Helaman 3:14 Textual Variants

Here the 1830 typesetter accidentally replaced the plural plunderings with the singular plundering,
even though the conjoined nouns are in the plural. Elsewhere the text is consistent in using the singular plundering when immediately conjoined nouns are singular, but the plural plunderings when those nouns are plural:

conjoined with singular nouns

• Mosiah 29:14 no stealing nor plundering nor murdering
• Mosiah 29:36 and the stealing and the plundering and the committing of whoredoms
• Alma 16:18 and stealing robbing plundering murdering
• Alma 17:14 yet they sought to obtain these things by murdering and plundering

conjoined with plural nouns

• Alma 37:21 yea all their murders and robbings and their plunderings
• Alma 50:21 yea their murderings and their plunderings
• Helaman 6:21 for their murders and their plunderings and their stealings
• Helaman 10:3 and their murderings and their plunderings

In the last example, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote plundering in 𝓟, but this was the last word on the page and he simply ran out of space at the end of the line. Oliver never actually finished writing the word since the i was not dotted. He simply crossed out plundering and then wrote the full plural form as the first word at the beginning of the next page of 𝓟.

Thus the original text in Helaman 3:14 is consistent with other usage, especially in the second half of the Book of Mormon (where only the plural plunderings is found). Here in Helaman 3:14, the critical text will restore the plural for this noun.