Why did Mormon first record that the Lamanites were not allowed to attack the city of Nephihah but "kept down by the seashore," and then in the very next verse list the city of Nephihah among those cities that the Lamanites took possession of? Opinions vary:
(1) According to Cleon Skousen, Amalickiah's objective was to capture all the frontier defenses first and then move in on the heartland. Consequently, he pushed his huge army up the eastern seaboard, taking city after city. Each of these cities is important in Nephite history. As Mormon commenced listing the cities as they fell, he made a slight error. It is one of the amazingly few technical errors in the entire Book of Mormon. He meant to say that the first city to fall was Moroni, having just explained in verse 24 that Amalickiah had kept his army down along the seashore. But he wrote down "Nephihah," the inland city to which the survivors from Moroni had fled. He then went on the list the other cities along the eastern coast. We know this was a technical mistake because in Alma 59:5 we learn that Nephihah had not been conquered by the Lamanites but had become a city of refuge for the Nephites who had escaped from several of the seacoast cities. [W. Cleon Skousen, Treasures from the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3, p. 3139]
(2) According to Alan Miner, this verse might not be an error after all. Rather, this verse might have something to do with the term "land" and the term "city," and the way people were conquered. In the mind of the Book of Mormon writers, sometimes this difference in terms was very slight; however, sometimes that slight difference has created a wide gap in our cultural understanding.
In Mosiah 23:25-26, Mormon describes a scene in which the Lamanites stumbled onto Alma and his followers. Alma and his followers initially had fled from the Land of Mormon and settled in a land called Helam. Mormon describes the situation:
For behold, it came to pass that while they were in the land of Helam, yea, in the city of Helam, while tilling the land round about, behold an army of the Lamanites was in the borders of the land. Now it came to pass that the brethren of Alma fled from their fields, and gathered themselves together in the city of Helam; and they were much frightened because of the appearance of the Lamanites. (Alma 23:25-26)
It appears that Mormon is having trouble with his choice of the words "land" and "city," but before we stop to explain, let us go on to the next verses. While recording the establishment of Nephihah in the east wilderness, Mormon said the following:
And they also began a foundation for a city between the city of Moroni and the city of Aaron, joining the borders of Aaron and Moroni; and they called the name of the city or the land, Nephihah. (Alma 5:14)
Once again Mormon seems to be having trouble deciding which term to use, "city" or "land," but let's move on to one final set of verses. In these verses, Helaman makes the following report of the taking of Nephite territory by the Lamanites:
And now these are the cities of which the Lamanites have obtained possession by the shedding of the blood of so many of our valiant men: The land of Manti, or the city of Manti, and the city of Zeezrom, and the city of Cumeni, and the city of Antiparah. (Alma 56:13-14)
This time the writer is Helaman, but he seems to have trouble just like Mormon. He starts out by intending to name cities and the first thing he does is insert the term "land" into his description.
It becomes apparent that in all three instances that have just been cited, in locations as diverse as Helam, Nephihah and Manti, the writers seem to have confusion in describing the distinction between a "land" and a "city." Do we consider these verses as recording errors in which the writer quickly corrects himself? Perhaps not. John Sorenson says the following:
The Mesoamerican settlement unit that logically fits what the Book of Mormon calls a "land" (centered on a single city) consisted of that area inhabited by all the people who gathered to a central temple center for worship, trade and civil administration. In the lowland Maya country we know that a journey of one day to or from the center was the usual radius of a local land, and the scale was probably much the same elsewhere. (Setting, p. 159)
Thus we see that the city of Nephihah probably consisted of a fortified city center surrounded by lands on which the people lived, somewhat like our own pioneer communities among the Indians. When attacked, much like Helam, the people of Nephihah gathered to the fortified center for protection. However, because Nephihah was originally established for military defense and it had the role of "joining the borders of Aaron and Moroni" (see Alma 50:14), the expanse of territory officially under it's control might have been substantially more than normal (see Alma 51:23).
We find a similar situation in the Bible. In the Old Testament book of Judges, we find an account of the armies of Israel, led by Joshua, conquering the kingdoms which inhabited the Promised Land. The account reads as follows:
And these are the kings of the country which Joshua and the children of Israel smote on this side Jordan on the west, from Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon even unto the mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir; which Joshua gave unto the tribes of Israel for a possession according to their divisions; In the mountains, and in the valleys, and in the plains, and in the springs, and in the wilderness, and in the south country; the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: The king of Jericho, one; . . . the king of Megiddo, one. (Joshua 12:7-21)
This account seems to imply that Joshua conquered the city of Megiddo, yet just a little while later after this account we find that the inhabitants of Megiddo could not be driven out:
And Manasseh had in Issachar and in Asher Beth-shean and her towns, and Ibleam and her towns, and the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, and the inhabitants of Endor and her towns, . . . and the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns, . . . Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. Yet it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute; but did not utterly drive them out.
Thus the idea that the Lamanites could have captured the land of Nephihah (the outlying fortified areas), cut off the people in the fortified city center, and thus taken "possession" (without actually occupying the city center) seems to be an idea that becomes a bit more plausible. [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes] [See the commentary on Alma 59:5]