Cords are lengths used to bind people or to lower people over walls. Laman and Lemuel bound Nephi with cords and treated him harshly after taking him (1 Nephi 18:11). Nephi said that his brethren “did bind me with cords” while seeking to leave him in the wilderness (1 Nephi 7:16).
People in Ammonihah bound Alma and Amulek with cords and confined them in prison (Alma 14:22-23). After Alma asked the Lord for strength, Alma and Amulek “broke the cords with which they were bound” (Alma 14:26). Ammon found his brethren suffering from “being bound with strong cords” before Lamoni and Ammon delivered them (Alma 20:29-30).
Moroni caused his army to prepare “strong cords and ladders, to be let down from the top of the wall” (Alma 62:21-23). Teancum let himself down over the city wall and went through the Lamanite camp with a cord (Alma 62:36). A command concerning tents says, “lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes” (3 Nephi 22:2).