Here the 1830 typesetter changed son to sons, possibly by accident. As a result, the text now has Lehi addressing all his sons rather than Jacob alone. From the 1908 edition on, the RLDS text has had the singular son (in accord with the reading of the printer’s manuscript).
It is quite possible that Oliver Cowdery accidentally dropped the plural s as he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟. Or he may have missed the s when he wrote down Joseph Smith’s dictation in 𝓞 (which is not extant here). Either son or sons is possible, although the contextual evidence favors the use of the plural sons. The larger discourse begins in 2 Nephi 2:1, with Lehi addressing only one son, Jacob. In his introductory words, Lehi acknowledges Jacob’s spirituality and states that Jacob already knows that God exists:
But obviously, all of Lehi’s sons are listening in. And as Lehi continues his discourse on “opposition in all things” (found in verses 11–13), he extends his remarks to all his sons, so that when we get to verse 14, Lehi is trying to convince all his sons, not particularly Jacob, that God exists:
We should also note that prior to verse 14 Lehi consistently refers to Jacob as “my first born in the wilderness” (that is, first born after leaving Jerusalem), not as “my son”:
The intervening discourse (on the need for the atonement, from verses 14 through 27) seems to apply to all the sons, not just Jacob. In verse 27 of the following citation, Lehi refers to the great Mediator of all men and about choosing between eternal life and death. Then after addressing all his sons at the beginning of verse 28 (“and now my sons”), he repeats the reference to the great Mediator and about choosing between eternal life and eternal death:
Verse 14 is very similar to verse 28 since both begin, it would appear, with the phrase “and now my sons” and each repeats information stated just before (in verses 13 and 27):
This correlation suggests that at least the last part of verse 13 is addressed to all of Lehi’s sons.
Of course, one could argue that the plural sons in verse 28 is also an error for son, but this supposition seems highly unlikely given the explicit plural reference to “all my sons” two verses later:
It would seem that “these few words” of Lehi’s began as early as verse 11 and went through to the end of the chapter (that is, through verse 30). Consequently, the singular son in 𝓟 for verse 14 is probably a scribal error for sons.
The scribes frequently mixed up singular and plural noun forms in the manuscripts. There are two examples involving son and sons, and both involve the phrase “my son(s)”:
In both of these instances, the correct reading is in the singular, but the larger context involves several sons. In the first example, Mosiah is specifically speaking of Aaron as the heir to the kingship, but of course Mosiah has four sons, all of which are frequently referred to in the text. In the second example, Alma is speaking specifically to his third son, Corianton, but earlier he had been speaking with the other two sons, Helaman and Shiblon. And in these personal discourses, Alma sometimes refers to these two other sons. The same potential situation for confusion occurs here in 2 Nephi 2, where Lehi is speaking first with Jacob but then turns to speak to all of his sons. So it is not surprising that confusion about the number of sons involved can occur when trying to interpret the phrase “my son(s)”. Here in 2 Nephi 2:14, the context argues that Lehi has already turned to address all his sons; thus the phrase should read “my sons”.
Summary: Analysis of Lehi’s discourse argues that somewhere between verses 11 and 14 of 2 Nephi 2, Lehi turned to speak to all his sons and not just Jacob; thus the 1830 reading sons, even if accidental, probably represents the original text in 2 Nephi 2:14.