Given Alma’s context for the relationship of pains and afflictions to Jesus, the Messiah’s “tak[ing] upon him death” parallels his removal of the people’s pains and afflictions. In like fashion, Jesus accepts death to remove it. The next phrase confirms this reading: Jesus will “take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people.” Alma has described Jesus’s acceptance of pain and death as his way of removing their consequences, perhaps in the same way that the Israelites’ sins were removed and placed on the scapegoat (Lev. 16:20–22).
In the final phrase, Alma expands his meaning. Not only does the Messiah take sin upon himself to remove it from the people but this experience allows him to experience empathy for humankind.