Alma quotes a no longer extant text. It must be old because it describes the creation of the interpreters that eventually came to Alma. It is possible that this is a quotation from Mosiah’s translation that Moroni did not include in his abridgment. The Lord provided the “stone” (singular here, but two stones in Ether 3:23) to “shine forth in darkness unto light.” The Lord specifically prepared these stones to interpret Jaredite writings (Ether 3:24) and gave them to the brother of Jared when he saw the Lord’s finger. This association opens the possibility that, after lighting the Jaredite barges, some of the luminescent stones became the interpreters.
Linguistic: “Gazelem” appears here for the first time in the Book of Mormon. Reynolds and Sjodahl suggest an etymology: “Gazelem is a name given to a servant of God. The word appears to have its roots in Gaz—a stone, and Aleim, a name of God as a revelator, or the interposer in the affairs of men. If this suggestion is correct, its roots admirably agree with its apparent meaning—a seer.”
History: Another relevant point is the interpreters’ association with “Urim and Thummim.” Doctrine and Covenants 17:1 states: “Behold, I say unto you, that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in the wilderness, on the borders of the Red Sea.”
The Urim and Thummim are well known from the Old Testament (Ex. 20:8, Lev. 8:8, Deut. 33:8, Ezra 2:63, Neh. 7:65). Are the interpreters the same as Aaron’s Urim and Thummim? It is not likely. Our texts say that Yahweh prepared them and gave them to the brother of Jared, and they appear to have remained specifically linked to the Jaredites. Nevertheless, we find these Jaredite interpreters with an Old Testament name in the Doctrine and Covenants.
Richard Van Wagoner and Steve Walker note confusion in early Mormonism about the term “Urim and Thummim.” It does not appear to be associated with either the Book of Mormon interpreters or with Joseph Smith’s seer stone until W. W. Phelps published an article in the 1833 Evening and Morning Star. Apostle Orson Pratt understood the term generically: “The Urim and Thummim is a stone or other substance sanctified and illuminated by the Spirit of the living God, and presented to those who are blessed with the gift of seeing.” The Book of Mormon interpreters were not the Old Testament Urim and Thummim. The seer stone was not the Old Testament Urim and Thummim. Nevertheless, early Saints adopted that Old Testament name for both the Book of Mormon interpreters and Joseph’s seer stone.
Text: Given the context, Alma is probably quoting Ether’s record, but Moroni omitted it in his redaction of the Jaredite record.