Mosiah 29:32 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
so long as the Lord [Seas 1|seeth A|sees BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] fit that we may live and inherit the land

Hyrum Smith wrote sees (spelled as Seas) in the printer’s manuscript, but the 1830 typesetter changed the verb form to seeth. Elsewhere, the text only has examples of seeth:

The first two examples are quotations from Isaiah 29; the three in 3 Nephi 13 are found in Matthew 6 (the Sermon on the Mount). The familiar use of seeth in Matthew 6 may have led the 1830 typesetter to expect the -(e)th inflection ending here in Mosiah 29:32, especially since the text is referring to the Lord, which might have called for a more biblically sounding language. The five other examples (including Mosiah 29:32) refer to the Lord seeing fit to do something, but this specific expression is not actually biblical. Thus variation is quite possible, with four instances of “the Lord seeth fit” and one of “the Lord sees fit”. But since there are no other instances of sees in the text, the possibility remains that Hyrum’s sees is an error for seeth.

The 1837 edition restored the original sees, probably because 𝓟 read that way. One could also interpret the 1837 change as the result of Joseph Smith’s frequent replacement of the archaic -(e)th ending with the standard modern English -(e)s ending (for discussion, see under infl tions in volume 3). Yet elsewhere, Joseph left unaltered all other instances of seeth, which argues that the 1837 change in Mosiah 29:32 was most likely a restoration of the reading in 𝓟. Since sees is obviously possible in English, the critical text will maintain it here in Mosiah 29:32, even though it could be a scribal error for seeth.

Summary: Maintain the use of sees in Mosiah 29:32; this is the only place in the text where sees shows up; elsewhere, the text prefers the biblical seeth.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

References