2 Nephi 4:10 Textual Variants

Here we have an example of removing an extra occurrence of the clause “it came to pass” (and its accompanying that). The passage begins with that same clause, but the intervening when-clause does not describe anything new as happening. Thus the second occurrence of “it came to pass” in the same sentence is redundant and was therefore deleted by Joseph Smith in his editing for the second edition. A similar example has already been discussed under 1 Nephi 10:17. For a complete list of this kind of editing, see come to pass in volume 3.

Joseph Smith did not always edit out this kind of redundancy, as in the following complex construction:

• The Words of Mormon 1:15–16
  • and it came to pass that after there had been false Christs and their mouths had been shut and they punished according to their crimes and after there had been false prophets and false preachers and teachers among the people and all these having been punished according to their crimes
    and after there having been much contentions and many dissensions away unto the Lamanites behold it came to pass that king Benjamin with the assistance of the holy prophets which were among his people …

In this instance, the long intervening series of subordinate after-clauses makes the repetition of “it came to pass” less noticeable.

Here in 2 Nephi 4:10, when Oliver Cowdery initially copied this passage from 𝓞 into 𝓟, he momentarily skipped the when and the perfect auxiliary verb had. Oliver quickly corrected his error and supralinearly inserted the two missing words (with no change in the level of ink flow for when and only a slightly weaker ink flow for had ). Nearby, however, the text uses after rather than when whenever Lehi “makes an end of speaking”:

• 2 Nephi 4:3
  • wherefore after my father had made an end of speaking concerning the prophecies of Joseph he called the children of Laman his sons and his daughters
• 2 Nephi 4:8
  • and it came to pass that after my father had made an end of speaking to the sons and daughters of Laman he caused the sons and daughters of Lemuel to be brought before him
• 2 Nephi 4:11
  • and after that he had made an end of speaking unto them he spake unto Sam

The use of when in verse 10 therefore differs from the surrounding instances of after and suggests the possibility that when could be an error for after. Nonetheless, there are references elsewhere in the text to “making an end of speaking” where the subordinate conjunction is when:

• Mosiah 4:1
  • and now it came to pass that when king Benjamin had made an end of speaking the words which had been delivered unto him by the angel of the Lord that he cast his eyes round about on the multitude
• Mosiah 8:19
  • and now when Ammon had made an end of speaking these words the king rejoiced exceedingly
• Mosiah 25:14
  • and now it came to pass that when Mosiah had made an end of speaking and reading to the people he desired that Alma should also speak to the people
• Alma 12:19
  • now it came to pass that when Alma had made an end of speaking these words the people began to be more astonished
• Alma 44:10
  • and now when Zerahemnah had made an end of speaking these words Moroni returned the sword

The most reasonable assumption is that the when in 2 Nephi 4:10 was the reading of the original manuscript. Also note that in all these subordinate clauses headed by when and after, we have the past-tense perfect auxiliary had (“had made an end of speaking”). Thus the addition in 𝓟 of had in 2 Nephi 4:10 is also supported by these examples.