Take 3 Nephi 4, for example, where we find an account of the Nephites' struggle against the Gadianton robbers.
I've always found the description of the execution of Zemnarihah rather unusual, but now I see that this passage is packed with covenant language. Below I'll link to posts that discuss the covenant connotations of each set of highlighted words.
28 And their leader, Zemnarihah, was taken and hanged upon a tree, yea, even upon the top thereof until he was dead. And when they had hanged him until he was dead they did fell the tree to the earth, and did cry with a loud voice, saying:
29 May the Lord preserve his people in righteousness and in holiness of heart, that they may cause to be felled to the earth all who shall seek to slay them because of power and secret combinations, even as this man hath been felled to the earth.
30 And they did rejoice and cry again with one voice, saying: May the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, protect this people in righteousness, so long as they shall call on the name of their God for protection.
31 And it came to pass that they did break forth, all as one, in singing, and praising their God for the great thing which he had done for them, in preserving them from falling into the hands of their enemies.
32 Yea, they did cry: Hosanna to the Most High God. And they did cry: Blessed be the name of the Lord God Almighty, the Most High God.
33 And their hearts were swollen with joy, unto the gushing out of many tears, because of the great goodness of God in delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; and they knew it was because of their repentance and their humility that they had been delivered from an everlasting destruction. (3 Nephi 4)
preserve his people -- See this note about God preserving His people, especially the section about Jacob 5:11-12.
holiness of heart / hearts were swollen with joy -- This post discusses hearts. This post discusses swelling hearts and a connection to Old Testament covenant language.
rejoice -- Joy and rejoicing are intimately connected with covenant-making. See this post for an example of how this concept is intentionally woven into the narrative in Mosiah 18.
cry again with one voice -- This echoes the actions of King Benjamin's people after hearing his sermon and desiring to enter a covenant with God. (See Mosiah 4:2.) This post shows how "crying to God" is part of a divine pattern found in many places in the Book of Mormon.
protect this people -- Protection is a central blessing promised as a part of our temple covenants. This post outlines how the underlying words used to describe the Atonement symbolize divine protection.
call on the name of their God -- This post shows a few examples of Adam and Eve learning how to call upon the name of God in connection with covenants.
all as one -- This post explains how God the Father and Jesus Christ are one, and how they desire each of us to be one with them. Covenant people act with "one heart and one mind." (See Moses 7:18.)
singing -- Singing, especially in relation to praising God, has some pretty deep connections to being a covenant people. This post discusses some of that history.
gushing out of many tears -- Tears can be a symbol of gratitude and love of God. See this post for an example, and this post for a longer discussion on "tears as rain upon the mountain."
goodness -- This post shows how "goodness" means more than we might think it does, and is connected to deliverance, too.
delivered -- Nephi uses the concept of deliverance in several clever ways. See here. In this post, I connect the term "delivered" to covenants using examples from Alma's sermon in Ammonihah.
That is quite a bit of covenant language in one short passage. Since engaging in this effort to understand covenant symbols better, the context of this story no longer strikes me as weird. This army of robbers was dressed in such a way as to mock the symbols of the Nephites' covenant (see 3 Nephi 4:7). The righteous Nephites fell to the earth (notice the contrast with Zemnarihah's later fate) and "did lift their cries to the Lord their God, that he would spare them and deliver them out of the hands of their enemies." (See 3 Nephi 4:8.) When that prayer was answered with great power, they naturally felt the strong desire to re-commit to their covenants.
A note about hanging Zemnarihah from the "top" of a tree
Not even this detail strikes me as odd, given the fact that I just recently studied Jacob 5. Notice what the servant (Christ) tells the Lord of the vineyard (God the Father) about the wild branches and the Lord laments the state of his vineyard:
48 And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Is it not the loftiness of thy vineyard—have not the branches thereof overcome the roots which are good? And because the branches have overcome the roots thereof, behold they grew faster than the strength of the roots, taking strength unto themselves. Behold, I say, is not this the cause that the trees of thy vineyard have become corrupted?
The solution to this problem involves pruning. Corrupted branches are cut off and cast into the fire.
Thus, when the leader of the covenant-mocking robbers is captured, he is hung from the top of a tree, then the tree is cut down, and the people immediately praise God for their deliverance and reiterate their covenants.
Conclusion
This obscure passage in 3 Nephi 4 make it clear to me that even almost 600 years after Lehi left Jerusalem, covenants were still a very essential part of Nephite culture, and we need to understand the symbols associated with that covenant in order to gain a realistic understanding of their worldview (not to mention the Book of Mormon itself).
