2 Nephi 23:4 Textual Variants

Isaiah 13:4 (King James Bible) the noise of a multitude in the mountains like as of a great people a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together

Here in 2 Nephi 23:4, there is agreement between the Book of Mormon text and the corresponding King James reading except for the article in front of multitude. The Book of Mormon has the and the King James Bible has a. The Book of Mormon’s definite article could be an error introduced either from the immediately surrounding the’s (“the noise ... in the mountains”) or from the use of the in the following parallel phrase “a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations”. This passage is extant for 𝓞 (and is found on one of the Wilford Wood fragments). The text there shows that Oliver Cowdery initially wrote the multitudes, then he erased the plural s (an immediate correction). This plural multitudes suggests the influence of the plural nouns in the following parallel line:

the noise of the multitudes in the mountains ...
a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations

One could conjecture that in correcting multitudes to multitude, Oliver inadvertently left the extra the uncorrected.

Sometimes in the manuscripts an original a was accidentally replaced by the:

• Alma 11:17 (Oliver Cowdery’s initial error in 𝓟; 𝓞 reads a)
  • and a leah is the half of [a 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|the >% a 1] shilum
• Alma 35:13 (Oliver Cowdery’s initial error in 𝓞)
  • and thus commenced [the > a 0|a 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] war betwixt the Lamanites and the Nephites
• Helaman 6:32 (Oliver Cowdery’s initial error in 𝓟)
  • insomuch that [the > a 1|a ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] more part of it had come unto them
• Ether 12:8 (Oliver Cowdery’s initial error in 𝓟)
  • he has shewn himself unto the world and glorified the name of the Father and prepared [the >+ a 1|a ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift

Of course, one could also view the change in 2 Nephi 23:4 to the definite article the as an intentional increase in the parallelism (with the following “the kingdoms of nations”). Note, however, that the definite article the before noise was not changed to the indefinite article a that occurs before tumultuous noise (or vice versa). And, of course, the singular multitude was ultimately retained. In other words, the increase in parallelism was only partial.

Since the use of the definite article the before multitude will work, the critical text will maintain the corrected reading in 𝓞 (“the noise of the multitude”), even though this the may represent an error in the early transmission of the Book of Mormon text.