Although Abinadi began with the very first verse in our chapter, the evidence for chapters in what Nephi copied from Isaiah in 2 Nephi suggests that our modern chapter divisions had not yet been implemented when Nephi wrote. Thus, Abinadi begins with a sentence that he wants to use as an accusation, but he skipped verses that shifted from Isaiah’s emphasis, in Chapter 52, on Jerusalem to the personal emphasis on the suffering servant.
Isaiah 52:13 and 14 say: “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.”
It is the image of the marred visage of Isaiah 52:14 that is echoed in Isaiah 53: “when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him.” Even more than simply following the chapter from which the priests of Noah selected their challenge verses, what Abinadi does is quote to them the extension and elaboration of that chapter which emphasizes the suffering servant. At the beginning of our Chapter 15 in Mosiah (which was not separated into a separate chapter in 1830), Abinadi will identify the suffering servant as the future Messiah.