saith: If my people shall sow filthiness they shall reap the east wind, which bringeth immediate destruction. (Mosiah 7:29-31)
Furthermore, the three passages all share a concern for "my people," a term familiar from the exodus narrative that also denotes a covenant relationship (see Exodus 6;7; 8:20-21,23; 9:13; 10:3-4; etc.). [S. Kent Brown, "The Exodus Pattern," in BYU Studies, Vol. 30 No. 3 (Summer, 1990), pp. 114,124]