A very specific prophecy was pronounced by Samuel: Within four hundred years the Nephite civilization would become extinct (compare Alma 45:10). Verse 10 notes that the “fourth generation” of Lamanites would live to see this fulfilled, thus equating one hundred years to a “generation.” According to any English dictionary, the term generation may mean a race, kind, or class of people; we most often think of it in terms of a span of twenty to twenty-five years, but here it refers to a one-hundred-year period.