Alma’s fear that “the Zoramites would enter into a correspondence with the Lamanites, and that it would be the means of great loss on the part of the Nephites” (Alma 31:4), led to the mission to the Zoramites. While that mission had some success, it was a failure in its larger intent to prevent the Zoramites from entering into agreements with the Lamanites.
Verse 12 concludes the seventeenth year of the reign of the judges. The events of that year began to be discussed in Alma 30:5. At that time, Mormon recorded that “in the commencement of the seventeenth year of the reign of the judges, there was continual peace.” The declaration of continual peace in the Book of Mormon is a sure signal that the peace will end. It was an eventful year that began with the case of Korihor and ends with the Zoramites stirring the Lamanites to war. The danger of this war is perhaps worse than those which had gone on before it; the loss of Antionum, as a defense on the southeast, opens the way to the next Nephite land, which is Jershon, the least well defended Nephite land because the majority of its inhabitants were unavailable to be called to arms in order to repel an attack.