The readers know that the Lord told Nephi that he would be a leader over his brothers and Nephi knew that but Laman and Lemuel didn’t know that and we can see how that role came to Nephi naturally. He didn’t start insisting on leading. When they went to Laban it was Laman who got the first chance to take the lead. Nephi only began to demonstrate leadership when his older brothers began leaning toward giving up.
When they went for Ismael and his family in due that Laman and Lemuel naturally deferred to Nephi when it came to speaking the words of the Lord to convince Ismael. When they decided that they wanted to abandon the plan to go back to where their father was camping Laman and Lemuel attacked Nephi which once again marked him as a leader in the agreed upon course of action. By doing so, both the family of Lehi and the family of Ishmael were conditioned to view Nephi as the next generation of leadership as their fathers aged.
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