Lehi has studied the plates and is filled with the spirit because of the things of God that he learns. He then prophesies regarding his posterity. When he concludes he tells his sons that it is not good that they should be alone and that they should go back and bring Ishmael's family from Jerusalem.
My thoughts around this verse took me in two directions. The first is that we just got done learning from Nephi that he did not have the space to write all the things of his father. The cross-reference for prophesying takes us to 1 Nephi 1:16 and we learn that truly Lehi was a man of many visions, dreams, prophesies and etc. There were the plates of Lehi, but my guess is that they just didn't have room for everything, but I get the feeling that Nephi still valued them and they were influential to him. Nevertheless, there wasn't enough room so he trusted in the Lord to guide him to just those words that he should write.
The other thought is around the word 'alone'. Lehi knew that it was important for them to have families, that it was important to create a new nation. And without women for the sons to marry it really didn't make a sense how that vision of the future was going to come about. So the Lord told Lehi to send the sons back to get the family of Ishmael. I couldn't help but think of the words God spoken at the time the earth was created. It is not good for man to be alone, we will take a rib from his side and create an help-meet. Woman was created. See Genesis 2:18, 24
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