2 Nephi 5:26-34

Life in the land of Nephi is becoming normal.  One of the first things Nephi did was consecrates his brothers Jacob and Joseph to be priests over the land.

Consecration of priests is an essential part of the gospel.  Jacob would later tell us that he and Joseph “did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day” (Jacob 1:19). 

We see from Jacob’s words, they took their responsibility and trust seriously.

When Alma₁ established the church in Zarahemla, he consecrated priests.  Mormon tells us that “none received authority to preach or to teach except it were by him from God.  Therefore he consecrated all their priests and all their teachers; and none were consecrated except they were just men” (Mosiah 23:17). 

We see that the promises made to Jacob by Lehi came to pass.

Lehi further promised that Jacob's days "shall be spent in the service of thy God" (2 Nephi 2:3). Indeed, he and Joseph had been consecrated as priests and teachers by Nephi (2 Nephi 5:26). In both of his discourses, Jacob spoke of his ordination by Nephi (2 Nephi 6:2; Jacob 1:18) and of his role as a teacher (2 Nephi 9:44, 48; Jacob 1:17—19; 2:2—3; 4:1). Jacob was particularly qualified to serve in this capacity because, as Lehi noted, he had seen the glory of the Redeemer and knew of his ministry in the flesh and of the salvation he would bring (2 Nephi 2:3—4; cf. 11:3; Jacob 2:11).⁵  [1]

Things were going well and they were a happy society. 

Alan Goff explains how the separation of the family led to this level of happiness.

After breaking with his brothers, Nephi organizes his people and achieves a level of righteousness they were not able to attain before there were Lamanites and Nephites. He states that "it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness" (2 Nephi 5:27). This passage is alluded to at least three times. A later prophet named Nephi engages in nostalgia for that earlier time: "Oh, that I could have had my days in the days when my father first came out of the land of Jerusalem, that I could have joyed with him in the promised land; then were his people easy to be entreated, firm to keep the commandments of God, and slow to be led to iniquity" (Helaman 7:7).[2]

Hugh Nibley goes into detail explaining what Nephi meant.

We are told in 2 Nephi 5:27 that the people "lived after the manner of happiness." Does that mean in a world without change? Times and seasons, conveniences and techniques inevitably change, but there is something that does not need to change, and that is that state of mind we call happiness. Nephi's people made adjustments and did not depend on the adamantly immovable euphoria of such jubilant spirits as Pippi and Pollyanna; those moppets had a point—the irrepressible sprites made their own happiness. This point was not lost among the well-to-do who advised the unemployed and the hungry to rejoice in their adventurous situation and examples of life on the brink.[3]

Nephi tells us he is writing this part of the record thirty years after they departed from Jerusalem (or twenty-two years after they arrived in the Promised Land).  We don’t exactly when the family separated, but it was very early on. 

In 1 Nephi, Nephi tells us “I, Nephi, do not give the genealogy of my fathers in this part of my record; neither at any time shall I give it after upon these plates which I am writing; for it is given in the record which has been kept by my father; wherefore, I do not write it in this work” (1 Nephi 6:1). 

He expounds on that comment later. 

And now, as I have spoken concerning these plates, behold they are not the plates upon which I make a full account of the history of my people; for the plates upon which I make a full account of my people I have given the name of Nephi; wherefore, they are called the plates of Nephi, after mine own name; and these plates also are called the plates of Nephi.

Nevertheless, I have received a commandment of the Lord that I should make these plates, for the special purpose that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of my people.

Upon the other plates should be engraven an account of the reign of the kings, and the wars and contentions of my people; wherefore these plates are for the more part of the ministry; and the other plates are for the more part of the reign of the kings and the wars and contentions of my people.

Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not.

1 Nephi 9:2 - 5

It is at this time that Nephi is commanded to make this second set of plates.  “[I]t came to pass that the Lord God said unto me: Make other plates; and thou shalt engraven many things upon them which are good in my sight, for the profit of thy people” (2 Nephi 5:30).

Nephi describes that he had made a record of the things that had occurring during their journey in the wilderness, prophesies, and other sacred things.  This record was kept before they arrived in the Promised Land.  This record is as much a historical account as it is a religious record.  (These plates would later become known as the large plates of Nephi.)

After he received the commandment from the Lord, he began to make his second set of plates.  (These plates would alter become known as the small plates of Nephi.)  This is the sacred record of the Nephites, with little history.[4]  The large plates contain genealogies as well as accounts of war and destruction. 

When the plates were passed on after his death, Nephi instructed Jacob to continue with the large plates as a history and the small plates be “the more sacred things that may be kept for the knowledge of my people”  (see 1 Nephi 19:1-6 for Nephi’s full explanation).

At the beginning of Jacob’s record, he tells reiterates the commandment Nephi gave him “that I should write upon these plates a few of the things which I considered to be most precious; that I should not touch, save it were lightly, concerning the history of this people which are called the people of Nephi” (for the full account, see Jacob 1:1-4).

Melvin Thorne and John Welch write:

Nephi made the small plates even later, after he had left the land of first inheritance and moved to the land of Nephi. The Lord instructed Nephi to make these plates so he could “engraven many things . . . which are good in my sight, for the profit of thy people” (2 Nephi 5:30). Thus the small plates should be understood as having been written after the death of Lehi, after the separation of Nephi from his brothers Laman and Lemuel, after the small Nephite party knew of the life-threatening animosity of the Lamanites against them, after Nephi knew that he would eventually accept the role of king, and after the temple of Nephi had been constructed.[5]

In verse 28, Nephi tells us thirty years have passed since they left Jerusalem.  Six verses later, he tells us forty years have passed.  Noel Reynolds writes:

It took Nephi ten years to write the first twenty-seven chapters (1 Nephi, plus the first five chapters of 2 Nephi). In 2 Nephi 5:34, he says, "Forty years had passed away." So Nephi gives us a time period in which this was written. He is looking backward. Nephi is already aware of the big contention that has developed between the Nephites and the Lamanites, and this is what he is dealing with in his record. This is not his journal being written by the campfire at the side of the trail as his family went through the Arabian Peninsula. This is something he is writing very carefully, very deliberately, thirty years later, looking back. He is using his first record as a resource and writing with very clear, mature, reflective purposes.[6]

Nephi makes one last historical observation in verse 34.  Over the ten years Nephi was making the small plates, “we had already had wars and contentions with our brethren.”  With this comment, Nephi ends historical observations.  The remainder on 2 Nephi is devoted to sacred things as well as things that we “good in [Nephi’s] sight, for the profit of [his] people.”

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[1] The Influence of Lehi's Admonitions on the Teachings of His Son Jacob, John A. Tvedtnes, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 17, 2013.

[2] Positivism and the Priority of Ideology in Mosiah-First Theories of Book of Mormon Production, Alan Goff, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 17, 2013.

[3] Change out of Control, Hugh Nibley, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 17, 2013.

[4] The verses in 1 and 2 Nephi are around 15% historical in nature and 85% religious in nature.

[5] When Did Nephi Write the Small Plates? Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon: The FARMS Updates of the 1990s , Melvin J. Thorne, and John W. Welch, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 17, 2013.

[6] Book of Mormon, Teachings, Noel B. Reynolds, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 17, 2013.