Alma reminds his people of their deliverance from spiritual bondage, the delivering of their souls from hell (v. 6). The changing of their hearts refers to Alma’s father listening to the prophet Abinadi and then teaching those who were later baptized in the waters of Mormon (Mosiah 18:1–17). King Benjamin’s people, about 124 B.C., also had “the spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which had wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good” (Mosiah 5:2).
The phrase, “he awakened them out of a deep sleep” is referring to Alma’s father teaching Abinadi’s words. As a part of the rebirth process, Lehi had invited his wayward sons, Laman and Lemuel to “Awake from a deep sleep, yea, even the sleep of hell” (2 Nephi 1:13).
“The light of the everlasting word” that illuminated their darkness (v. 7) was the knowledge and power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ that was to “come into the world, speaking of things to come as though they had already come” (Mosiah 16:6). “The bands of death” refer to the “death of the body” (2 Nephi 9:12) and “the chains of hell” to their being “taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction” (Alma 12:11). The faith of the Nephite fathers in the coming of Christ had broken the bands of death and the chains of hell (Alma 5:9).