"thus it is. Amen"

This phrase just caught my attention. We find 6 of them in the Book of Mormon in total (also counting "thus it is written. Amen" in Alma 6. They are very unique (we don't find them in the Bible for instance) and they always mark the end of a chapter, i.e. the original chapters/sections which seem to have been on the plates, not the modern BoM chapters.

I learned from Hugh Nibley that the "iw-f-pw" in Egyptian, which typically marks the end of ancient Egyptian literature, can be translated to "thus it is". Perhaps this was common on the brass plates which were written with Egyptian script (Mosiah 1:4)?

According to a Jewish Rabbi, the "Amen" afterwards means "truly" or "verily" but is also acrostic for the phrase, "El Melech Ne'eman", which means "God is a faithful king". The phrase fits very well in these passages when reading the context. For instance in Alma 13:9, the righteous people become high priests but God is the king. Also, the last word before this phrase is "truth", which is related to the word, "amen" in Hebrew.

"...and thus it is. Amen" seems to be a formal way for the Nephite record keepers to end a section, combining the Egyptian and the Hebrew phrases.

A list of these end-note phrases:

• 1st Nephi 9. Nephi ending his comments of the plates and possibly the abbreviation of Lehi's record
• 1st Nephi 14. Nephi ending the description of his vision
• 1st Nephi 22. End of 1st Nephi
• Alma 6. Conclusion of Alma's preaching in Zarahemla and introduction to his preaching in Gideon.
• Alma 13. This one is interesting. Mormon seems to copy directly from Alma's record. "I" in verse 1 would be Alma. So Alma is making this section break in the middle of his sermon to the people in Ammonihah. I don't know why...
• Helaman 12. The whole chapter is a "thus we see..." commentary by Mormon. He uses this phrase to conclude his remarks before he continues the narrative.