Ether 13:31 Textual Variants

The 1840 edition dropped the all here after upon, perhaps because of the all in the immediately preceding phrase, “all the people”. The shorter reading without the all was maintained in the RLDS text until 1908. The 1920 LDS edition deleted the all, probably because the 1840 edition did. The change in the 1920 edition was intentional since it was marked in the committee copy. (See nearby under Ether 13:26 for another case where all was omitted from this same phrase, but in the 1905 LDS edition.)

We note here that there are other passages with a similar repetition of the universal quantifier all:

• 3 Nephi 5:24
  • and as surely as the Lord liveth will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth all the remnant of the seed of Jacob which are scattered abroad upon all the face of the earth
• 3 Nephi 9:1
  • there was a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the earth upon all the face of this land
• 4 Nephi 1:2
  • the people were all converted unto the Lord upon all the face of the land
• Ether 13:26
  • and there was robbers and in fine all manner of wickedness upon all the face of the land
• Ether 15:12
  • they did gather together all the people upon all the face of the land which had not been slain save it were Ether

This last example has the very same phraseology that Ether 13:31 originally had (“all the people upon all the face of the land”). The lack of variation in Ether 15:12 suggests that the 1840 change in Ether 13:31 was a typo, yet in this case the editors for the 1920 edition decided to follow the 1840 edition. Clearly, the original all in “upon all the face of the land” should be restored here in Ether 13:31.