Alma 58:4 Textual Variants

The original manuscript reads “the great governor of our land”. When copying to the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery accidentally skipped the adjective great, perhaps because the next word, governor, also begins with a g.

This use of great is not an honorific but instead distinguishes between the head governor and lesser governors. There are several other examples in the text where great is used in this way:

• Alma 60:24
  • behold it will be expedient that we contend no more with the Lamanites until we have first cleansed our inward vessel yea even the great head of our government
• Helaman 9:10
  • and it came to pass that on the morrow the people did assemble themselves together to mourn and to fast at the burial of the great and chief judge which had been slain
• 3 Nephi 3:18
  • now the chiefest among all the chief captains and the great commander of all the armies of the Nephites was appointed and his name was Gidgiddoni