The eighty year of the judges would be 85 BC. Just two years after the famine of the sixth year of the reign of the judges we have a description of people becoming rich, and then listing a very specific set of descriptors. They have “fine silks,” they have “fine-twined linen,” and they have “many flocks and herds,” and “gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things…” all of which is capped off by that particularly Book-of-Mormon-sin; wearying “very costly apparel.” What is happening here?
First, and very clearly, the famine has ended. This makes sense because the cause of the famine was the destruction of the crops in the war. This was not a famine caused by drought or poor soil. The planting and harvesting of the next season would have returned to the normal food production, and the famine was effectively over in the seventh year.
How does the society rise from famine in one year to great wealth only two years later? The answer is that they were not that far from wealth during the famine, and that it was the return to full food production that could feed the industry that led to the riches described. As has been noted several times in this commentary, the riches described in the Book of Mormon make it certain that trade was involved to acquire them. What had always happened is that along with the trade came the importation of the ideology of the world. One of the signs of the spiritual apostasy from the church in the Book of Mormon is the wearing of costly apparel, because that was a sign of the adoption of the culture that was antithetical to the church.
What Mormon is describing here is not so much the rapid rise to wealth, but a return to the good conditions. The reason for the increase in the baptisms and the establishment of the church had been the famine and the repentance of those who had previously been believers in the philosophy of the world. When the conditions of famine were broken, and the prosperity returned, it is human nature to forget the bad times, and return to the personal pleasures that preceded the hard times. In this case, everyone clearly returns to the way they were before, and those who had previously wanted to adopt the lifestyle of the world apparently returned to that lifestyle.
There is a humorous anecdote about a man holding on for his life on a branch jutting from a cliff over which he has fallen. He prays to the Lord and promises a righteous life if the Lord would only save him. Just then someone comes, finds him, and pulls him to safety. As he leaves, now out of harm’s way, he prays again to the Lord, and says “Forget that request, I’m OK now.” It is an unfortunate aspect of human nature to remember God in the bad times and forget him when things go well. So it was with these converts in Zarahemla. The famine brought them to repent and be baptized, but that was insufficient to truly convert them. When life returned to good times, they forgot the means of their salvation, and returned to their old ways.