Comparison: Matthew 5:6 reads: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” The 3 Nephi version reads: “… for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” This addition completes the implicit parallel to the “after righteousness” in the Matthean phrase.
On structural grounds alone, the Matthean phrase seems suspect because it is unique in demanding a metaphorical reading of the people’s current difficulties. For all of the other Beatitudes, the first clause is hardly metaphorical; it describes a real condition that oppresses the people. They are literally poor, not simply poor in spirit (though that qualifier acts like the “after righteousness” in this passage). The meek are truly unempowered, not simply unempowered religiously.
The Matthean redaction, however, contains qualifiers that require primarily a spiritual or metaphoric reading. While that possibility is always present, Matthew manifestly alters the context. The 3 Nephi passage follows that redactional tendency and “improves” the text by a parallel shift to the manifestly religious meaning.
It seems probable that the original phrase in the oral sermon would have been “blessed are they who do hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled.” That would be a much tighter literary parallel to the similar “blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” This more condensed form is actually found in two formulations in Luke: “Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh” (Luke 6:21), and “Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep” (Luke 6:25). The Lukan parallels make no attempt at expansion, and the tighter correlation occurs in both a positive and a negative statement. The weight of evidence suggests the shorter version.
In the context of the original audience, hunger and thirst would have been all too real. That they would be filled was a future promise. However, like the “mourn/ comforted” pairing, this was not a simply satiation of hunger but a filling with something more permanent and important.
Matthew points the reader in that direction by adding “after righteousness.” The 3 Nephi text further extends that same thought by explaining what the people will be filled with. However, paralleling the 3 Nephi addition with Matthew’s addition creates a complementary parallel, thus violating the antithetical parallel that dominates the structure of the Beatitudes. Textually, it is easy to see “after righteousness” as a Matthean redactional addition. Similarly, the 3 Nephi “for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost” is a redactional addition. Our question is where it came from.
Like most such textual questions, there are two possibilities. First, Nephi could be simply recording the Savior’s words to the people in Bountiful in which he clarified his earlier statement recorded in Matthew. There is tremendous emotional strength behind this position, and a large body of LDS interpretive commentary would support it. Arguing against this possibility is the fact that the second addition depends on the first. If Matthew added the first phrase, then he would have done so later than when Jesus actually spoke the words.
A second problem is that this beatitude seems less relevant to the New World, since the Book of Mormon mentions “hunger” only when famine occurs. Most of the narrative never suggests any problem with food at all. In other words, the conditions that caused the hunger of the peasants whom Jesus addressed did not exist in Mesoamerica. In the Old World, the peasants were hungry because so much of their produce went to the landowners. This condition existed temporarily in the land of Nephi but is never mentioned elsewhere.
Given these difficulties, I hypothesize that Joseph Smith was interacting with the Matthean text and using it as a representation of Jesus’s words, even though they may not have been completely accurate representations of the plate text. That is not to say that Jesus could not have given this sermon as written. He could have. However, if he were sufficiently literate to know the beatitude structure in the first place, he would likely have used it, rather than violate it in his presentation. For the same reason that we can see a redactional addition in Matthew, we see it in the 3 Nephi text. The 3 Nephi addition suggests that it was an expansion of the first clause, and therefore a reaction to Matthew’s text, rather than to specific New World conditions.
Comment: In spite of the evidence of textual addition, this concept is not foreign to the Nephites. The idea that the Atoning Messiah will bring them a more filling “food” was part of their prophets’ message.
Alma uses this imagery to describe the effect of the gospel on one’s life: “And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst” (Alma 32:42).
The Savior himself uses this image later with the Nephites: “And he said unto them: He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled” (3 Ne. 20:8).
While both passages contain metaphors and analogies related to food, neither spells out the spiritual parallel as do the Matthean and 3 Nephi beatitudes. The rest of the discourse could have provided the spiritual context; thus, I read the explicit designation as an addition, even though it is both logical and has a precedent in the Book of Mormon text. Of course, the close parallel in phrasing also suggests that, while the Nephites knew the concept, the particular language was primarily influenced by Joseph’s experience with the New Testament.