Mosiah 27:22 Textual Variants

Here in the printer’s manuscript, scribe 2 wrote “their Lord their God”, which Oliver Cowdery later corrected to “the Lord their God”. Presumably, Oliver’s correction occurred when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞. There are two other examples where scribe 2 of 𝓟 made the same error except that in these two cases he caught his error and erased the final ir of the their that he initially wrote:

• Mosiah 28:2
  • that they might also be brought to rejoice in [their >% the 1|the ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] Lord their God
• Alma 9:19
  • after having had so much light and so much knowledge given unto them of [their >% the 1|the ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] Lord their God

In all three cases, scribe 2’s error was the result of anticipating the following their in “their God”. Also see under 1 Nephi 10:3 for a list of cases where Oliver Cowdery anticipated a following their.

The phrase “the Lord their God” is very frequent in the text, occurring 20 times in the book of Mosiah and 65 times overall. In addition, there are three other cases that refer to people praying “(un)to the Lord their God”:

• 1 Nephi 7:21 that they would pray unto the Lord their God
• Alma 62:51 and they did pray unto the Lord their God continually
• 3 Nephi 3:25 and they did put up their prayers unto the Lord their God

Theoretically, the reading “their Lord their God” could be an error for “their Lord and their God”, but there are only two occurrences of this phraseology and they are both found far away in the last part of the text:

• 3 Nephi 19:18 and they did pray unto Jesus calling him their Lord and their God
• 4 Nephi 1:12 but they did walk after the commandments which they had received from their Lord and their God

Most probably the original text for Mosiah 27:22 read according to Oliver Cowdery’s correction in 𝓟 (“the Lord their God”), not “their Lord and their God”.