2 Nephi 16:11 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and he said until the cities be wasted without [inhabetent 1|inhabitant ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRT|inhabitants S] and the houses without man

Isaiah 6:11 (King James Bible) and he answered until the cities be wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man

The 1953 RLDS edition has the plural inhabitants, which may be due to the preceding plural cities. Even so, the change is probably a typo since the following “and the houses without man” was not changed to “and the houses without men”. The King James text has the singular forms inhabitant and man.

Summary: Maintain the singular inhabitant in 2 Nephi 16:11, the earliest extant text for the Book of Mormon (as well as the King James reading).

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 2

References