Rhetoric: Alma again evokes the historical bondage of the Almaites. This time, however, he employs images, not of physical deprivation, but of spiritual separation from Yahweh. When the Almaites were in spiritual bondage, their circumstances were deplorable: “darkness,… bands of death,… chains of hell,… and an everlasting destruction.” Their conversion, which “illuminated” their souls “by the light of the everlasting word,” rescued them from this awful gloom.
Alma thus implies that the current church is surrounded by darkness (the Nehors and current contentions) but that they, too, have light in their souls because of the “everlasting word” preached to them by the church.