Mosiah 24:23 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
for the Lamanites have [awoke 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ|awakened RST] and doth pursue thee

This passage brings up the question of what past participial forms the verb awake and the related verbs awaken, wake, and waken should take. Here the original text had awoke, which was later edited to awakened in the 1920 LDS edition and in the 1953 RLDS edition. Elsewhere in the text, there are six past participial occurrences of these verbs; in half the cases, the original past participial form is awakened, while in the other half it is awoke (as here in Mosiah 24:23):

The three cases in this list of awoke have basically undergone the same editing as in Mosiah 24:23, although in the last two instances the 1907 LDS vest-pocket edition substituted awaked for awoke. The four occurrences of the past participle awoke are identical to the simple past-tense form awoke. For many verbs, the original text frequently used the simple past-tense verb form as the past participle, such as “had came” in 1 Nephi 5:1 and “have grew” in Jacob 5:37. Over time, the standard editions have removed these nonstandard past participial uses of the simple past-tense form. For a complete discussion, see under past participle in volume 3. The critical text will in each case maintain the past participial form as found in the earliest textual sources. Here in Mosiah 24:23, the critical text will therefore restore the verb form awoke (as also in Alma 51:36, Alma 55:18, and Mormon 9:13).

Historically, the English language has shown considerable variation in the use of the verbs awake, awaken, wake, and waken (and their forms). For a survey of the variation, see the discussion under awake, awaken and wake, waken in Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. Like the English language as a whole, the Book of Mormon has shown similar variation. For the competition between awake and wake, see under 2 Nephi 27:3; for the use of both awoke and awaked as the simple past-tense form for awake, see under Alma 5:7; and for the competition between awake and awaken, see under Alma 62:36.

Summary: Maintain throughout the text the original past participial forms for the various verbs meaning ‘awake’; we have instances in the original text of both awoke and awakened, about equally divided.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

References