The question here is whether a garden gate can lead “by a highway”. The editors for the 1920 LDS edition altered the text to read “by which led the highway” since highways can lead somewhere. There definitely appears to be some difficulty with the earliest reading here in Helaman 7:10.
Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon text, we have numerous cases (including metaphorical ones) of paths, ways, highways, and roads leading somewhere:
There are also references to the narrow pass that led from the land southward to the land northward:
The rod of iron, referred to in Lehi’s dream, leads to the tree of life:
There are four cases that conjoin gate and way, followed by a relative clause referring to the way leading somewhere. All four of these follow the language of the Sermon on the Mount (in the King James text):
One could interpret the relative clauses “that leadeth to destruction” and “which leadeth unto life” as modifying both the preceding gate and way—that is, both the strait gate and the narrow way can lead to life (or both the wide gate and the broad way can lead to destruction or death). Nonetheless, the use of the third person ending -eth is restricted to singulars in the King James Bible, which reflects the Greek original with its singular verb form in the relative clause. On the other hand, in the original text of the Book of Mormon, the -eth ending also frequently occurs with plural subjects, so more generally these Book of Mormon relative clauses could, at least in theory, be interpreted as referring to both gate and way. Even so, there is no independent evidence in the text for gates leading anywhere.
One possibility is that the word gate may refer more to the opening itself rather than to what closes it. Numerous passages in the Bible refer to the door(s) of a gate, where the word gate refers to the opening and the frame that supports the door(s) rather than to the door(s) proper, as in these examples:
When describing the gate of a city or a house, the word gate could therefore refer to a passageway of some minor length through the wall surrounding the city or the house. Thus the use of gate in Helaman 7:10 could refer to the passageway opening out onto the highway. Still, one wonders why the preposition is by. We expect the gate to lead “(in)to the highway”, not “by the highway”.
In two of the above cases we get a by-phrase along with the specification of a destination, with the idea that one goes by something on the way to the destination:
In the first case, the path goes by the head of the fountain; and in the second, the pass goes by the sea. Note, however, that in both cases a destination is still stated. In fact, in all other cases of something leading somewhere, the destination is explicitly stated; only in Helaman 7:10 is the destination lacking: “the garden gate which led by the highway” (the earliest reading) or “the garden gate by which led the highway” (the emended reading). One could assume, at least for the emended reading, that there is an ellipsis of the destination, based on what is stated earlier in this passage:
In other words, the highway led by the garden gate to the chief market in the city of Zarahemla. Thus the two actual instances with the by-phrase provide some support for the 1920 LDS emendation and its assumed ellipsis of the destination.
On the other hand, the syntax of the 1920 emended reading, “by which led the highway”, is unique for the text. There are 17 instances of relative clauses headed by by which in the original text; and in all 17 cases, the subject rather than the verb immediately follows by which, as in these examples:
The same basic syntax holds for the King James Bible, with 14 occurrences of by which heading the relative clause and followed directly by its subject rather than having the subject postponed. Of course, “by which led the highway” is English, but its uniqueness in the Book of Mormon text (as well as its difference from usage in the King James Bible) casts some doubt that this reading could have been the original one in Helaman 7:10. Of course, one could argue that such a difficult original reading was accidentally changed to the order which led by (the earliest extant reading) because which led occurs quite often in the text—not only in 11 examples listed earlier in this discussion but also in these additional cases:
A more reasonable emendation for Helaman 7:10 is that the verb led is an error for was. Note the language earlier in this verse has an occurrence of led that does work, but it is surrounded by four occurrences of was:
This preceding sentence, with led following “which was by the highway”, could have prompted Oliver Cowdery, early on in the transmission of the text, to accidentally write led in the following part of the verse rather than the correct was:
Such an emendation would directly explain how those passing by could see Nephi praying from his tower, and at the same time it would avoid the need to accept an emendation (the 1920 one) that is so unlike usage elsewhere in the text.
David Calabro (personal communication) points out another possible emendation here, one that is phonetically and visually closer to the led (the earliest extant reading), namely, some pasttense form (perhaps dialectal) of the verb lie or lay, as in these possibilities:
earliest extant reading which led by the highway
alternative readings which lay by the highway
which laid by the highway
The form lay, the simple past-tense form for lie, is the standard form, but in colloquial English the historically intransitive past-tense lay is frequently mixed up with the historically transitive past-tense laid (see, for instance, the discussion under lay, lie in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage). For some discussion of the variation between these two verbs in the text of the Book of Mormon, see under 2 Nephi 9:7.
The colloquial laid /leid/ is phonetically closest to the led /led/ of the earliest extant text (the reading in 𝓟). The preceding use of led earlier in the verse (“which led to the chief market”) could have prompted Oliver Cowdery to write led later in the verse rather than the laid (or perhaps lay) of the original text, either when he took down Joseph Smith’s dictation or when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟.
The Book of Mormon text, when referring to location, almost always uses the verb be; but there are a couple cases where the verb is lie, and in both cases the form is the standard pasttense lay, not laid:
These two examples argue that Helaman 7:10 could have originally read “the garden gate which lay by the highway”. Note, however, that one of these refers to a land lying somewhere, the other to a city. Although the change of an original lay (or laid ) to led is quite reasonable, the reference to a gate lying by the highway seems rather implausible. We expect the gate to be by the highway. And since the led could have come from the language earlier in the verse, the critical text will accept was as the most plausible reading for the original text.
One other possibility, suggested by Don Brugger (personal communication), is that the earliest extant reading, “the garden gate which led by the highway”, is an error for “the garden gate which led to the highway”, a possibility hinted at earlier in this discussion. The by could have come from the by that precedes the highway earlier in the verse (“by the highway which led to the chief market”) or perhaps from the by that occurs in the next verse (“there was certain men passing by”). Brugger points out that the preposition to occurs earlier in this verse: “by the highway which led to the chief market”. (There is also the possibility that the preposition was unto: “the garden gate which led unto the highway”.) Of course, the emendation of the preposition still has the gate leading somewhere, a problematic reading.
Summary: Emend the earliest reading in Helaman 7:10 by replacing led with was: “the garden gate which was by the highway”; it seems highly unlikely that the garden gate led “by the highway” or even “to the highway”; the 1920 LDS emendation, “the garden gate by which led the highway”, is quite foreign to the text and probably does not represent the original reading; another possible emendation would be to replace led with lay (or laid ), although to refer to a gate as lying by the highway seems rather unlikely.