Ether 2:25 Textual Variants

The original text had the clausal expression “how be it”, which the typesetter for the 1830 edition interpreted as the adverbial howbeit, perhaps with the standard meaning ‘nevertheless’ or ‘however’. Ultimately, the 1920 LDS edition removed howbeit since the meaning ‘nevertheless’ or ‘however’ doesn’t make much sense in this passage.

Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon text, such use of the adverbial howbeit occurs only once, in a quote from the King James Bible:

• 2 Nephi 20:7 (Isaiah 10:7)
  • howbeit he meaneth not so

But there are still two clausal uses of “how be it” in the text:

• 3 Nephi 23:11
  • and Jesus saith unto them how be it that ye have not written this thing
• 3 Nephi 27:8
  • and how be it my church save it be called in my name

These two examples of “how be it” can be interpreted in modern English in terms of the expanded phrase “how can it be”.

Another possible way to interpret the phrasal “how be it” here in Ether 2:25 is with the meaning ‘however it may be’ (which would be equivalent to “no matter what” in modern English). In other words, the Lord is saying that no matter what the Jaredites might do, they cannot cross the waters without his help. Clearly, the original phrase “for how be it” is intended. We can treat it as equivalent to “for however be it” and place a comma after the phrase to show that it is separate from the following main clause (thus “for how be it, ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea”). For this more transparent meaning of the phrase “how be it”, see under definition 1 of howbeit in the Oxford English Dictionary.