Alma 26:13–14 Textual Variants

One wonders here if one of these two occurrences of “the pains/chains of hell” might be in error, especially since both pains and chains rhyme and are found in the same context (“loosed from the of hell”). For both cases, the extant portions of the original manuscript barely miss giving us the specific word (whether chains or pains), so in each case the current reading is based on the printer’s manuscript. Oliver Cowdery could have mixed up one of these words in his copying—or he might have misheard one for the other while taking down Joseph Smith’s dictation. The use of chains with the verb loose seems more appropriate; nonetheless, pains is possible but is not as vivid.

Elsewhere in the text, this same competition between chains and pains continues. For instance, in the context of the verb loose, we have one other example (in Jacob 3) with pains and two more (in Alma 5) with chains:

• Jacob 3:11 and loose yourselves from the pains of hell
• Alma 5:9 and the chains of hell which encircled them about / were they loosed
• Alma 5:10 what is the cause of their being loosed from the bands of death yea and also the chains of hell

The example in Alma 5:9 also uses the verb encircle in reference to the chains of hell. We find the same competition between chains and pains for that verb as well, with one example (in Alma 14:6) where we get pains rather than the more expected chains:

• Alma 5:7 yea they were encircled about by the bands of death and the chains of hell
• Alma 12:6 that he might encircle you about with his chains
• Alma 14:6 yea he began to be encircled about by the pains of hell
• Alma 36:18 and art encircled about by the everlasting chains of death

So in all, there are three cases where we get pains rather than chains (Jacob 3:11, Alma 14:6, and Alma 26:13). David Calabro also points out (personal communication) that the King James Bible has instances of pains and chains that refer to death and hell:

• Psalm 116:3 the sorrows of death compassed me and the pains of hell gat hold upon me
• Acts 2:24 whom God hath raised up / having loosed the pains of death
• 2 Peter 2:4 but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness

Now, if there was evidence in the textual transmission of the Book of Mormon for mix-ups between the words chain and pain, then perhaps we could argue that pains might be an error for chains in one or more, perhaps all three, of these instances of pains in the Book of Mormon text. But no such evidence exists: the word chain occurs 17 times in the text while the word pain occurs 31 times, yet in no case has any instance of these two words ever been mixed up, even momentarily in the manuscripts. Thus the use of pains rather than chains seems to be intended in Jacob 3:11, Alma 14:6, and Alma 26:13.

It is especially worthwhile to examine the larger passage for the case of “encircled about by the pains of hell” in Alma 14:6. This passage refers to Zeezrom and the agony he is feeling for his guilt (“and his soul began to be harrowed up under a consciousness of his own guilt”). Note later that when Zeezrom is suffering in Sidom, he has “a burning fever which was caused by the great tribulations of his mind” (Alma 15:3); the verse continues with the explanation that “this great sin and his many other sins did harrow up his mind until it did become exceeding sore ... therefore he began to be scorched with a burning heat”. These passages thus match the reference in Alma 14:6 to Zeezrom being “encircled about with the pains of hell”.