2 Nephi 28:23 Textual Variants

The current text here in 2 Nephi 28:23 seems to involve a textual dittography. The original manuscript is not extant here, but it appears that Oliver Cowdery repeated the words death and hell and as he copied from the original manuscript into the printer’s manuscript. This emendation was first brought to my attention by Nathaniel Skousen.

We note first of all that the resulting repetition has caused problems. The 1830 typesetter placed a semicolon after the first death and hell, but a comma after the devil, which makes the resulting text read that death and hell and the devil as well as those that he has seized must stand before God and be judged. This seems incorrect. Such a reference to the devil, much less death and hell, standing before God to be judged at the day of judgment is definitely odd. Yet all subsequent editions have basically followed the punctuation of the 1830 edition and its implausible reading.

Nearby in 2 Nephi 9, we have several references to death and hell that have the same basic phraseology as here in 2 Nephi 28:23 except that there is no repetition:

• 2 Nephi 9:10
  • O how great the goodness of our God who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster yea that monster death and hell which I call the death of the body and also the death of the spirit
• 2 Nephi 9:12
  • and this death of which I have spoken which is the spiritual death shall deliver up its dead which spiritual death is hell wherefore death and hell must deliver up its dead and hell must deliver up its captive spirits and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies
• 2 Nephi 9:19
  • for he delivereth his saints from that awful monster the devil and death and hell and that lake of fire and brimstone which is endless torment
• 2 Nephi 9:26
  • for the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all those who hath not the law given to them that they are delivered from that awful monster death and hell and the devil and the lake of fire and brimstone which is endless torment

In the last two examples, all three nouns (death, hell, and the devil ) are conjoined, yet in each case we get only a single occurrence of each noun, although the order varies. These parallel passages suggest that 2 Nephi 28:23 should also read without any repetition of death and hell.

The most plausible solution to the difficulties of the current reading for 2 Nephi 28:23 is to emend the text by removing the extra death and hell and. In addition, a semicolon should be placed after and the devil, thus stating that those who have been seized by “death and hell and the devil” will stand before God to be judged:

• 2 Nephi 28:23 (emended, with minimal accidentals)
  • Yea, they are grasped with death and hell and the devil; and all that have been seized therewith must stand before the throne of God and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment.