1 And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had made an end of speaking to my brethren, behold they said unto me: Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear.
I wonder what kind of attitude Laman, Lemuel, and the others had when they told Nephi how they felt about his preaching. I imagine they were somewhat subdued after all that. I guess there are a couple of options here: they were either sincerely humbled that they had been rebellious, or they felt guilty that they had been caught and had to be called out by their younger brother. I tend to believe the former. Laman and Lemuel were proud, no question there, but I don’t think pride was a constant problem. It had its flare-ups, but if it was constant, and they were always trying to tie up or kill Nephi and Lehi, they would have had a much more difficult time succeeding in this exodus. The Liahona worked by faith, diligence, and obedience, and apparently everybody in the group had to express some level of faith for it to work (see verse 28), so if they were always a problem, they would not have had access to the Liahona as a regular guide. Probably pride and lack of faith were their biggest problems, which occasionally expressed itself in violence. In the end though, after Lehi died, I think it just consumed these rebellious brothers until Nephi had to finally break away.
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