Alma 9:22 Textual Variants

Here the 1830 typesetter accidentally changed the plural sicknesses to the more expected singular sickness. There is only one actual occurrence of the singular in the original text, in the phrase “in sickness”:

• Mosiah 27:5
  • yea and all their priests and teachers should labor with their own hands for their support in all cases save it were in sickness or in much want

Otherwise the text has only the plural sicknesses:

• Alma 7:11
  • he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people
• 2 Nephi 7:22
  • and as many as had devils cast out from them and were healed of their [sicknesses 1ABCEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|sickness D] and their infirmities did truly manifest unto the people that they had been wrought upon by the Spirit of God and had been healed

The tendency to replace the plural with the singular is fairly strong; notice that in the last example the 1841 British edition has the singular sickness. In both the other examples of sicknesses, conjoined nouns are also in the plural: “the pains and the sicknesses of his people” and “healed of their sicknesses and their infirmities”. Perhaps the reason sicknesses was replaced by sickness in Alma 9:22 is that here sicknesses is preceded by the singular noun famine. But the plural is supported by the use of the following plural diseases, which is more closely associated (semantically and syntactically) with sicknesses than sicknesses is with famine. Note that both sicknesses and all manner of diseases are conjuncts within the same prepositional phrase headed by from (“from sicknesses and all manner of diseases of every kind”) while famine occurs in its own prepositional phrase, also headed by from (“from famine”). The critical text will restore the original plural sicknesses here in Alma 9:22.