Ether 13:17 Textual Variants

Here the 1874 RLDS edition and the 1920 LDS edition changed the singular “there was none” to the plural “there were none”. The 1908 RLDS edition restored the original was to the RLDS text, but the LDS text has continued with the secondary were.

The Book of Mormon text has examples of the subject none taking singular and plural verb forms, as in these examples where either could occur:

• 2 Nephi 7:2 yea there was none to answer
• 2 Nephi 20:14 and there was none that moved the wing
• 2 Nephi 26:28 and none are forbidden
• Mosiah 21:33 but there was none in the land that had authority from God
• Alma 13:19 but none were greater
• Alma 26:21 there is none that knoweth these things save it be the penitent
• Alma 42:24 and thus none but the truly penitent are saved
• 3 Nephi 19:36 there are none of them that have seen so great things
• 3 Nephi 27:30 for none of them are lost
• 3 Nephi 27:31 and none of them are lost
• Mormon 5:24 and there is none to deliver
• Mormon 8:9 for there are none save it be Lamanites and robbers
• Ether 4:3 and there is none save it be the Lamanites
• Ether 13:31 and there was none to constrain them
• Ether 14:22 there was none left to bury the dead
• Moroni 7:44 for none is acceptable before God save the meek and lowly of heart

(The first two of these are quotes from Isaiah; the phrase in Mormon 5:24, “there is none to deliver”, is biblically styled, as in Psalm 7:2 and Psalm 71:11.) The grammatical number has not been changed in any of these cases (although in Ether 4:3 Joseph Smith momentarily changed the is to are in 𝓟 in his editing for the 1837 edition, but then he changed his mind and restored the singular is in 𝓟). Thus the critical text will in each case of subject none follow the number of the verb in the earliest reading. Hence here in Ether 13:17, the original was will be restored.