The class system was foundational to the Zoramites because their economy needed to exploit the labor of the poor. Again, we see that part of Alma’s skill lies in relating closely to his audience and recognizing their difficulties. We know that they had been required to labor with little pay, as they complain in 32:5, at the beginning of Alma’s word: “They have cast us out of our synagogues which we have labored abundantly to build with our own hands; and they have cast us out because of our exceeding poverty.” Not unintentionally, at the very end of his words, Alma thus promised these poor people that those very burdens would be lightened.
Perhaps Alma was also echoing back to the time when his own father had been under captivity by the Lamanites, and they were laden with heavy burdens. They prayed and were faithful, and the burdens were made light (Mosiah 24:15). It is very interesting that Alma promised these people the same blessing that his father had experienced. Alma may have been a young boy when that happened, but it was certainly part of his family memory, and he would have personally understood the burdens that these poor people were being placed under by their own Zoramite people.
Book of Mormon Central, “How Does the Lord Make our Burdens Light? (Mosiah 24:15),” KnoWhy 102 (March 18, 2016).