Saturday, November 6, 2021

Isaiah 2:10 in 2 Nephi 12:10

In Isa 2:10 (KJV), we read:

 

Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for the fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty.

 

When it appears in the Book of Mormon, it is rendered as:

 

O ye wicked ones, enter into the rock and hide thee in the dust, for the fear of the Lord and the glory of his majesty shall smite thee. (2 Nephi 12:10)

 

Similar changes appear in the following texts:

 

And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for the fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, which he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. (Isa 2:19)

 

And they shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth, for the fear of the Lord shall come upon them. And the glory of his majesty shall smite them when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. (2 Nephi 12:19)

 

To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for the fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. (Isa 2:21)

 

To go into the clefts of the rocks and into the tops of the ragged rocks. For the fear of the Lord shall come upon them, and the majesty of his glory shall smite them when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. (2 Nephi 12:21)

 

Commenting on the rendition of Isa 2:10 in 2 Nephi 12:10, John Tvedtnes wrote:

 

2:10 = 2 Ne. 12:10

 

For Isa. 2:10-12, cf. Job 40:11-13. BM adds at the beginning "O ye wicked ones." This is without support. Interestingly, 1Qsa deletes the last part of vs. 9 ("therefore, forgive him not") and all of vs. 10. This is probably because the idea expressed in vs. 9 is expounded in greater detail in vs. 11. Vs. 10, in this light, looks like a borrowing from vss. 19 and 21. If so, then this borrowing was made before Lehi took the bass plates to the New World. (K)

 

KJV: ". . . for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his

BM: ". . . for the fear of the Lord and the glory of his

 

KJV: majesty."

BM: majesty shall smite thee."

 

The Hebrew behind the KJV "for" is not the conjunction (as it reads in BM), but rather, the compound preposition mipenēy, lit., "from the face of". However, it also means "because of" and hence the KJV "for". If it were followed by a clause marker, we could accept BM's addition of "shall smite thee". It may be that the brass plates (BP) so read, but we have no additional support for this. LXX does not contain the BM ending to this verse, but, in its place, has the same ending as vss. 19 and 21 ("when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth"), to which this vs. should be compared. (K) (G). (John A. Tvedtnes, The Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon, 24)

 

With respect to LXX Isa 2:10, 19, 21, note the following from the Lexham English Septuagint:

 

And now, enter into the rocks and hide in the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord and from the repute of his strength, when he stands to shatter the earth (ἀναστῇ θραῦσαι τὴν γῆν) . . . bringing them into the caverns and into the clefts of the cliffs and into the holes of the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord and from the repute of his strength, when he stands to shatter the earth (ἀναστῇ θραῦσαι τὴν γῆν) . . . to enter into the holes of the solid rock and into the clefts of the rocks, away from the presence of the terror of the Lord and away from the glory of his might, whenever he arises to shatter the earth (ἀναστῇ θραῦσαι τὴν γῆν).

 

While disagreeing with the Book of Mormon variant being ancient as well as Tvedtnes’ proposal, David P. Wright notes that:

 

One could make the argument that the preposition mippe is being used as a asyndetic conjunction for mippenê a$er (for this full conjunctive phrase, see Exod 19:18; Jer 44:23). But there are no cases in the Hebrew Bible where mippe alone appears as a conjunction. On the other hand, the term as a preposition is found in other cases of hiding (Gen 3:8; 4:14) which shows that a preposition makes perfect sense here. (Isaiah in the Book of Mormon...and Joseph Smith in Isaiah, Part 4: Disparities with Hebrew Language, Text, and Style, note 56; cf. “The Hebrew behind the MT is the preposition mippe; the BM requires a conjunction such as ”)

 

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