Jacob 2:11 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
Jacob get thou up into the temple on the morrow and declare the word which I shall give thee unto this people

This passage brings up an issue of grammar: should we have get thou or get thee in this imperative construction? In the King James Bible, there are 42 occurrences of get thee but none of get thou. Similarly, the King James Bible has 27 occurrences of get you but none of get ye. In other words, the King James text allows only the object form (thee or you) after the imperative get.

In the Book of Mormon text, the usage is mixed, with three occurrences of get thee and two of get thou:

Also note in these examples that conjoined verb phrases may differ in the pronominal form; thus in Mosiah 24:23, we have “haste thee” immediately followed by “and get thou”. The Book of Mormon text, unlike the King James text, permits variability; we therefore follow the earliest textual sources in order to determine the pronoun form for such imperative constructions.

Summary: Maintain the subject form thou in the imperative phrase get thou in Jacob 2:11; most other passages have get thee as the imperative form, although Mosiah 24:23 has one example of get thou and another of get thee.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 2

References