17 And after we had traveled for the space of many days, we did pitch our tents for the space of a time, that we might again rest ourselves and obtain food for our families.
Sometimes Nephi is quite detailed in his account, and others,
like this verse, he is not. I wonder if the lack of detail is because it is not
important to the main point of the story, or if it was recorded some years
after the fact, and some details were just forgotten. My guess is the answer
includes both of those. It would explain the next story that Nephi tells of his
broken bow. Why that particular story? Why not others that illustrated
hardship, if that’s all he wanted to illustrate? It just seems to me like he
includes stories that are significant, and some of those details, like time and
distance, just don’t need to be told. In fact, sometimes it is only after some
time that we can really understand the significance of an event in our lives.
Some things that happen to us seem significant while they are happening, and
later they may or may not be as big a deal. Or maybe they are a big deal, but
not for the reasons we thought they were at the time.
