Yahweh continues his description in verse 11. He will speak to both the Jews of the Old World and the Jews of the New World (the Nephites), and they will record that communication. He will also speak to other groups of his chosen people, and finally he will speak to all nations. This last statement opens the way for Yahweh to communicate with Gentile prophets. The other statements follow the division between Jew and Gentile, with the word of God coming to the Gentile through the mouth of a Jew, whether from the Old World or the New.
This juxtaposition of Jewish-scripture/Gentile-world is the thrust of this section. The Gentiles will revile and hate the Jews but do so contrary to the word that they have received. Yahweh admonishes the Gentiles to respect his chosen people, an admonition frequently ignored in the often savage history of Jewish/ Gentile relations in the Old World.
Culture: This verse marks the earliest appearance of “Nephite” in the Book of Mormon. They had earlier used “people of Nephi” to designate themselves: “And my people would that we should call the name of the place Nephi; wherefore, we did call it Nephi. And all those who were with me did take upon them to call themselves the people of Nephi” (2 Ne. 5:8–9).
Calling both a place and its people by the same name is not unusual. It shows high esteem for the man Nephi. Jacob also calls his group the “people of Nephi”: “The words of Jacob, the brother of Nephi, which he spake unto the people of Nephi” (2 Ne. 6:1; see also Jacob 1:2). Nevertheless, Jacob is the next writer to use “Nephite,” suggesting that both terms were in use during this first generation: “Now the people which were not Lamanites were Nephites; nevertheless, they were called Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites. But I, Jacob, shall not hereafter distinguish them by these names, but I shall call them Lamanites that seek to destroy the people of Nephi, and those who are friendly to Nephi I shall call Nephites, or the people of Nephi, according to the reigns of the kings” (Jacob 1:13–14).
“People of Nephi” seems to designate a political unit (at least in this early stage), but the political unit includes kinship subunits designated according to clan leader (e.g., Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, etc.). Jacob also includes the Lamanites and Lemuelites as tribal designators. However, by this point, the major political and tribal categories use a consolidated terminology. According to Jacob, there are only two collective terms, “Lamanite” and “Nephite,” and the two groups are enemies.
Although the collective names do not appear until Jacob’s record, they were clearly used earlier. Nephi uses “Lamanite” in the context of “enemy” in 2 Nephi 5:14: “And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us; for I knew their hatred toward me and my children and those who were called my people.”
Nephi certainly knew that the “Lamanites” included Lemuelites, but it is not a distinction he observes. Thus, using the collective “Lamanite” to cover multiple kinship groups must have begun during Nephi’s lifetime, even if his own people formally referred to themselves as “people of Nephi.”
In this verse, Yahweh uses “Nephite” as a collective designation, meaning all of those to whom Yahweh spoke and who recorded his word.