According to John Tvedtnes, some might choose to interpret that when Alma said of Christ's coming, "would to God that it might be in my day" (Alma 13:25), he held a belief that the event might occur in Alma's day. Actually, the opposite is true. There are two Hebrew expressions that the King James translators rendered "would [to] God that" or "would that." In all but one case that Tvedtnes found in the Bible (Genesis 30:34), the situation being described is clearly one that is impossible of fulfillment. (See Exodus 16:3; Numbers 14:2; Numbers 20:3; 2 Samuel 18:33; Numbers 11:29; Joshua 7:7) Judges 9:29) Numbers 22:29).
It is interesting that the Book of Mormon uses the expression "would to God" in two other passages, both of which reflect an impossibility of fulfillment:
"Would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God" (Jacob 1:8); [they couldn't]
"I would to God that ye had not been guilty of so great a crime" (Alma 39:7); [the crime had already been committed]
[John Tvedtnes, Book Review in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6/2 1994, pp. 220-221]
Note* If,
(1) the six-hundred year prophecy of Lehi referred to the birth of Christ (whether or not the "600 years" was an approximate term of time--see Vol 1, Appendix A), and
(2) the length of Christ's life was not known, and
(3) the specific time of Christ's visit to the Nephites was not recorded in the Nephite prophetic records (meaning that no one knew just how long it would be after Christ's death and resurrection that he would visit the Americas), and
(4) the term "would to God" implies that Alma at least knew that Christ would not appear in his lifetime,
then Alma's statement, "for the time cometh, we know not how soon," would seem to be quite appropriate. [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes]