2 Nephi 20:2 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
to turn [aside 1APS|away BCDEFGHIJKLMNOQRT] the needy from judgment and to take away the right from the poor of my people

Isaiah 10:2 (King James Bible) to turn aside the needy from judgment and to take away the right from the poor of my people

This change of aside to away in the 1837 edition, not marked by Joseph Smith in the printer’s manuscript, appears to be a typo. The immediate source for the error is probably the away in the next line, a parallel infinitive clause (“to take away the right from the poor of my people”). In addition, the 1837 typesetter may have been prompted to set “to turn away” since that phraseology had just occurred three times in the previous chapter (“for all this his anger is not turned away”, in 2 Nephi 19:12, 17, 21). There is also the language in Alma 34:28: “if ye turn away the needy and the naked”.

In general, the use of “to turn away” is more frequent than “to turn aside” (26 versus 8 occurrences, counting the instance in 2 Nephi 20:2 as an example of aside). None of the other instances of “to turn away” and “to turn aside” have ever been switched in the history of the text, a fact that further supports the claim that the 1837 change here in 2 Nephi 20:2 was unintended. The 1908 RLDS edition restored the original aside (the King James reading), probably by reference to the printer’s manuscript.

Summary: Restore in 2 Nephi 20:2 “to turn aside”, the reading of the printer’s manuscript and the King James Bible; the 1837 replacement of aside by away appears to be accidental.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 2

References