Although he only makes a brief appearance in the Book of Mormon, his brass plates play an important role when they are taken by Laman and Nephi (often referred to as the "sons of Lehi") and are used by the Nephites.

[2] Brant Gardner identified five ways that the brass plates of Laban were "extremely important",[3] both in the immediate context of their retrieval by the sons of Lehi and in later Nephite, Lamanite, and Mulekite society.

Some say that the killing was legally justified as self defense, that it was a political act, that it was specifically one of "sovereignty,"[6] and that it functioned similarly to the biblical Akedah as a test of Nephi's faith.

Commentators have suggested that the story was a way for Joseph Smith to deal with repressed childhood trauma[7] and symbolically sever of the Book of Mormon narrative from the established biblical canon as the Spirit of the Lord ordered Laban's murder.

[6] Steven L. Peck, a Latter-day Saint novelist wrote a Deleuzean treatment of the sword of Laban as emblematic of climate change and of power structures, referring to it as symptomatic of the "Jerusalem-machine.