Here in verses 44 and 45, Oliver Cowdery changed both occurrences of thou beholdest to thou beheldest in the printer’s manuscript, the opposite of the change of thou beheldest to thou beholdest that the 1830 typesetter made in verse 37. Oliver’s changes in verses 44–45 seem to be motivated by the fact that here the Lord of the vineyard is referring to events that have already occurred (“I also cut down that which cumbered this spot of ground” and “a part thereof brought forth good fruit”). In both cases of original beholdest, Oliver corrected the o by overwriting it with an e, but he used the same heavier flowing and darker ink that he had used earlier on this page of 𝓟 to edit the nonstandard have grew in Jacob 5:37 to have grown (see line 4 on page 104 of 𝓟). Thus these two changes in tense appear to be the result of later editing rather than Oliver’s proofing of 𝓟 against 𝓞. Moreover, the tense change was not necessary since one can observe in the present the results of what has happened in the past, as in the following example later on in the allegory when the Lord refers to all that he has done in order to preserve the natural fruit:
Also consider the following passage that uses the verb see in the present tense to refer to an event that has already taken place:
When used indicatively, the verbs behold and see often mean ‘realize’ rather than their etymological meaning ‘view’; thus the present tense thou beholdest can be used to refer to events that have already occurred in the olive tree allegory.
By restoring in verses 44–45 the original readings in 𝓟 (namely, thou beholdest), we find that the original text of the olive tree allegory had only instances of thou beholdest (given that we accept the 1830 typesetter’s emendation to thou beholdest in verse 37). In other words, the original text in Jacob 5 apparently had only the present-tense thou beholdest, even when the Lord of the vineyard was referring to events in the past.
Summary: Restore in Jacob 5:44–45 the two original present-tense uses of beholdest; Oliver Cowdery later edited both of these to beheldest, but the original text in Jacob 5 prefers the present tense when referring to the servant beholding events, including ones that have already occurred.