3 Nephi 21:16–17 Textual Variants

Micah 5:12–13 (King James Bible) and I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand … and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands

Here the Book of Mormon text varies in two ways from the corresponding King James text. First of all, there are two instances of thy hand(s) in 3 Nephi 21:16–17 that correspond with thine hand(s) in Micah 5:12–13. Such differences between the two texts is common for words beginning with h; see, for instance, the nearby discussion under 3 Nephi 20:17, which also deals with the use of thy and thine before the noun hand and other h-initial nouns. As explained there, the critical text will in each case follow the earliest Book of Mormon reading. Moreover, such minor variation between the Book of Mormon and King James texts is common.

The other difference here in 3 Nephi 21:16–17 deals with the grammatical number for the noun work in verse 17: the Book of Mormon text has the plural works while the King James text has the singular work. When we consider the phraseology “work(s) of one’s hand(s)” in the King James Bible, we find that there are examples of all four possibilities; in fact, in Deuteronomy we can find at least one example of each type for the same basic phrase, “all the work(s) of thy/thine hand(s)”:

• singular-plural 38 times “all the work of thine hands” (Deuteronomy 24:19)
• plural-plural 16 times “all the works of thine hands” (Deuteronomy 16:15)
• singular-singular 4 times “all the work of thine hand” (Deuteronomy 14:29)
• plural-singular 1 time “all the works of thy hand” (Deuteronomy 2:7)

The Book of Mormon has three examples of the phraseology “work(s) of one’s hand(s)”, and all are from biblical sources that have the dominant singular-plural reading, “work of one’s hands”. Only here in 3 Nephi 21:17 does the phrase differ in grammatical number. For the two other Book of Mormon cases, there is no difference in number:

• 2 Nephi 12:8 (Isaiah 2:8 reads identically)
  • they worship the work of their own hands
• 2 Nephi 27:34 (Isaiah 29:23 reads identically except it has “mine hands”)
  • but when he seeth his children the work of my hands in the midst of him they shall sanctify my name

One could take this systematicity as evidence that works in 3 Nephi 21:17 is an error for work. Even so, works is a possible reading, especially given the variety that is found in the King James Bible itself. The critical text will therefore accept the phraseology “the works of thy hands”, the invariant Book of Mormon reading, in 3 Nephi 21:17.