Scribe 2 of 𝓟 here wrote “and he brought bread and meat and sat before Alma”, but Oliver Cowdery supralinearly inserted the word forth after the verb brought when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞. There is some evidence elsewhere that there was some tendency to omit forth in the early transmission of the text (see the discussion under 2 Nephi 3:20). It is possible, however, that Oliver decided to add the word forth here because of familiarity with the language of the parable of the prodigal son: “bring forth the best robe and put it on him” (Luke 15:22). More likely, however, the word forth was in 𝓞; there is no grammatical or strong stylistic motivation to insert the forth in this passage.
There are no other examples in the Book of Mormon of bringing forth food and setting it before someone. But there is one example that refers to bringing children forward:
In this instance, the word forth is lacking. But there are instances in the King James text where forth is found in expressions involving “bringing and setting”:
But there are other instances where the forth is lacking:
Thus the forth is optional.
Note that in two of these King James examples, the original Hebrew or Greek does not have the expected pronoun after the verb set. Thus in the King James text, the pronoun it is italicized in Judges 6:18 and the them is italicized in Acts 5:27. The language here in Alma 8:21 omits the direct object pronoun (either them or it) after sat: “and he brought forth bread and meat and sat before Alma”.
Note that in both Book of Mormon passages (Alma 8:21 and 3 Nephi 17:12), the original pasttense verb form was the nonstandard sat, not the standard set. As discussed under Jacob 3:10, there are at least five instances where the earliest text has the nonstandard past-tense sat rather than the standard set. The critical text will accept the use of sat in these instances of “bringing and setting” in Alma 8:21 and 3 Nephi 17:12. Nonetheless, the 1920 LDS grammatical emendation of sat to set in both instances is correct from a semantic point of view (that is, the verb is transitive).
It is theoretically possible, of course, that the sat in the original text for Alma 8:21 could be interpreted as an intransitive—namely, Amulek brought forth the bread and meat and then sat there while Alma ate, much like Abraham when he remained in the presence of his three visitors after serving them:
Of course, Abraham does not sit down with his guests but stands.
As further support for interpreting the verb form sat as meaning ‘set’ in Alma 8:21, consider the King James language used to describe the feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand in the synoptic Gospels:
These examples show once more that after set (or the sat of the original Book of Mormon text) we do not need a direct object pronoun, although in two of these cases (in Genesis 18:8 and in the last clause of Mark 8:6) the pronoun, either it or them, is explicitly provided but is italicized in the King James text because in these cases there is no expressed object in the Hebrew or the Greek.
Summary: Maintain in Alma 8:21 the forth that Oliver Cowdery added in 𝓟, apparently when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞; restore the nonstandard past-tense sat in place of the expected set; maintain the use of the transitive sat without an expressed direct object pronoun such as it or them.