There are two instances in the original text where the expression “counsel X” means ‘counsel with X’. The first one is here in Alma 37:37. The second one is found in Alma’s advice to his third son, Corianton:
The 1920 LDS edition emended the text in both these passages by adding the preposition with (which is what we expect in modern English). Briefly referred to in the discussion regarding ceremony under Mosiah 19:24, the usage “counsel X” with the meaning ‘counsel with X” is archaic in English and seems to have died out before 1600. The last example cited under definition 4 for the verb counsel in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from the middle of the 16th century:
Clearly, the meaning here is ‘Moses counseled with the Lord’. We have the same meaning in Alma 37:37 and Alma 39:10 but without any with in the original text.
It is doubtful that with was accidentally lost from both these Book of Mormon instances of “counsel X”. 𝓞 is extant in the first instance; in the second instance, spacing between extant fragments of 𝓞 indicates that there was no room for the with except by supralinear insertion. Moreover, there is no independent evidence that Oliver ever omitted the preposition with when it was followed by a simple noun phrase. There is one case in 𝓞 where Oliver Cowdery initially omitted the preposition with, but this was at the head of a relative clause:
There is considerable evidence that Oliver generally had difficulty with prepositions that headed relative clauses. See, for instance, the discussion under 1 Nephi 1:16 and Mosiah 2:32 regarding the preposition of. For a complete discussion of this difficulty with prepositions, see under relative clauses in volume 3.
Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, there are two examples of “counsel X” with the expected meaning ‘give counsel to X’:
And there is also one actual example of “counsel with X” in the earliest Book of Mormon text:
Thus there seems to have been some variation in the original text for the expression “counsel (with) X”, including two instances of the archaic “counsel X”, meaning ‘counsel with X’.
Jeffrey R. Holland, in a graduate paper dating from 1965, suggests that the Doctrine and Covenants has a revelation (given 1 November 1831) where “counsel X” means ‘counsel with X’:
The clause “man should not counsel his fellow man” may mean ‘man should not counsel with his fellow man’. Such an interpretation provides a stronger semantic parallel with the following conjoined predicate: “neither trust in the arm of flesh”. Counseling with one’s fellow man would be one way of trusting in the arm of flesh. See page 31 of Jeffrey R. Holland, “Some Changes in the Book of Mormon, 1830–1920”, a course paper for Daniel H. Ludlow, Graduate Religion 622 course at Brigham Young University, 15 August 1965 (a copy of this paper can be found in the special collections of the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University).
David Calabro (personal communication) suggests another possibility for these two cases of “counsel X”: namely, counsel could be an error for the verb consult. In other words, perhaps the original text read “consult the Lord in all thy doings” (Alma 37:37) and “consult your elder brothers in your undertakings” (Alma 39:10). If counsel is an error for consult in these two passages, it would have entered the text when Joseph Smith dictated the text to Oliver Cowdery, at least for the first occurrence in Alma 39:10 (which is extant in 𝓞 and reads counsel ). Theoretically, emending “counsel X” to “consult X” will work, but there are a couple of problems with it. First, there is no evidence in the entire textual history for mix-ups between consult and counsel. Second, whenever the Book of Mormon refers to consulting a person X, the form is actually “consult with X”, not “consult X”:
In only one case is the with missing, but in that case there is no explicit X either:
These examples suggest that “consult X” wouldn’t have occurred in the Book of Mormon text: if counsel were an error for consult, we would expect “consult with X” in the original text for Alma 37:37 and Alma 39:10.
Summary: Restore in Alma 37:37 and Alma 39:10 the two original instances of “counsel X” where the meaning is ‘counsel with X’; such archaic usage dates from Early Modern English.