Alma 43:38 Textual Variants

The original manuscript reads wounds, but Oliver Cowdery misread the word as swords when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟. In the original text, the possessive pronoun their refers, of course, to the immediately preceding noun Nephites. This makes perfectly good sense. But when the text reads swords, the their must now be interpreted as referring not to the nearest noun (Nephites), but to Lamanites, which is found at some distance in the preceding verse after a long sequence of references to the Nephites. In the following, I mark the references to the Lamanites with an l and the references to the Nephites with an N:

• Alma 43:37–38 (the original text)
  • and the work of death commenced on both sides
    L but it was more dreadful on the part of the Lamanites
    L for their nakedness was exposed
    N to the heavy blows of the Nephites
    N with their swords and their scimitars
    which brought death almost at every stroke
    N while on the other hand there was now and then a man fell among the Nephites
    N by their wounds and the loss of blood

Oliver was undoubtedly prompted to write the incorrect their swords in verse 38 because of the earlier their swords in verse 37 (“with their swords and their scimitars”), but that instance of their swords refers to the Nephites’ swords. Of course, one cannot interpret the incorrect their swords in verse 38 as referring to the Nephites’ own swords since there is no question of suicide in this passage.