Verses 13 and 14 return the reader to the main story after Moroni’s aside about the land of promise in verses 7–12. What is obscured with this insertion is that the Jaredites made two trips across many waters. The first came after they had gathered their provisions and traveled northward out of the Valley of Nimrod. The second came after they had reached a place where they camped for four years. This second journey is made clear in verse 16 of this chapter.
With the need to traverse two bodies of water in two different sets of barges, it is most probable that they set out across the Mediterranean, and stopped either on the southern coast of the Iberian peninsula, or along the northern coast of Africa. From that point, they would cross the Atlantic.
The Jaredites remain on the coast for four years. The place was called Moriancumer, and perhaps was named for Jared’s brother, since Joseph Smith revealed that the brother of Jared was named Mahonrimoriancumer, or Mahonri Moriancumer.
The important part of this particular part of the story is that the people were quite comfortable not embarking on the next part of the journey for four years. Perhaps they were building the barges, but had not yet used them. For whatever reason, the time had come for them to depart, and the Lord had to chastise the brother of Jared because they had not yet done so.
The brother of Jared was chastised ”for the space of three hours.” We don’t know how they would have measured time, but it was surely a significant amount. Had the brother of Jared not prayed at all? That is a possible reading, but another reading would be that he had not asked the essential question about when they should begin the journey that God had already told them to take (see verses 5 and 6 of this chapter).