Here the printer’s manuscript has the plural covenants, but the 1830 edition has the singular covenant. The singular verb form is (which occurs after the relative clause “which I have made with my people”) could be used to argue that the singular covenant is correct, although it is possible that the immediately preceding singular my people permitted the occurrence of the singular is. For some general discussion of subject-verb disagreement in the original text, see under 1 Nephi 4:4; also see the more specific discussion under 1 Nephi 18:15 regarding the original phraseology “the judgments of God was upon them”. In addition, there is a striking example in the text of covenants taking is as its verb:
The subject-verb disagreement in “thus is the covenants” has been edited to either “thus is the covenant” or “thus are the covenants”; for discussion of this case, see under 1 Nephi 22:6.
When we examine the references to the Lord’s covenant(s) in the Book of Mormon text, we discover that we usually get the plural covenants in the small plates of Nephi but the singular covenant in the large plates. Excluding the case here in 3 Nephi 15:8, we get the following breakdown according to book:
| covenant | covenants | ||
| small plates | title page | 0 | 1 |
| 1 Nephi | 2 | 11 | |
| 2 Nephi | 2 | 10 | |
| Enos | 1 | 0 | |
| large plates | 3 Nephi | 23 | 0 |
| Mormon | 6 | 0 | |
| Ether | 2 | 0 | |
| Moroni | 1 | 0 |
Note, in particular, the following examples in 3 Nephi that refer to the covenant that the Lord made with his people, the house of Israel:
For each of these examples, the text could have read in the plural, as it does for instances in the small plates of Nephi:
Thus the 1830 reading of the singular covenant in 3 Nephi 15:8 is consistent with the language elsewhere in this part of the text.
When we look at early transmission errors, there is considerable evidence that both Oliver Cowdery and the 1830 typesetter tended to add plural s ’s or to delete them (for some statistics, see under 3 Nephi 10:13). Either Oliver or the typesetter could have caused the variation in grammatical number for covenant(s) here in 3 Nephi 15:8. There is one specific example involving covenant(s) where Oliver Cowdery initially wrote the plural in 𝓞 instead of the correct singular (and in this case the singular is obviously correct):
In 3 Nephi 15:8, the critical text will follow the internal evidence, namely, the consistent use of the singular covenant for this part of this text (here in 3 Nephi) when the reference is to the Lord’s covenant to his people, the house of Israel. The result is that there is no subject-verb disagreement in this passage: “for behold the covenant which I have made with my people is not all fulfilled”.
Summary: Maintain in 3 Nephi 15:8 the singular covenant (the 1830 reading) since throughout 3 Nephi the singular covenant is what the text uses when referring to the Lord’s promise to his people, the house of Israel.