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 mippenê 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 mippenê 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 mippenê; the BM requires a conjunction such as kî”)
