As I begin my Come Follow Me study of the Doctrine and Covenants, I feel the need to continue my daily study of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon grounds me in a way that feels vital to me. And this seems like an opportunity to follow Pres. Nelson's counsel to deepen my understanding of and relationship with my Saviour by looking up every reference to Him-- at this time, in the Book of Mormon.
2 Nephi 25:19
Here's something that surprises me. I knew there were prophecies among the Nephites that the Messiah would come 600 years after Lehi left Jerusalem. But this seems to indicate that those prophecies were made prior to Lehi's departure into the wilderness. What else could it mean? This is Nephi talking and the context is his prophecy that the Jews will, in the last day, be convinced of the true Messiah, for the prophets have spoken of one Messiah: "he who should be rejected by the Jews" (25:18) and who should come 600 years from Lehi's departure, and who should be named Jesus Christ.
We don't have those prophecies in the Bible, but Nephi is secure about them. Perhaps they were among the unknown records, like the words of Zenos, Neum and Zenock, that were recorded on the Brass Plates and then carried away by Lehi's family. That makes sense to me. It would explain how the Nephites could repeatedly refer to them, at the same time that the Jews, at the time of Jesus, seem to have had no awareness of them.