“Oh, That I Could Have Had My Days in the Days of My Father Nephi”

Nephi’s father, Helaman₂, had exhorted him to remember his heritage, giving him and his brother Lehi names to help them remember their heritage. (See commentary accompanying Helaman 5:5.) Nephi obviously incorporated this lesson well, since he begins his lament by desiring to have been with his namesake Nephi₁ in the golden age of obedience to Yahweh’s laws. Of course, Nephi is creating a selective portrait of the past—overlooking the fratricidal hostility between the Nephites and Lamanites and the resistance to Jacob’s teachings and painful denunciations of polygamy. Nephi longs for an idealized past in which obedient believers sat willingly at the great Nephi₁’s feet.

Text: Mormon quotes this lament (vv. 7–9) without comment and then returns to his own editorializing (v. 10).