One small detail from his analysis stood out to me. He states that the chapter as a whole is bracketed by an inclusion found in the opening and closing phrases:
My son, give ear to my words...now this is according to his word.
This little detail had never really stood out to me, but it is beautiful and simple. The chapter is about conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and more specifically how Alma-2 went from trying to destroy the work to devoting his entire life to building it up. In other words, how the words of Alma became synonymous with the word of God.
A poetic form like this needs some kind of boundary demarcation, since the Book of Mormon text came essentially as one long run-on sentence. This simple couplet serves that function.
