2 Nephi 6:6 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
behold I will lift up mine hand [unto > to 1|to ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the Gentiles and set up my standard to the people

Isaiah 49:22 (King James Bible) behold I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles and set up my standard to the people

Oliver Cowdery originally wrote unto in the printer’s manuscript, then crossed out the un (with no change in the level of ink flow). The original manuscript is not extant here. The King James Bible also reads to, as does the parallel quote of this verse in 1 Nephi 21:22. The phrase “unto the Gentiles” is much more common in the Book of Mormon text (37 occurrences) than the phrase “to the Gentiles” (5 occurrences), which probably explains why Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “unto the Gentiles”. Oliver’s correction in 𝓟 appears to be immediate.

Summary: Retain in 2 Nephi 6:6 the preposition to in “to the Gentiles”, which agrees with the to of Isaiah 49:22 and 1 Nephi 21:22.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 1

References