2 Nephi 17:3 Textual Variants

Isaiah 7:3 (King James Bible) thou and Shear-jashub thy son

Since this Hebrew name is a statement (meaning ‘a remnant will return’), we place a hyphen between the two Hebrew words and capitalize the first letter of only the first word (as Shearjashub). The King James Bible and the RLDS text follow this spelling convention (although the 1953 RLDS edition accidentally misspelled the name as Shear-jasub). The LDS text has maintained the original spelling that the 1830 compositor set, Shearjashub—that is, without any spacing or hyphen between the two words. This spelling, however, is inconsistent with how the LDS editions spell the only other name that is a Hebrew statement (namely, Maher-shalal-hash-baz in 2 Nephi 18:1, 3). For discussion, see 2 Nephi 18:1.

The Masoretic Hebrew text places a space between these two words (that is, there is no connecting mark between the two words). In fact, this is how Oliver Cowdery originally spelled the name in the printer’s manuscript, as Shear Jashub. We note also that he capitalized the initial j of jashub, as if it were a separate name. Somewhat later, Oliver inserted a hyphen between Shear and Jashub in the printer’s manuscript (the ink flow for the hyphen is slightly heavier than for the surrounding text). This same basic use of spacing between the words holds for the name Maher-shalal-hash-baz found in 2 Nephi 18:1, 3. For both occurrences of this other name, Oliver initially wrote the name as separate words, then somewhat later inserted hyphens between the words (with a slightly different level of ink flow). On the other hand, he did not capitalize the initial letters of shalal, hash, and baz. For discussion, see 2 Nephi 18:1.

The critical text will follow the traditional spelling convention for the name Shear-jashub. Although the earliest extant spellings of Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-hash-baz have spaces between the individual words of the names (as in the Masoretic Hebrew text), this use of spacing is probably the result of Joseph Smith dictating these two names word by word. We cannot tell whether Joseph saw actual hyphens or spaces between the individual words of these sentences acting as names.