Mosiah 17:10 Textual Variants

The Book of Mormon text here has “even until death”, but there is good reason to believe this read “even unto death” in the original text (and perhaps also in the original manuscript, not extant for the book of Mosiah). First of all, unto and until are both orthographically similar, so a copying error is quite possible. There are two examples in the textual history of such a mix-up:

• Alma 12:36 (scribe 2’s error in 𝓟)
  • therefore your iniquity provoketh him that he sendeth down his wrath upon you as in the first provocation yea according to his word in the last provocation as well as in the first to the everlasting destruction of your souls therefore according to his word [unto 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|𝓢① until > 𝓢② unto 1] the last death as well as the first
• Moroni 10:3 (typo in the 1906 LDS large-print edition)
  • that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men from the creation of Adam even down [until 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRST|unto N] the time that ye shall receive these things

Notice in the first example that the original manuscript is extant and reads unto, which scribe 2 of 𝓟 mistakenly copied as until. Later, when proofing 𝓟 against 𝓞, Oliver Cowdery corrected the until to unto.

Here in Mosiah 17:10, Abinadi is obviously predicting his own death; he is not predicting that he will continuously suffer from that point up to his death. Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, when referring to a situation that results in someone’s death, the phraseology is always “unto death”, never “until death”; moreover, in three cases (each marked below with an arrow), the relevant verb is suffer, just as in Mosiah 17:10:

• → Mosiah 3:7 even more than man can suffer except it be unto death
•   Mosiah 14:12 because he hath poured out his soul unto death
•   Mosiah 15:7 the flesh becoming subject even unto death
•   Mosiah 17:13 and scorched his skin with fagots / yea even unto death
• → Mosiah 19:20 and caused that he should suffer even unto death by fire
•   Mosiah 27:28 after wading through much tribulation / repenting nigh unto death
•   Alma 1:18 he that murdereth was punished unto death
• → Alma 24:19 they were firm and would suffer even unto death
•   Alma 29:4 according to their desires whether it be unto death or unto life
•   Alma 30:10 if he murdered he was punished unto death
•   Helaman 1:8 he was taken and was tried … and condemned unto death
•   Helaman 1:9 when those people ... saw that he was condemned unto death
•   Helaman 1:12 as many as were found were condemned unto death
•   3 Nephi 6:25 these judges which had condemned the prophets of the Lord unto death
•   Moroni 9:10 torturing their bodies even unto death
•   Moroni 9:25 to weigh thee down unto death

Moreover, the two nearest passages after Mosiah 17:10 (namely, Mosiah 17:13 and Mosiah 19:20) specifically refer to being burned to death and also use the preposition unto.

The phrase “until death” occurs in two places, and in each of these the text refers to something (such as witnessing or procrastinating) that continues from some present moment up to when death occurs:

• Mosiah 18:9
  • and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places that ye may be in even until death
• Alma 34:35
  • for behold if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death behold ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil

Thus all the internal evidence suggests that the correct reading in Mosiah 17:10 should be “suffer even unto death”.