Allen & David Richardson and Anthony Bentley note that the Book of Mormon makes use of the authentic Hebrew usage of two prepositions that introduce a single prepositional phrase. For example, 1 Nephi 4:28 tells of some that “fled from before my presence.” Jacob 5:30 indicates that “the servant went down into the vineyard.” The example “from before” is a literal translation of the Hebrew words mippene and milliphen. The writer found that it was used twenty-three times in the Old Testament Hebrew text, but that it was translated into English (KJV & IV) only four times (for example, Genesis 23:4; Exodus 4:3; 1 Chronicles 11:13; Judges 11:23). The other verses all translate it “from,” giving us a more precisely worded English sentence, even though in the Hebrew text it reads, “from before.” It would have been quite difficult for Joseph Smith to have copied this Hebraism from the King James Version of the Bible when the construct only appears four times in the entire English text. Yet there are at least ten instances where the combination “from before” is found in the Book of Mormon. In this instance, the Book of Mormon contains a Hebraism “more literally” translated than its counterpart from the King James Version of the Bible.
In 3 Nephi 9 the words “from before” are part of a phrase that amazingly appears five times in seven verses, four of them word-for-word, representing yet another Hebrew language pattern called circular repetitive parallelism. Circular repetitive parallelism is found when a phrase is repeated at intervals in a longer passage, as if the message keeps coming back in a circular motion to the key phrase. The key phrase has been highlighted as follows:
And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them
the city of Jerusalem … and waters have I caused to come up in the stead thereof, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come up any more unto me against them
And behold, the city of Gadiandi, … Gadiomnah … Jacob … Gimgimno … have I buried up in the depths of the earth to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up any more unto me against them
And behold the great city Jacobugath … I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up unto me any more against them
And behold, the city of Laman … Josh … Gad … Kishkumen … And because they did cast [the prophets] out, that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that the wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them might not cry unto me from the ground against them. (3 Nephi 9:5-11)
How can we account for this? Richardson, Richardson and Bentley note that it is remote that Joseph Smith on his own would have been able to identify these constructs as Hebraisms. Rather, we see original Hebraic authorship and a correct translation through divine aid. [Allen H. Richardson, David E. Richardson, and Anthony E. Bentley, Voice from the Dust-500 Evidences Supporting the Book of Mormon, pp. 267, 280-281; and Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes] [See the commentary on 1 Nephi 4:28; Alma 5:6]