3 Nephi 22:17 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and every tongue that shall [revile 1PST|rise ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOQR] against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn

Isaiah 54:17 (King James Bible) and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn

The printer’s manuscript has revile, which definitely seems to make more sense than rise, the reading of the 1830 edition. In accord with the assumption that the 1830 edition derives from the printer’s manuscript (which is not true from Helaman 13:17 through the end of Mormon), the 1908 RLDS edition and the 1981 LDS edition emended the text here in 3 Nephi 22:17 to read revile, in agreement with 𝓟.

The King James Bible, however, has rise, a reading that seems strange to modern English readers in referring to the tongue as rising against someone in judgment. Of course, the King James reading implies that the difficult 1830 reading is textually correct and that in copying to the printer’s manuscript, scribe 2 of 𝓟 accidentally replaced rise with the visually similar revile. Usage elsewhere in the Book of Mormon shows that “to revile against X” is expected; there are 18 occurrences of this expression in the text, excluding the one here in 3 Nephi 22:17. On the other hand, there are no instances of “to rise/raise against X”, but there are 9 of “to rise/raise up against X” (usually “in rebellion”). In other words, the unexpectedness of “every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment” led scribe 2 of 𝓟 to replace rise with revile. Alternatively, he could have kept rise and added the adverb up (“every tongue that shall rise up against thee in judgment”). Yet since the reference is to the tongue, even “rise up” would be unexpected. On the other hand, the verb revile is naturally expected with the noun tongue, although we must note that this passage in 3 Nephi 22:17 / Isaiah 54:17 is the only example in the scriptures where tongue(s) occurs with either verb, rise or revile, nor are there any examples of tongue(s) with the related verbs arise and raise.

One could argue that the original manuscript actually read revile and that the 1830 typesetter, John Gilbert, used his King James Bible to consciously replace revile with rise. The problem with this hypothesis is that the 1830 typesetter seems to have referred to his King James Bible only when he had some particular difficulty with the text, such as the spelling of names or unusual words or phrases. Consider, for instance, his adoption of the King James spelling rereward for rearward in 3 Nephi 20:42 and 3 Nephi 21:29. For examples where Gilbert made a substantive emendation based on the King James reading, see under 2 Nephi 17:23 (where he correctly replaced the that in 𝓟 with at, the King James reading) and under 2 Nephi 20:10 (where he inserted the verb phrase did excel, also correctly). Here in 3 Nephi 22:17 there was nothing inherently wrong with revile; thus there wouldn’t have been any motivation at this point for Gilbert to check his King James Bible. Note that nearby in 3 Nephi 22:10 he accidentally set “the covenant of my people” rather than the correct “the covenant of my peace”. In this instance, the corresponding King James reading has peace; but since people made sense, Gilbert neglected to check what he had set against his Bible.

Summary: Restore rise in 3 Nephi 22:17 since the King James Bible and the 1830 edition both have rise; the reading in 𝓟, revile, appears to be an error made by scribe 2 of 𝓟, who did not expect rise in the expression “every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment”.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 6

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