Ether 12:28 Textual Variants

The original lack of punctuation in this passage could lead one to interpret “the fountain of all righteousness” as the direct object for the verb bring, as if the text read “faith hope and charity bringeth the fountain of all righteousness unto me”. Since these are the words of Christ, such a reading is really quite impossible. Elsewhere in the text, the phrase “the fountain of all righteousness” appears to refer to Christ as the source of righteousness:

• Ether 8:26
  • wherefore I Moroni am commanded to write these things
    that evil may be done away
    and that the time may come that Satan may have no power
    upon the hearts of the children of men but that they may be persuaded to do good continually that they may come unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved

Lehi also compares the Red Sea to “the fountain of all righteousness”, which again could be a metaphorical reference to Christ:

• 1 Nephi 2:9
  • and when my father saw that the waters of the river emptied
    into the fountain of the Red Sea
    he spake unto Laman saying
    O that thou mightest be like unto this river c
    ontinually running into the fountain of all righteousness

Here in Ether 12:28, the 1852 LDS edition placed a dash after me, thus separating off “the fountain of all righteousness” and making it an appositive, thereby specifically identifying Christ as “the fountain of all righteousness”. (For further evidence that the phrase “the fountain of all righteousness” can be considered a name for Christ, see the discussion under 2 Nephi 26:9 regarding another name for Christ, “the Sun of righteousness”.)

In support of this interpretation of “the fountain of all righteousness” as an appositive, we note that the verb bring does not have to have an explicitly stated direct object when followed by a prepositional phrase headed by unto, as in the following example where the direct object for the verb bring is an unstated them, referring to his people earlier in the passage (that is, to the people of the Lord):

• Helaman 5:10–11
  •   for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people 
      but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins
      but to redeem them from their sins
      and he hath power given unto him from the Father
      to redeem them from their sins because of repentance
      therefore he hath sent his angels
      to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance
    → which bringeth unto the power of the Redeemer
      unto the salvation of their souls

In other words, Helaman 5:11 should be read as equivalent to saying “which bringeth them unto the power of the Redeemer”. (For other examples of the unstated but assumed them for the verb bring, see under Helaman 5:11.) In the same way, here in Ether 12:28 the equivalent text is “faith hope and charity bringeth them unto me”, as one can see in the larger passage where the ellipted them is identified as referring to the Gentiles earlier in the passage:

• Ether 12:28
  •   behold I will shew unto the Gentiles their weakness
      and I will shew unto them
    → that faith hope and charity bringeth unto me
      the fountain of all righteousness

Thus there is no need to emend Ether 12:28 by inserting something like them (or perhaps one) as the explicit direct object for the verb bring.