Culture: These verses paint an important but complicated picture. As the Nephite army rapidly retreats northward, it attempts to gather its civilian population and move them north as well. Mormon’s army travels together, almost by definition, giving the pursuing army a single focal point. Yet Mormon describes the whole land as chaotic, “filled with robbers and with Lamanites.” Apparently the Lamanites and Gadiantons are pursuing a kind of scorched-earth policy, eliminating or dominating settlements en route rather than focusing, as earlier, just on the army.
Mormon laments that the people “did not repent of their evil doings,” by which he meant their acceptance of outside influences and other religions. I read his description of “one complete revolution throughout all the land” as related to their “evil doings.” The Nephites had increasingly accepted Lamanite ways. Now, threatened by an exceedingly powerful Lamanite army representing the life to which the Nephites were already gravitating, they may have simply rebelled against Nephite rule and accepted the newcomers.