Mormon records that the ninety-first year coincided with six hundred years from the time Lehi left Jerusalem. The signs begin appearing early in the ninety-second year. This suggests that there is a full six hundred years counted before the year of the prophecies, and not that the prophecies came in the six-hundredth year. That highlights the problem of counting prophetic years. Even when they are precise to a number of years, it isn’t always clear how the timing relates to those years.
This becomes an issue with the five-year prophecy of Samuel, which was more easily counted and understood, as most who were alive at the time of the prophecy also lived to the time of the signs of its fulfillment. Still, there was sufficient ambivalence that the division between believers and non-believers could widen when one assumption about what the five-years meant came to a deadline, and passed. Non-believers see it as proof that the prophecy was incorrect. With the passing of Samuels’s prophetic time, those who disbelieved became stronger and more vocal. They were already likely to have been in the majority, and perhaps even leaders in the government.