Mormon was ten years old in A.D. 321 (4 Nephi 1:48; Mormon 1:2). In the year A.D. 385 he would have been seventy-four years of age. He had begun to be old (Mormon 6:6). The attempt to destroy records (v. 6) was the work of Satan. Nephi saw the great and abominable church, whose founder was the devil (see 1 Nephi 13:4–6), who would take away many plain and precious parts from the gospel and also many covenants (see 1 Nephi 13:26). Mormon had hidden all the records in the hill Cumorah, as he had been commanded (Mormon 6:6).
The Nephites fear came from two sources—death and terror— because of the Lamanites great numbers (vv. 7–8). Death is sweet unto those who die in Christ, but it is bitter to those who die not in Christ (see D&C 42:46–47). The Nephites fear came because they were “without Christ and God in the world” (Mormon 5:16).