Jacob 6:9–10 Textual Variants

The syntax is very complex here in Jacob 6:9–10, but basically Jacob is rhetorically asking his listeners to acknowledge that if they are evil they will stand guilty before the bar of God and, according to God’s justice, they will be sent into eternal punishment. In the original text, each of the two stages in God’s judgment is preceded by the subordinate conjunction that (identified above as 1 and 2). These two that ’s are instances of what may be called the repeated that since they each repeat an earlier that (identified above as 0). In other words, there is a that both before and after an initial conditional clause, thus “know ye not that if S0 that S1 and … that S2” (where S0, S 1, and S2 are finite clauses). The repeated that is considered ungrammatical in standard written English, but it is common in spoken English. Some instances of the repeated that have been edited out of the text, as in the following two examples:

• 2 Nephi 10:24
  • and remember [that >js NULL 1|that A| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] after ye are reconciled unto God that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved
• Jacob 5:54
  • yea I will graft in unto them the branches of their mother tree that I may preserve the roots also unto mine own self that when they shall be sufficiently strong [that >js NULL 1|that A| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] perhaps they may bring forth good fruit unto me

In the first example, the initial that was deleted; in the second example, the repeated that was deleted. But other passages have not been edited, as in the following two examples:

• 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
• Alma 45:23
  • and now it came to pass that after Helaman and his brethren had appointed priests and teachers over the churches that there arose a dissension among them

There are many more examples of the repeated that, with some edited and some left unedited in the text. For further discussion, see under THAT in volume 3.

Here in Jacob 6:9–10, Joseph Smith removed the second repeated that in his editing for the 1837 edition. But the first repeated that was not removed. It would appear that the reason for removing the second that was because the original syntax was extremely awkward, given the preceding adverbial phrase and parenthetical clause (“according to the power of justice / for justice cannot be denied”).

Another factor that has complicated the syntax for this passage has been the punctuation. The continual use of question marks in the 1830 edition at least preserved the connection between the two stages of God’s judgment and maintained both stages as part of Jacob’s rhetorical question. But otherwise the accidentals made the passage almost incoherent:

• Jacob 6:9–10 (1830 accidentals)
  • Know ye not that if ye will do these things, that the power of the redemption and the resurrection which is in Christ, will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God, and according to the power of justice? for justice cannot be denied. That ye must go away into that lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever? which lake of fire and brimstone, is endless torment.

The punctuation for the second edition (1837) considerably improved the reading; but by deleting the that, Joseph Smith separated the second stage from the first stage of God’s judgment, with the result that the second stage no longer belongs to Jacob’s rhetorical question:

• Jacob 6:9–10 (1837 accidentals)
  • Know ye not that if ye will do these things, that the power of the redemption and the resurrection which is in Christ, will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God? And according to the power of justice, for justice cannot be denied, ye must go away into that lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever, which lake of fire and brimstone, is endless torment.

The critical text will restore the second repeated that and parse the passage so that both stages of God’s judgment are contained within Jacob’s rhetorical question:

• Jacob 6:9–10 (the original text, with minimal punctuation)
  • Know ye not that if ye will do these things that the power of the redemption and the resurrection which is in Christ will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God, and, according to the power of justice (for justice cannot be denied),that ye must go away into that lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever, which lake of fire and brimstone is endless torment.