1 Nephi 22:12 Textual Variants

Oliver Cowdery accidentally omitted the word first while copying from 𝓞 to 𝓟, probably because of the high frequency of the phrase “land of their inheritance” (see the discussion under 1 Nephi 10:3). Yet the phrase “the land(s) of X’s first inheritance” occurs five other times in the text; there is also one occurrence of “the place of X’s first inheritance” (in Alma 22:28). In each instance, the reference is to a people that first inherited a land but were later displaced. In five cases the reference is to the land of Nephi, which the Nephites abandoned to the Lamanites during the times of the first king Mosiah (as recorded in Omni 1:12). The people of Zeniff were the first Nephites to return to the land of Nephi:

• Mosiah 9:1
  • and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi or of the land of our fathers’ first inheritance

We have similar references to the land of Nephi as a land or place of first inheritance in Mosiah 10:13, Alma 22:28, Alma 54:12, and Alma 54:13.

The sixth case describes the result of a war between two Jaredite kings, Noah and Shule:

• Ether 7:16
  • and he gave battle unto Shule the king in the which he did obtain the land of their first inheritance and he became a king over that part of the land

In 1 Nephi 22:12, the phrase “lands of their first inheritance” refers to the return of the house of Israel to their original land of inheritance in the land of Palestine.