Rhetoric: To this point, Abinadi still had not answered the implicit questions posed to him by the final three verses of Isaiah 52. He now focuses on that passage. With the salvation of humankind as the backdrop, Abinadi interprets the joy of Zion as the salvation that has come through the Messiah. He sets up this interpretation in verse 28, and then simply repeats the verses. In his context, they now become self-evident. Abinadi does not deal with most of these verses directly, but rather extracts the phrase “see eye to eye” from verse 29 to form the basis of his concluding declaration (our chap. 16).
Text: The 1830 edition does not break a chapter here. This break awkwardly divides Abinadi’s discourse from his conclusion. Chapter 16 should be read with Chapter 15.