Helaman 3:6 Textual Variants

Here we have an example of an original etc. that was removed from the 1920 LDS edition. In this instance, the etc. seems to be an attempt to avoid repeating the text in the preceding verse that referred to the reason the desolate land lost its timber, namely, “because of the many inhabitants which had before inherited the land”:

• Helaman 3:5
  • yea and even they did spread forth into all parts of the land in whatsoever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber because of the many inhabitants which had before inherited the land

In other words, Mormon did not want to explicitly repeat the because-phrase. Thus the etc. here in verse 6 serves as a kind of ellipsis. The critical text will restore the etc. here since it is clearly intended, irrespective of how it is being used. For further discussion, see under etc. in volume 3.