Mosiah 2:19 Textual Variants

The earliest text here has the subject form who even though the object form whom is standard (note in verse 18 the object form me in the clause “ye have called me your king”). Here in verse 19, the standard whom was introduced into the text in the 1837 edition.

The original use of the subject form who may have been influenced by the who that occurs in the immediately following relative clause (“who has spent his days in your service”). Nearby in king Benjamin’s discourse, we have only the standard “I whom” for the very same relative clause:

• Mosiah 2:18
  • and if I whom ye call your king do labor to serve you then had not ye ought to labor to serve one another
• Mosiah 2:26
  • and I even I whom ye call your king am no better than ye yourselves are

These two examples suggest that the who in verse 19 is an error for whom.

Even so, the original text does have other cases where the earliest text has a nonstandard use of who in place of the standard whom:

• Alma 3:27
  • for every man receiveth wages of him [who >js whom 1|who A|whom BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] he listeth to obey
• Alma 27:4
  • now when Ammon and his brethren saw this work of destruction among those [who 01ABDEFIJLMNOPQS|whom CGHKRT] they so dearly beloved …

These examples from the earliest text suggest that the occasional nonstandard use of who should be accepted in the critical text, even though such instances could be due to grammatical error on the part of either Joseph Smith or his scribes. For further discussion, see under pronouns in volume 3.