2 Nephi 18:1 Textual Variants

Isaiah 8:1 (King James Bible) moreover the LORD said unto me …

Here in the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “moreover the Lord said unto me”, which is identical to the King James reading. He then inserted “word of ” with slightly weaker ink flow, but later, with somewhat heavier ink flow, he inserted the definite article the before “word of ”. The first insertion was probably his attempt to immediately correct a simple error in copying. Later, in checking his copy, he apparently discovered the additionally missing the and added it as well. In any event, the original manuscript undoubtedly included the whole phrase “the word of the Lord”. There would have been nothing difficult about having the text read the same as the King James Bible; the phrase “the Lord said unto X” occurs 21 times in the Book of Mormon text (and 152 times in the King James Bible), while there are no other specific examples of “the word of the Lord said unto X” in the Book of Mormon (or in the King James Bible).

Although it may seem strange to modern English readers for the text to refer to the word of the Lord as saying something, there are examples of this usage in the Book of Mormon:

• Alma 5:57
  • that the word of God may be fulfilled which saith the names of the wicked shall not be mingled with the names of my people
• Alma 7:11
  • and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people
• Moroni 7:5
  • for I remember the word of God which saith by their works ye shall know them

In the first and third examples, one could interpret the which as referring to the Lord rather than the word of the Lord, but the second example clearly shows that we can get expressions like “the word saith”, followed by a quote. Moreover, for the two other examples, Joseph Smith never edited the relative pronoun which to who, an editing change one might expect if which referred to the Lord. In fact, both Alma 5:57 and Alma 7:11 refer to “the word being fulfilled”, which further supports the interpretation that the antecedent for which in Alma 5:57 is the word of God and not just God.

For a similar example of where Oliver Cowdery initially wrote the reading of the King James Bible in the printer’s manuscript but then corrected it to a different reading, see the discussion under 2 Nephi 13:7.