The expression “flocks of herds” is a difficult reading. A number of suggestions have been proposed for emending the text here. One by George Talbot (personal communication, 27 February 2003) proposes that herds is a mishearing for birds—that is, Oliver Cowdery misheard Joseph Smith’s dictation of “flocks of birds” as “flocks of herds”. One problem with this proposal is that the Book of Mormon otherwise never uses the word bird, only fowl (6 times). The King James Bible has examples of bird (54 times) and fowl (86 times), so the complete lack of bird in the Book of Mormon text is striking.
John Sorenson has suggested that the reading “flocks of herds” is correct but that it needs to be interpreted differently. The English word herd corresponds to the Hebrew baqar, but since baqar can also stand for ‘ox’ and ‘cattle’, this phrase could, for instance, be interpreted more specifically:
Hebrew baqar can be translated “ox,” “cattle,” or “herd,” hence it is plausible that Enos’s “flocks of herds” constitutes a Hebraism which could have been translated more clearly as “flocks of oxen” or “flocks of cattle.”
See page 42, John Sorenson, Animals in the Book of Mormon: An Annotated Bibliography (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992). One problem here, however, is that the following “and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind” would be redundant.
In the history of the English language, the words flock and herd have varied considerably with respect to what kinds of animals these terms could refer to. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the noun flock originally had a more general meaning than it does today: ‘a number of animals of one kind, feeding or traveling in a company; now chiefly applied to an assemblage of birds or of sheep or goats’. There are, for instance, citations in the OED referring to flocks of fish, swine, elephants, mites, lions, and camels! Originally, the noun herd also had a more general meaning: ‘a company of animals of any kind, feeding or traveling in company’ (OED), with citations referring to herds of wolves, boars, elephants, whales, porpoises, seals, swans, cranes, wrens, and gnats!
But historically even the word cattle has varied considerably in its referents. According to the OED, cattle originally applied to any kind of livestock: ‘live animals held as property, or reared to serve as food, or for the sake of their milk, skin, wool, etc.’ The OED indicates that the word has been used to refer to camels, horses, asses, mules, oxen, cows, calves, sheep, lambs, goats, and swine. More recently, cattle has referred to only the bovine genus. However, it has been extended to refer to fowls and bees. Consider, for instance, Thomas Carlyle’s “among all manner of bovine, swinish and feathered cattle” (dating from 1830).
All of this variation suggests that one could interpret “flocks of herds” as referring to some other type of animal (or animals) than those listed specifically in the following conjoined noun phrases (“and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind / and goats and wild goats and also much horses”). The use of cattle here seems to imply a somewhat restricted use of the word since after “all manner of cattle of every kind” the text lists goats, wild goats, and horses, which one could interpret as not being considered cattle in this verse. Under this interpretation, flocks of herds could refer to flocks of sheep, which seems to be the only main type of animal missing from the list. Of course, this conclusion assumes that there is no redundancy in the list.
Normally, the Book of Mormon uses the words flock(s) and herd(s) without mentioning any specific types of animals. Besides Enos 1:21, there are only four passages where specific animals are listed with flock(s) and herd(s):
But the two in 3 Nephi 20–21 quote Micah 5:8 and are not supported by language elsewhere in the Book of Mormon. The first two examples allow herds and flocks to refer to animals other than horses and cattle. It is therefore possible that “flocks of herds” in Enos 1:21 nonredundantly refers to flocks of sheep.
Instead of the phrase “flocks of herds”, what we expect, of course, is “flocks and herds”, the expression that the Book of Mormon text otherwise consistently uses (and always with flocks preceding herds):
All 22 of these Book of Mormon examples are supported by numerous examples of the expression “flocks and herds” in the biblical text, where flocks typically refers to sheep and goats and herds to cattle (see definition 1b under the noun herd in the OED). There are 36 occurrences in the King James Bible of conjoined flock(s) and herd(s), with flock(s) usually occurring first (the Book of Mormon order). In every one of the biblical instances of conjoined herd and flock, there is an explicit conjunction (usually and but also or and nor). There are never any examples of “flocks of herds” (or “herds of flocks”).
This systematic evidence argues that the original text in Enos 1:21 read “all manner of grain and of fruit and flocks and herds and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind and goats and wild goats and also much horses”. One can argue that the source for the of instead of and was the multiple use of of throughout this passage: “of grain and of fruit … and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind”. Note especially the immediately following occurrence of “flocks of ”. The proposed replacement of and with of could readily have happened as Oliver Cowdery took down Joseph Smith’s dictation since Joseph may have been dictating “and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind” as Oliver was trying to write down the preceding “and flocks and herds”. It is also possible that such an error could have occurred as Oliver copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟 (the original manuscript is not extant here).
But as David Calabro points out (personal communication), one virtue of the earliest text (“and flocks of herds and flocks of all manner of cattle”) is that it does not present such a baldfaced redundancy as does “and flocks and herds and flocks of all manner of cattle”. Given that it is possible to interpret “flocks of herds” as referring to flocks of sheep, it is probably safest to retain the earliest reading here in Enos 1:21. That reading may, of course, represent an early error in the transmission of the text, perhaps even a dittography. Thus far no proposed emendation has proved fully satisfactory.
Summary: Retain in Enos 1:21 the earliest reading “flocks of herds”, even though this reading is unique to the text; interpreting herds as referring to sheep (in distinction to cattle) seems to work better than introducing the excessive redundancy of the proposed emendation “flocks and herds and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind”.