Isaiah 7:1 (King James Bible) and it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah that Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel went up toward Jerusalem to war against it
The earliest extant text of the Book of Mormon for 2 Nephi 17:1 has and instead of the that which is italicized in the King James Bible. The Hebrew text for this passage has no word for that (or and, for that matter). The King James translators inserted the that to distinguish between the king of Judah and the kings of Syria and Israel, who oppose him. Without the that, the sequence of three names would be difficult to interpret.
In the Hebrew, there is no problem separating the first king from the two others because the verb of the main clause comes immediately after the long prepositional phrase and before the subject of the main clause:
Thus the word order of English (subject before the verb) required the insertion of the that in order to maintain the distinction between the king of Judah and the two other kings.
One possible interpretation for the occurrence of the additional and in 𝓟 is that the and is the consequence of two stages in transmission: (1) the intentional omission of the italicized that of the King James text, followed by (2) the accidental insertion of the and during the early transmission of the Book of Mormon text. As far as the second stage is concerned, we have evidence that on two different occasions Oliver Cowdery accidentally inserted an and after “it came to pass”:
In both instances, however, there was no intervening prepositional phrase (like the long complex one in 2 Nephi 17:1).
There is some support for the intentional omission in 2 Nephi 17:1 of the italicized that of the King James Bible. For instance, elsewhere in this same chapter, the Book of Mormon text sometimes omits the italicized that following a “come to pass” clause:
The first example is complicated because the earliest Book of Mormon text has an additional that immediately after the “come to pass” clause. See the discussion below under verse 21.
The omission of the that after a “come to pass” clause is, however, not systematic. For instance, here in 2 Nephi 17, the italicized that of the King James Bible was retained in one place:
Nonetheless, the occasional omission in the Book of Mormon text of the italicized King James that does suggest that the original text for 2 Nephi 17:1 may have omitted the italicized that, which produced a complex sequence of three noun phrases. Under this interpretation, either Joseph Smith or Oliver Cowdery may have accidentally added the and in order to separate the first king from the two others.
In his editing for the 1837 edition, Joseph Smith apparently felt that the and was inappropriate (or at least difficult to interpret) and changed it to that. Another editorial option would have been to simply delete the and, but then there would have been that same difficulty in interpreting the sequence of three complex noun phrases.
Another possible analysis for 2 Nephi 17:1 is that the extra and is some kind of literal Hebraism. As discussed under 1 Nephi 16:10, the original Book of Mormon text frequently has an extra and between a subordinate clause and its following main clause. For example, in the original text of the Book of Mormon we have instances of such extra and ’s following a “come to pass” clause:
But in each of these examples, we have an intervening subordinate clause rather than an intervening prepositional phrase (as found in 2 Nephi 17:1). Nonetheless, both types (the subordinate clause and the prepositional phrase) deal with time. Thus even for 2 Nephi 17:1 we could interpret the extra and after the prepositional phrase as some kind of Hebrew-like construction.
Yet another possibility would be to interpret the “come to pass” clause as an isolated clause, not as an introductory one. Thus the meaning of the first part of 2 Nephi 17:1 would be something like ‘and the following came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah’. Under this interpretation, one could make this verse readable by placing a colon after the initial clause, in which case the following clause could then begin with (or without) the and:
The main problem with this proposed example of an isolated “come to pass” clause is that it seems so uncharacteristic of the Book of Mormon language, although there is one use of “come to pass” that could be cited in support of such a reading:
Of course, this use of “come to pass” refers to the preceding, not the following, text. And instead of the expletive it, the subject is all this.
In general, there is a very strong expectation that an initial “come to pass” clause will be followed by a that-clause, thus the motivation to supply the that (both in the King James Bible as well as in Joseph Smith’s editing for the 1837 edition). Undoubtedly, it would be best for the standard printed text to maintain the that. The critical text could either adopt the and of 𝓟 or assume that the original text purposely omitted the that but that the and was accidentally added. It is very difficult to decide between these two possibilities, although at the present I favor the second of these since the and alternative is so very difficult to interpret. A comma, of necessity, must follow the reference to the king of Judah; but in order to prevent confusion, no comma should be used to separate the listing of the two other kings:
Summary: Emend 2 Nephi 17:1 by removing from the earliest text the and that follows the reference to the king of Judah; it appears that the italicized that of the King James Bible was purposely omitted, but the and in 𝓟 seems to have been accidentally added in the early transmission of the text.