The most heartbreaking part of the Book of Mormon is in 4 Nephi and most of Mormon. They chronicle the Nephites’ self-inflicted fall from grace to abject apostasy and open rebellion against the Lord.
A few things that stand out to me in this section, namely how I wept for the Nephites when I first read this as a teenager. Another is Mormon 5:15 where he observes how the people became a dark, a filthy and a loathsome people, more so than existed at any time in their history prior to that. It’s a pretty clear indication the “darkness” spoken of wasn’t so much a changing of skin pigment but something more along metaphysical lines. I think you’d almost have to see it to comprehend it because there’s no easy way in our language to describe it. The closest I can come to explaining it is seeing someone who has turned away from the Gospel who once had its light in their countenance. In such cases, the best word to use is they’ve become dark. It’s quite a sad story.
The last observation is Mormon getting the plates from Ammoron. There are two reasons why he got them: Ammoron had no sons worthy of the role or the Lord told him to give them to someone else. Given the Nephite tradition, my guess is the former. It represents the end of a dynasty of prophets from Alma the Elder, down through seven intervening generations to Ammaron. For what it’s worth, the Book of Mormon is recorded by twenty generations of prophet-record keepers over a 1000 year period. In three generations, one brother gave the record to another brother, who then gave it to a son or nephew or in the case of Benjamin, the prophet-King.
By the end of Mormon 7, the Nephites are gone and Mormon and his son Moroni speak to generations of unborn people they know only through prophetic vision: us.
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