Alma 18:9 Textual Variants

now the king had commanded his servants previous to the time of the watering of their ﬂocks that they should prepare his horses and [his 1| ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] chariots

Here the 1830 typesetter accidentally dropped the repeated his. Elsewhere the Book of Mormon text always repeats the determiner in conjuncts involving horses and chariots, including two examples in the next few verses:

Alma 18:10 that Ammon was preparing his horses and his chariots
Alma 18:12 when Ammon had made ready the horses and the chariots
Alma 20:6 that his servants should make ready his horses and his chariots
3 Nephi 3:22 and they had taken their horses and their chariots and …

For additional discussion of the tendency to omit the repeated determiner in conjunctive structures, see under conjunctive repetition in volume 3.

Summary: Restore the repeated his before chariots in Alma 18:9; this repetition of the determiner is in agreement with all other conjoined examples of horses and chariots in the text.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

References