Jacob 2:11 Textual Variants

The erasure of the final s of words in the printer’s manuscript shows that the correction here in Jacob 2:11 was immediate and that the singular word was probably the reading in the original manuscript. Earlier in verse 11 as well as later on in verse 12 the text refers to “the word” rather than “the words”, thus supporting the singular reading:

• Jacob 2:11–12
  • for behold as I inquired of the Lord thus came the word unto me saying Jacob get thou up into the temple on the morrow and declare the word which I shall give thee unto this people and now behold my brethren this is the word which I declare unto you

As discussed under 1 Nephi 16:24, the Book of Mormon text often uses the singular word to refer to the word of God while word is less frequently used to refer to the words of a human being. We let the earliest textual sources determine the reading in each case. The immediately corrected word here in Jacob 2:11 argues that the original manuscript read word, not words.