In this passage, the original text apparently read “whithersoever they dwelt”, which Joseph Smith edited for the 1837 edition to “wheresoever they dwelt”. Joseph’s editing here replaced the archaic whithersoever with the more modern wheresoever. And this change has continued in all subsequent editions. But in making this change, Joseph introduced the only occurrence of wheresoever in the entire Book of Mormon.
There are 12 remaining occurrences of whithersoever in the Book of Mormon text. All of these examples occur in contexts involving movement. Similarly, whithersoever in the King James Bible always occurs with verbs of motion, either expressly or implied. But this one example originally in Alma 23:14 does not overtly involve motion, which is probably the reason why Joseph Smith decided to change it to wheresoever.
Historically, the adverbials whither, hither, and thither are used with verbs of motion (see the examples in the Oxford English Dictionary under these words). The corresponding nonmotion adverbs are where, here, and there. But today whither (including whithersoever), hither, and thither are definitely archaic, yet except for this one instance of whithersoever here in Alma 23:14, all instances of these archaic motion adverbs have been left unchanged in the Book of Mormon text.
When we consider whither itself, we find that the Book of Mormon text has three examples where whither occurs with a nonmotion verb:
In these three cases, the verb itself does not involve motion (either be or keep), although we should note that in each case the larger passage involves some kind of movement, whether of peoples or the Savior in his ministry after his resurrection or in placing tools and weapons on a shelf.
In all other cases in the current Book of Mormon text (as well as for every example in the King James Bible), whither occurs only with verbs of motion. Generally speaking, the same basic results hold for hither and thither in the Book of Mormon, although there are a few problematic cases where the motion is only implied. For hither, we always have verbs of motion except for three cases in Jacob 5 where the text has “look hither” (verses 23, 24, and 25). But one could argue that looking involves moving the head or looking in a direction. (Jacob 5 also has one case of “look here”, in verse 16.) The King James Bible uses hither only with verbs of motion. Similarly, the adverb thither is always used in the Book of Mormon with verbs of motion. But there is one example of thither in the King James Bible where the verb itself, labor, does not involve motion (although the larger context does):
This last example shows that even the King James Bible will allow one of these motion adverbials to occur with a nonmotion verb, but still in the context of motion.
All in all, these examples suggest that we can grammatically permit whither, hither, and thither to occur with nonmotion verbs providing the context implies motion. Therefore, there is no strong motivation to edit the adverbial whither in 1 Nephi 22:4, 3 Nephi 16:1, and Ether 14:1 or the three occurrences of the adverbial hither in Jacob 5:23–25. Perhaps one could interpret the one remaining case, here in Alma 23:14, as involving motion in the sense that dwelling somewhere first requires people to move there, a very prominent aspect in accounts of settlement in the Book of Mormon.
The critical text will maintain the whithersoever in Alma 23:14 since it is the earliest reading (it is extant in 𝓞) and appears to be intentional. We should also note that the historical distinction between whither and where has been blurred from the earliest times in English. For instance, there are examples of where being used with verbs of motion from Old English up to Early Modern English, at which time whither began to become archaic. Note, for instance, William Shakespeare’s 1590 use of where for whither in the speech of the four fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Where shall we go?” (act 3, scene 1, line 166). For other examples, see definition 3 under section i for the word where in the OED. Of course, here in Alma 23:14, we have the opposite situation, with whithersoever in the original text instead of wheresoever.
Summary: Restore the original whithersoever in Alma 23:14, the reading of the earliest textual sources (𝓞, 𝓟, and the 1830 edition), even though the verb dwell (“whithersoever they dwelt”), as well as the larger context, makes no direct reference to movement.