Mosiah 28:4 Textual Variants

The editors for the 1920 LDS edition shifted the position of the conjunction and in order to eliminate the difficulty of parsing what could be interpreted as two improperly connected participial clauses at the end of this sentence. There may indeed be some primitive error in the printer’s manuscript (the earliest extant reading here), but there is also evidence that the earliest reading could be the original reading.

Note first of all that the 1920 editing for this verse creates an oddity in that the resulting text refers simply to “suffering much”. There are 11 other occurrences in the text of “suffering much”, but in each case there is always some additional information as to what the suffering is. Sometimes the word much is adverbial, other times adjectival (in which case there is a following noun):

• 1 Nephi 16:19 they did suffer much for the want of food
• 1 Nephi 16:35 and we have suffered much afflictions hunger thirst and fatigue
• 1 Nephi 17:6 notwithstanding we had suffered many afflictions and much difficulty
• 1 Nephi 18:17 and having suffered much grief because of their children
• 2 Nephi 1:24 yea and he hath suffered much sorrow because of you
• 2 Nephi 2:1 thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow
• Mosiah 21:11 but they were driven back again suffering much loss
• Mosiah 28:4 nevertheless they suffered much anguish of soul
• Alma 17:5 they did suffer much both in body and in mind
• Alma 25:6 after having suffered much loss and so many afflictions
• Alma 60:28 we have suffered so much loss

The earliest reading at the end of Mosiah 28:4 seems to mean that ‘they suffered much fear that they should be cast off forever’. Of course, the text has the gerundive form fearing rather than the basic noun form fear. However, there are examples in the text where a gerundive noun does follow much:

• 3 Nephi 2:10
  • notwithstanding the much preaching and prophesying which was sent among them
• 3 Nephi 4:14
  • and being weary because of his much fighting he was overtaken and slain

Thus one way to interpret fearing in Mosiah 28:4 is as a gerundive noun (meaning ‘fear’) rather than as a present participle.

The use of the and before “suffering much” separates off the participial clause, yet the and does give the sense of ‘also’. The original text here is not that difficult to process and has been kept unchanged in the RLDS editions. It should also be noted that the original text had several examples of this same kind of separated present participial clause at the end of the sentence, as in the following nearby examples:

• Mosiah 23:13–14
  • even so I desire that ye should stand fast in this liberty wherewith ye have been made free and that ye trust no man to be a king over you and also trusting no one to be your teachers nor your ministers except he be a man of God
• Mosiah 28:20
  • he took the plates of brass and all the things which he had kept and conferred them upon Alma which was the son of Alma yea all the records and also the interpreters and conferred them upon him and commanding him that he should keep and preserve them

Notice, in particular, how the example in Mosiah 23:13–14 first uses the verb trust as a finite verb (“that ye should trust no man”), then follows it with the present participial trusting (“and also trusting no one”). Similarly, here in Mosiah 28:4, we first have the finite verb suffered (“they suffered much anguish”), which is then followed by the present participial suffering (“and suffering much fearing”). For other examples of this kind of separated present participial usage, see the discussion under Mosiah 23:13–14.