Alma 55:20 Textual Variants

Here the original manuscript reads “within the walls of the city”. Oliver Cowdery miswrote walls as wall when he copied the text into the printer’s manuscript. Elsewhere in the text, we get “within the walls”, including a second one later on in this same verse:

• Mosiah 2:7 king Benjamin could not teach them all within the walls of the temple
• Mosiah 11:10 that his workmen should work all manner of fine work within the walls of the temple
• Alma 14:28 and every soul which was within the walls thereof …
• Alma 55:20 to gain possession of those parts which were within the walls
• Alma 62:23 they were all within the walls of the city
• Alma 62:24 the armies of Moroni were within the walls

The only original occurrence of singular wall in this expression is in Alma 53:5, but quite clearly this example is different in that it reads “within a wall” rather than “within the wall”:

• Alma 53:5
  • and in this city they did guard the prisoners of the Lamanites yea even within a wall which they had caused them to build with their own hands

Thus the incorrect singular “within the wall” in the current text for Alma 55:20 is a unique reading and should be changed back to “within the walls” (in agreement with the second instance of this phrase later on in the verse).