Isaiah 13:11 (King James Bible) and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible
It is possible that the down of the Book of Mormon text (the reading in 𝓟) is a copying error since low is visually similar. As discussed under 2 Nephi 20:10, there are some errors in the Isaiah quotations that involve visually similar words. In this particular case, such an error might have been facilitated by Oliver Cowdery’s tendency to write dow for down in the original manuscript:
Normally, of course, Oliver correctly wrote down with its final n. But if he wrote low in the original manuscript but misinterpreted the l as a d, he could have read dow, which he then “corrected” to down. Unfortunately, the original manuscript is not extant here in 2 Nephi 23:11. Nor are there any specific examples in the manuscripts (or editions) where down and low have been mixed up.
From a semantic point of view, either down or low will work in 2 Nephi 23:11, especially if we interpret “I will lay down” as meaning ‘I will destroy’ (the Hebrew verb here means ‘to put a stop or an end to something’). In fact, there are numerous parallel expressions in the text that use either down or low almost interchangeably when referring to physical death and destruction (including cases where both words are used together). Many of these also involve the verbs lie and lay:
The example in 2 Nephi 26:15 paraphrases Isaiah 29:4, which also uses both down and low:
We can even find competition between down and low with respect to the use of the word haughtiness:
Since the reading with down will work and is found in the earliest extant source (the printer’s manuscript), the critical text will accept it here in 2 Nephi 23:11. Nonetheless, this down could be an error for the King James low.
Summary: Accept in 2 Nephi 23:11 the reading of the printer’s manuscript (“and will lay down the haughtiness of the terrible”) rather than the King James low.