These may be some of the saddest verses in the entire Book of Mormon. We have Mormon the former general who is now nearly sixty five years old deciding to “repent of the oath which I had made that I would no more assist them.” We might be inclined to see this as a hope that he might turn things around, but we see that same Mormon in verse 2 admitting that “I was without hope.” Thus we have an aged man assuming a responsibility at which he knows in his heart he will fail. Surely he changed his mind because he desires to put up the best struggle possible, but he has already decided that the end is in sight.
The people who accept him back appear to do so with hope of their own. They “looked upon me as though I could deliver them from their afflictions.” They had great hope that a man who had once stopped the invaders might do so again. The people’s great hope is a dramatic contrast to the man himself, in whom no hope survived.