Mosiah 7:23 Textual Variants

The 1849 LDS edition introduced a switch in the word order here in Mosiah 7:23. This change, apparently a typo, has continued in all subsequent LDS editions. We expect (even in modern-day English) the inverted word order in exclamatory statements beginning with a question word like how, as in the following sampling from the text:

• 2 Nephi 31:5 how much more need have we being unholy to be baptized
• Alma 26:1 how great reason have we to rejoice
• Alma 26:13 how many thousands of our brethren hath he loosed from the pains of hell
• 3 Nephi 10:4 how oft have I gathered you

But the text also has a couple of exclamatory cases where how is followed by the noninverted order rather than the expected inverted one:

• Alma 9:8 how soon ye have forgotten the commandments of God
• Alma 39:11 how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites

This variability suggests that in each case of this type we should follow the earliest textual sources. Thus in Mosiah 7:23 the original inverted order have we should be restored.