Alma 58:9 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
lest by any means the [Judgments 1|judgements A|judgments BCDEFIJLMNOPQRST| judgment GHK] of God should come upon our land to our overthrow and utter destruction

In this instance the original manuscript is not extant for the end of the word judgment(s), but the printer’s manuscript has the plural judgments (with a capitalized J ). The 1858 Wright edition accidentally replaced the plural with the singular judgment. This appears to be a typo introduced by the New York typesetter, who was probably influenced by the prominence in English of the phrase “the judgment of God”. Note that the singular form of this phrase occurs five times in Paul’s epistles, but there are no instances of the plural form in the King James text. For further discussion of the phrase “the judgment(s) of God”, see under 1 Nephi 18:15.

Summary: Maintain the plural “the judgments of God” in Alma 58:9.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 5

References